scholarly journals Mapping the invisible: knowledge, credibility and visions of earth in early modern cave maps

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Johannes Mattes
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Epistemic Uncertainty ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Shifting Boundaries ◽  
The Invisible

Abstract This paper examines cave environments as unique spaces of knowledge production and shows how visualizations of natural cavities in maps came to be powerful tools in scientific reasoning. Faced with the challenge of limited vision, mapmakers combined empiricism and imagination in an experimental setting and developed specific translation strategies to deal with the uncertain origin of underground objects and the shifting boundaries between the known and the unknown. By deconstructing this type of cartographic representation, which has barely been studied, this paper furnishes surprising insights into the scholarly practices and tools used to deal with this considerable epistemic uncertainty and to signal credibility and trust to potential users. The array of maps used for this study includes both archival and published sources, depicting caves in Europe, America and Siberia.

scholarly journals Zentrifugen des Wissens – Zur Enzyklopädik des Barockromans

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas B. Kilcher
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Centrifugal Dispersion

AbstractEarly modern literature has high epistemological claims. In particular, the novel as the most innovative genre of the 16th and 17th centuries was expected to negotiate and transmit knowledge about the world in an extensive way. This epistemological optimism must be understood against the background of contemporary encyclopaedic models, which offered new possibilities of reaching out for universal and total knowledge. Two variants of encyclopaedic writing are most efficient for the novel: the logic of Lullism and the miscellaneous knowledge production of Polyhistorism. Both techniques were used in baroque novels of the 17th century: Polyhistorism produced a centrifugal dispersion of knowledge throughout the texts, whereas Lullism aimed at recollecting and ordering it. This interplay is evidently present in Daniel Casper von Lohenstein’s highly digressive 3,000 page novel „Arminius“ (1689/90), with its paratextual framework of prefaces, annotations, and indices. Moreover, the reception of „Arminius“ in 18th and 19th centuries is pertinent for the subsequent critique of encyclopaedic knowledge.

Bacon’s Novum organum

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Elodie Cassan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Way

Dan Garber’s paper provides materials permitting to reply to an objection frequently made to the idea that the Novum Organum is a book of logic, as the allusion to Aristotle’s Organon included in the very title of this book shows it is. How can Bacon actually build a logic, considering his repeated claims that he desires to base natural philosophy directly on observation and experiment? Garber shows that in the Novum Organum access to experience is always mediated by particular questions and settings. If there is no direct access to observation and experience, then there is no point in equating Bacon’s focus on experience in the Novum Organum with a rejection of discursive issues. On the contrary, these are two sides of the same coin. Bacon’s articulation of rules for the building of scientific reasoning in connection with the way the world is, illustrates his massive concern with the relation between reality, thinking and language. This concern is essential in the field of logic as it is constructed in the Early Modern period.

Knowledge Production in International Law: Forces and Processes

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-179
Author(s):  
Andrea Bianchi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
International Law ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Invisible

How knowledge of international law is produced, by what forces and processes it is shaped, how one can determine what issues are deemed relevant to the field, what questions can be competently raised by the members of the profession and the discipline, and who has the authority to provide them with an answer, are all issues that lie at the heart of this chapter. Particular attention will be paid to the concepts of both epistemic communities and discursive policies. In light of the interaction of the different forces and actors at play in the production of knowledge, an attempt will be made to sketch out the main trends of the contemporary episteme of international law. The final part of the chapter tackles the issue of how to bring to light and make visible the invisible frames of knowledge production in international law, by using critical theory and the power of legal imagination.

scholarly journals ‘Preserve or perish’: food preservation practices in the early modern kitchen

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33
Author(s):  
Lucy J. Havard
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Food Preservation ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Associated Knowledge

Early modern manuscript recipe books have become increasingly popular sources for historical research over recent years. Extensive compilations of food recipes, medicinal remedies and household tips, these manuscripts provide rich, multi-faceted opportunities for historical study and discussion. This paper utilizes recipe books as a means to examine contemporary food preservation practices. Through detailed textual analysis of these manuscripts, and the reconstruction of early modern preserving recipes, I explore the explicit and tacit ‘domestic knowledge’ required for food preservation. I argue that, rather than being a straightforward activity, this was a complex process requiring significant judgement, intuition and experience on the part of the housewife. Preservation was an experimental practice that might be considered under the umbrella of early modern natural philosophy, and the housewife was a legitimate actor in the associated knowledge production.

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