2. America and the transatlantic Enlightenment

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-36
Author(s):  
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
New World ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Living Things ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
And Gender

‘America and the transatlantic Enlightenment’ explores how America played an important role in the making of the Enlightenment. The New World offered a startling new picture of the natural world and all the living things in it. America catalyzed new ideas about science, natural history, and human nature, which both shaped and were shaped by Enlightenment thought. British Americans drew on classical republican thought and contemporary ideas about natural law and this coalesced into a revolutionary republicanism—the nexus of ideas that animated the Revolutionary War. Though many of the ideas to emerge out of eighteenth-century America promised a radical new world of freedom and human possibility, they were also blinkered by long-standing racial and gender prejudices.

scholarly journals “None of Them Could Say They Ever Had Seen Them, but Only Had It from Others”: Encounters with Animals in Eighteenth-Century Natural Histories of Greenland

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2024
Author(s):  
Helen Parish
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Natural Histories

The pages of early modern natural histories expose the plasticity of the natural world, and the variegated nature of the encounter between human and animal in this period. Descriptions of the flora and fauna reflect this kind of negotiated encounter between the world that is seen, that which is heard about, and that which is constructed from the language of the sacred text of scripture. The natural histories of Greenland that form the basis of this analysis exemplify the complexity of human–animal encounters in this period, and the intersections that existed between natural and unnatural, written authority and personal testimony, and culture, belief, and ethnography in natural histories. They invite a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which animals and people interact in the making of culture, and demonstrate the contribution made by such texts to the study of animal encounters, cultures, and concepts. This article explores the intersection between natural history and the work of Christian mission in the eighteenth century, and the connections between personal encounter, ethnography, history, and oral and written tradition. The analysis demonstrates that European natural histories continued to be anthropocentric in content and tone, the product of what was believed, as much as what was seen.

Scientific Culture and Mineralogical Sciences in the Luso-Brazilian Empire: The Work of João da Silva Feijó (1760–1824) in Ceará

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Margaret Lopes ◽  
Clarete Paranhos da Silva ◽  
Silvia Fernanda de M. Figueirôa ◽  
Rachel Pinheiro
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Scientific Context ◽  
Political Project

This paper argues that eighteenth-century Portuguese scientific policies promoted the inclusion of its main colony, Brazil, in the Enlightenment environment. This was accomplished by innovative initiatives, such as voyages to explore the colonial territory. Natural history activities, especially in mining, remained at the center of this political project and relied on co-opting groups of Portuguese in America. Based on the life of João da Silva Feijó, this article outlines the relevant connections between Feijó's scientific activities and the first Brazilian national expedition in the 1850s, which led to discussion about developing the Brazilian nation. This analysis is aimed toward the growing consensus in historiography of the sciences that scientific activities practiced outside European centers gave rise to complex interactions involving the processes of mondialization of sciences and the construction of a local scientific context.

Elie Bertrand (1713-1797) Sees God's Order in Nature's Record: The 1766 Recueil De Divers Traites Sur L'Historie Naturelle

1991 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kennard Bork
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Earth ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Design In Nature ◽  
Theoretical Analyses ◽  
Insight Into

Elie Bertrand (1713-1797) was a Swiss pastor/naturalist whose geological writings are illustrative of the growth of eighteenth-century natural history. Describing, cataloguing, and classifying formed the core of his work, but he also proposed theoretical analyses based on observations in the field. Bertrand's intellectual roots included Cartesian rationalism, British natural theology, and the Linnacan system of classification. Trained as a theologian. Bertrand viewed the physical world as a proving ground for showing God's Wise Design in nature. He was also committed to empiricism, and repeatedly called for expanding the base of geological knowledge.Several of the published products of Bertrand's attempts to understand the natural world were brought together in the 1766 Recueil de divers traités sur l'histoire naturelle. By briefly considering each of the incorporated papers, it is possible to recognize the topics which interested eighteenth-century naturalists and to develop insight into the methodologies they used. In the Recueil we see Bertrand's eclectic epistemology attempt to deal with such topics as the interior of the earth, earthquakes, fossils, and the origin and Providential use of mountains.Celebrated in his day, Bertrand was a correspondent of Voltaire, a counselor to the Polish court, and a member of numerous learned societies. He published articles in the French Encyclopédic, and his 1763 Dictionnaire universal des fossiles was among the most-read scientific books of the century. The obscurity which enveloped Elie Bertrand seems related in large part to the fact that he was an accumulator of data and a commentator about past theories, rather than an innovator of new concepts. As the natural theology that undergirded his writing became obsolete, the cogency of his arguments diminished. In the context of his time, however, Bertrand is an instructive example of how geoscience matured during what has been termed a sterile period in the development of natural history.

5. Exploration and the Enlightenment

2015 ◽  
pp. 62-82
Author(s):  
Stewart A. Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
South America ◽  
New World ◽  
James Cook ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Age Of Discovery ◽  
Figure Of The Earth ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Scientific Purpose

‘Exploration and the Enlightenment ’ considers a “Second Great Age of Discovery” that came about during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. It began with the 1735 Geodesic Mission to the Equator, designed to ascertain the true figure of the Earth. Never before had so large and learned a group of Europeans headed into the remote interior of the New World for an expressly scientific purpose or the results of an expedition been so elaborately publicized in maps, journals, and official reports back home. This trip is seen as the prototype of the modern exploring expedition. The voyages of Captain James Cook in the Pacific Ocean and Alexander von Humboldt's trip to South America provide further examples of Enlightenment exploration.

Samuel Clain and the Rumanian Enlightenment in Transylvania

Slavic Review ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 660-675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Hitchins
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The West ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

In the second half of the eighteenth century the leavening effects of the Enlightenment began to be felt among the Rumanians of Transylvania. The Enlightenment in Transylvania—and in Eastern Europe generally —was a curious blend of natural law, rationalism, and optimism, drawn from the West, and nationalism, a response to local conditions. It is no coincidence that the first tangible signs of national awakening among the Rumanians manifested themselves at this time. In the thought of the Enlightenment they discovered new justification for their claims to equality with their Magyar, Saxon, and Szekler neighbors. For example, they applied the notion of “natural” civil equality between individuals to the relationship between whole peoples, and they accepted wholeheartedly the myth of the social contract as the foundation of society and as the guarantee of the rights of all those who composed it.

Anne Bradstreet and Elizabeth Bishop: Nature, Culture and Gender in “Contemplations” and “At the Fishhouses”

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-260
Author(s):  
Robert Boschman
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
World View ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Elizabeth Bishop ◽  
Anne Bradstreet ◽  
Female Bird ◽  
Christian Myth ◽  
And Gender

Written in and for a patriarchal community that valued its solidarity, Anne Bradstreet's “Contemplations” does not try to render an accurate, realistic portrait of nature in the New World. Rather, it employs what Leo Marx calls “ecological images…displaying the essence of a system of value” and subordinates these images to the reformed Judeo-Christian myth. “Contemplations” argues that God is the source of order, meaning, and history, and that the natural world, whether beneficent or hostile, reflects His omnipotence. But in delineating a predominantly masculine world view, Bradstreet also sets aside her own aspirations as a woman poet. Although the song of the female bird Philomel represents a kind of art that is free of Puritanism's monolithic expectations, Bradstreet's speaker cannot liberate herself to sing with Philomel. Instead, she stifles her own song for a practical poetic craft that serves her struggling community.

scholarly journals New Raw Materials from the New World: Transfer of Knowledge to Polish Pharmacies

ORGANON ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Iwona Arabas
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
New World ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
Nature Literature ◽  
Therapeutic Possibilities

Cataloguing of the natural world was started by the 16th–century scholar Ulisses Aldrovandi, who was inspired by overseas expeditions. Collectors of specimens, among whom were many doctors of medicine and pharmacists, noticed the possibilities for using exotic plants and animals in medicine. The first pharmacopoeias, however, contained very few of the previously unknown raw materials and they did not have a great impact on the contemporary therapeutic possibilities. In the Polish territories, the raw materials from the New World had already been recorded in Jan Woyna’s Krakow Pharmacopoeia of 1683, in which five American species were identified. By contrast, in the 18th–century Jesuit pharmacies, 30 such materials were already used, although they were not pharmacopoeial. In the 18th century, in the Polish lands, an important role was played by duchess Anna Jabłonowska (1728–1800), who gathered one of the richest natural history collections in Europe in Siemiatycze in Podlasie. Thanks to her support, the Polish nature literature was enriched with numerous works that were of importance for the development of the natural sciences.

Teleology Without Tears: Aristotle and the Role of Mechanistic Conceptions of Organisms

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of

In this paper I outline a role for mechanistic conceptions of organisms in ancient Greek natural philosophy, especially the study of organisms. By ‘mechanistic conceptions’ I mean the use of ideas and techniques drawn from the field of mechanics to investigate the natural world. ‘Mechanistic conceptions’ of organisms in ancient Greek philosophy, then, are those that draw on the ancient understanding of the field called ‘mechanics’ — hê mêchanikê technê—to investigate living things, rather than those bearing some perceived similarity to modern notions of ‘the mechanical.’ I have argued elsewhere that evidence of mechanistic conceptions of the natural world can be found, not only among seventeenth and eighteenth century ‘mechanical philosophers,’ but also—albeit in vestigial form — in some ancient Greek texts. Unfortunately, these reports are slight, often by detractors of this approach, and offer only clues as to the motivational context for employing these mechanical conceptions. Here, my purpose is to suggest what role they might have played in the history of natural philosophy.

A naturalist of the Northern Enlightenment: Peter Forsskål after 250 years

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J. Baack
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Marine Biology ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Plant Geography ◽  
Scientific Exploration ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Attention To Detail

Peter Forsskål (1732–1763) was the naturalist on the Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia (1761–1767), a particularly rich example of the eighteenth century era of scientific exploration and a quintessential project of the Enlightenment. Forsskål is noteworthy for his early writings in philosophy and politics and for his outstanding contributions to the botanical and zoological knowledge of the Middle East, specifically Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, principally Yemen. His biological work stands out for the large number of species identified, its attention to detail, the expansiveness of his descriptions, his knowledge and use of Arabic and his early ideas on plant geography. Forsskål's research in the marine biology of the Red Sea was also pioneering. His publications and collections represent the single greatest contribution to the knowledge of the natural history of the Middle East in the eighteenth century and are still valued by scholars today. His skill in retaining local terminology in Arabic and his respect for the contributions of local inhabitants to this work are also worth noting. When he died of malaria in 1763 in Yemen, the eighteenth-century world of natural science lost a promising and adventurous scientist.

DREADFUL ENEMIES: THE “BEAST,” THE HYENA, AND NATURAL HISTORY IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-61
Author(s):  
JAY M. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Southern France ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Hybrid Character ◽  
Century Science

The hypothesis that the beast of the Gévaudan (an intriguingly mysterious killer that roamed southern France in the 1760s) might be an African hyena was not simply a popular and amusing misconception; it reflected an important dimension of the critical spirit driving eighteenth-century science. By historicizing natural discovery and its motivations, this essay uncovers aspects of Enlightenment natural history—namely an attraction to the unknowable and a desire for uncertainty, both reflected in the fascination with the sublime—that only became more marked as the frontiers of knowledge receded. In doing so, the essay shows the distinctively hybrid character of an Enlightenment mentality that savored both illumination and darkness.

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