Knowledge and Salvation in Jesuit Culture

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rivka Feldhay
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Future Contingents ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Real Objects ◽  
True Knowledge ◽  
Harsh Criticism ◽  
The Church

The ArgumentIn this paper, I argue that the most significant contribution of the Jesuits to early modern science (via Galileo) consists in the introduction of a new “image of knowledge.”In contradistinction to traditional Scholasticism, this image of knowledge allows for the possibility of a science (i. e. certain knowledge) of hypothetical entities.This problem became crucial in two specific areas. In astronomy, knowledge of mathematical entities of unclear ontological status (like epicycles and eccentrics) was nevertheless proclaimed certain. In theology, God's knowledge of the future acts of man, logically considered as future contingents, was also proclaimed certain. In both cases the concept of certain knowledge of hypothetical entities was problematic and challenged a central premise of the accepted canons of logic, i.e., that the objects of true knowledge (“scientia”) must be real objects.The main argument of this paper is that the practical orientation of the Jesuit cultural milieu enabled Jesuit scientists and theologians to ignore accepted logical considerations and to modify traditional Thomist images of knowledge. Nevertheless, this modification was not so radical as to change the contemporary organization of knowledge. This was due to the peculiar status of the Jesuits within the church establishment, which exposed them to harsh criticism and created a deep need for legitimation. Thus, the limitations of Jesuit scientific culture are accounted for in institutional, rather than in logical terms.

Spectacular Science, Technology and Superstition in the Age of Shakespeare

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Renaissance Literature ◽  
Science And Literature ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Perspective

Back in the late 1950s, C.P. Snow famously defined science negatively by separating it from what it was not, namely literature. Such polarization, however, creates more problems than it solves. By contrast, the two co-editors of the book have adopted a dialectical approach to the subject, and to the numerous readers who keep asking themselves “what is science?”, we provide an answer from an early modern perspective, whereby “science” actually includes such various intellectual pursuits as history, poetry, occultism, or philosophy. Each essay illustrates one particular aspect of Shakespeare’s works and links science with the promise of the spectacular. This volume aims at bridging the gap between Renaissance literature and early modern science, focusing as it does on a complex intellectual territory, situated at the point of juncture between humanism, natural magic and craftsmanship. We assume that science and literature constantly interacted with one another, making clear the fact that what we now call “literature” and what we choose to see as “science” were not clearly separated in Shakespeare’s days but rather part of a common intellectual territory.

Renaissance and Early Modern Science

Nuncius ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-143
Author(s):  
ROBERT ILIFFE
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Early Modern Science

Feminist Criticisms of Metaphors in Bacon's Philosophy of Science

Philosophy ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
IDDO LANDAU
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Experimental Method ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Sexual Imagery ◽  
Sandra Harding ◽  
Witch Trials ◽  
Scientific Mind ◽  
Evelyn Fox Keller

Francis Bacon has received much attention from feminist philosophers of science. Many of their discussions revolve around his use of sexist, or supposedly sexist, metaphors. According to Sandra Harding, for example, ‘Bacon appealed to rape metaphors to persuade his audience that the experimental method is a good thing.’ Moreover, she claims that ‘when we realize that the mechanistic metaphors that organized early modern science themselves carried sexual meanings, it is clear that these meanings are central to the ways scientists conceptualize both the methods of inquiry and the models of nature’ (ibid.). Carolyn Merchant asserts that witch trials ‘influenced Bacon's philosophy and literary style’. And according to Evelyn Fox Keller, Bacon's explanation of the means by which science will endow humans with power ‘is given metaphorically — through his frequent and graphic use of sexual imagery.’ Fox Keller concludes that Bacon's theory is sexist, but in a more troubled and ambivalent way than Merchant and Harding believe it to be. Thus, she writes that ‘behind the overt insistence on the virility and masculinity of the scientific mind lies a covert assumption and acknowledgment of the dialectical, even hermaphroditic, nature of the “marriage between Mind and Nature.”‘ (p. 40; emphasis added). Likewise, ‘the aggressively male stance of Bacon's scientist could, and perhaps now should, be seen as driven by the need to deny what all scientists, including Bacon, privately have known, namely, that the scientific mind must be, on some level, a hermaphroditic mind.’ (p. 42).

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