Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Universe

BENEDICT DE SPINOZA was one of the most important philosophers of the early modern period and one of the most systematic. Before his death in 1677, at the age of forty-four, he developed a comprehensive conception of the universe and of the place of humanity within it, one that offers distinctive and powerful answers to many of the most fundamental questions that human beings face about how to think, feel, and act....

Two Early Modern Revolts

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
Susan Marks
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Common Humanity ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Right ◽  
Early English ◽  
Right To Buy

This chapter continues the discussion of early English social criticism with a consideration of two uprisings of the early modern period: Kett’s Rebellion (1549) and the Midland Rising (1607). These uprisings were formidable instances of organised resistance to enclosure and related changes, and the texts which have come down to us concerning them connect that resistance to a belief in the original equality of all human beings, the common humanity of rich and poor, and the fundamental right of everyone to live (including the right to buy essential provisions at a fair and affordable price).

scholarly journals The Game of the Sphere or of the Universe — a Spiral Race Game from 17th century France

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Adrian Seville
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Planetary Motion ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Tycho Brahe ◽  
Classical Knowledge ◽  
The Universe

Abstract Simple race games, played with dice and without choice of move, are known from antiquity. In the late 16th century, specific examples of this class of game emerged from Italy and spread rapidly into other countries of Europe. Pre-eminent was the Game of the Goose, which spawned thousands of variants over the succeeding centuries to the present day, including educational, polemical and promotional variants.1 The educational variants began as a French invention of the 17th century, the earliest of known date being a game to teach Geography, the Jeu du Monde by Pierre Duval, published in 1645. By the end of the century, games designed to teach several of the other accomplishments required of the noble cadet class had been developed: History, the Arts of War, and Heraldry being notable among them. A remarkable example of a game within this class is the astronomical game, Le Jeu de la Sphere ou de l’Univers selon Tycho Brahe, published in 1661 by E(s)tienne Vouillemont in Paris. The present paper analyses this game in detail, showing how it combines four kinds of knowledge systems: natural philosophy, based on the Ptolemaic sphere; biblical knowledge; astrology, with planetary and zodiacal influences; and classical knowledge embodied in the names of the constellations. The game not only presents all four on an equal footing but also explores links between them, indicating some acceptance of an overall knowledge-system. Despite the title, there is no evidence of the Tychonian scheme for planetary motion, nor of any Copernican or Galilean influence. This game is to be contrasted with medieval race games, based on numerology and symbolism, and with race games towards the end of the Early Modern period in which science is fully accepted.

3. Rationalism and empiricism

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nagel
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
First Person ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

‘Rationalism and empiricism’ considers the different ways of thinking about nature that emerged in the Early Modern period, illustrated by René Descartes' rationalism and John Locke's empiricism. How did they come to produce such different theories of knowledge? In the Meditations, Descartes takes a first-person approach: his guiding question is ‘What can I know for certain?’. Locke adopts a third-person approach, drawing on his observations of others alongside himself. The question Locke aims to answer is ‘What do human beings know?’. In modern terminology, the choice between taking a first-person or a third-person approach is the choice between ‘internalism’ and ‘externalism’.

Experience Embodied

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anik Waldow
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Developmental Potential ◽  
Modern Period

This book develops an account of embodied experience that extends from Descartes’s conception of the human body as firmly integrated into the causal play of nature to Kant’s understanding of anthropology as a discipline that provides us with guidance in our lives as embodied creatures. It defends the claim that during the early modern period, the debate on experience not only focused on questions arising from the subjectivity of our thinking and feeling, it also forcefully foregrounded the essentially embodied dimension of our lives as humans. By taking this approach, the book departs from the traditional epistemological route so dominant in treatments of early modern conceptions of experience. It shows that, far from merely raising concerns that either challenge or endorse the idea that experience is able to generate knowledge, the concept formed an essential part of a much broader debate. This debate was moral in nature and raised questions about the developmental potential of human beings and their capacity to instantiate in their lives a form of self-determined agency that allows them to act as responsible agents.

Rhetoric and Science

2014 ◽  
pp. 422-436
Author(s):  
Jean Dietz Moss
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Rhetorical Invention ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Logic Of Inquiry

Although modern scientists have sought to erase emotion and rhetoric from their writings, some eminent scientists of the early modern period intentionally gave ebullient descriptions of their findings. True, the logic of inquiry and proof commonly practiced—dialectic and demonstration—guided the underlying substance of the presentations by astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. Nevertheless, rhetorical expression entered their discourse as they tried to convey the significance of their discoveries. The methods of discovery (rhetorical invention using the topoi), rhetorical proof—enthymemes and examples—along with rhetorical expression, one might argue, reflect the natural reasoning and sensitive qualities of human beings, which call into question our disdain at finding emotion unveiled in scientific writing. Figuration—particularly analogy, based in the known world but applied to the cosmos beyond natural sight—inspired belief in many readers.

YAMAUBA: REPRESENTATION OF THE JAPANESE MOUNTAIN WITCH IN THE MUROMACHI AND EDO PERIODS

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noriko T. Reider
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Japanese Literature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Beautiful Woman ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Familiar Figure ◽  
Over Time

This paper discusses the nature of the yamauba and the transformation of its image over time through an examination of its appearance in literature, folktales and art, focusing on, but not limited to, the early modern period. Literally, “yamauba” means an old woman who lives in the mountains, an appellation indicating a creature living on the periphery of society. Medieval Japanese literature equates the yamauba to a female oni (ogre/demon), sometimes devouring human beings who unwittingly cross her path. She is, however, not entirely negative or harmful. She is also credited with nurturing aspects, though these attributes are not always at the forefront of her character. Indeed, the emphasis on attributes imparted to that character changes significantly over time. A portrayal of the yamauba in the medieval period is predominantly of a witch-like white-haired hag, but by the end of the seventeenth century, the yamauba had come to be considered the mother of Kintarō, a legendary child with Herculean strength. By the eighteenth century, with a help of favorable depictions of the yamauba in puppet and Kabuki plays, she is portrayed by ukiyo-e artists as an alluring, beautiful woman who dotes on her son. The paper concludes that the yamauba remains a familiar figure in present-day Japanese society, and is still identified as a character of the disenfranchised “other.”

Materialism and the Early Modern “Natural History of Man”

2020 ◽  
pp. 640-670
Author(s):  
Ann Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
De Rerum Natura ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
History Of

This chapter looks at the use of Epicureanism in early modern attempts to explain the human being in purely naturalistic and material terms, mainly in Britain and France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, excluding the moral and political implications of these attempts. After discussing the principal vectors of Epicurean materialism and the difficulties of providing a convincing naturalistic explanation of human beings on Epicurean principles, it looks at how thinkers in the early modern period attempted to solve these problems. The main question concerned the activity of matter, which was linked to discussions of the soul and animal generation. Hence the chapter looks at debates firstly on the properties of atoms, then on human and animal souls, before discussing in more detail the eighteenth-century writers who attempted to provide a purely material explanation of human beings and their use of Lucretius’s poem De rerum natura in particular. We see that Epicurean philosophy was a permanent presence in naturalistic theories, but was normally part of a more eclectic framework. Thinkers took those aspects which corresponded to their aim and combined them with different scientific theories, without necessarily subscribing to the central tenets of Epicureanism. Reference to Epicureanism increasingly functioned as a symbol of the rejection of central Christian doctrines and as a way of proclaiming one’s materialism.

From Craft to Institution: Accounting in Italy from the Middle ages to the Early Modern Period

2012 ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Volkova
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Technical Standards ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Professional Field

The article describes the evolution of accounting from the simple registration technique to economic and social institution in medieval Italy. We used methods of institutional analysis and historical research. It is shown that the institutionalization of accounting had been completed by the XIV century, when it became a system of codified technical standards, scholar discipline and a professional field. We examine the interrelations of this process with business environment, political, social, economic and cultural factors of Italy by the XII—XVI centuries. Stages of institutionalization are outlined.

Becoming “Indians”: The Jesuit Missionary Path from Italy to Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-50
Author(s):  
Camilla Russell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Jesuit Missions ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Italian Provinces ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Jesuit Missionary

The Jesuit missions in Asia were among the most audacious undertakings by Europeans in the early modern period. This article focuses on a still relatively little understood aspect of the enterprise: its appointment process. It draws together disparate archival documents to recreate the steps to becoming a Jesuit missionary, specifically the Litterae indipetae (petitions for the “Indies”), provincial reports about missionary candidates, and replies to applicants from the Jesuit superior general. Focusing on candidates from the Italian provinces of the Society of Jesus, the article outlines not just how Jesuit missionaries were appointed but also the priorities, motivations, and attitudes that informed their assessment and selection. Missionaries were made, the study shows, through a specific “way of proceeding” that was negotiated between all parties and seen in both organizational and spiritual terms, beginning with the vocation itself, which, whether the applicant departed or not, earned him the name indiano.

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