Natural History in the Jesuit Missions

2018 ◽  
pp. 707-736
Author(s):  
Miguel de Asúa
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
New World ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Medical Botany ◽  
Jesuit Missions ◽  
Carl Linnaeus ◽  
Natural Histories ◽  
Animal World

This chapter considers Jesuit natural history in the period of the Old Society (from Renaissance to Enlightenment). Five topics have been selected for discussion: a general, formal characterization of Jesuit writing on nature, with emphasis on works produced in the missions; the symbolic and material exchanges presupposed by the practice of missionary natural history, including medical botany (exchange of knowledge between Jesuits and native experts, interchange of information between Jesuits and learned naturalists in Europe and among them, circulation of biological species); the approach to marvels in the animal world by the kind of natural philosophy embedded in the works of Athnasius Kircher, Caspar Schott, and Juan Eusebio Nieremberg; the issues raised by the natural histories of the New World, in particular in Iberian America; and the response of the Jesuits to the ascent of Enlightened natural history as represented by Carl Linnaeus and George Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon.

Locke, Bacon and Natural History

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Anstey
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Medical Philosophy ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
Natural Histories ◽  
New Evidence

AbstractThis paper argues that the construction of natural histories, as advocated by Francis Bacon, played a central role in John Locke's conception of method in natural philosophy. It presents new evidence in support of John Yolton's claim that "the emphasis upon compiling natural histories of bodies ... was the chief aspect of the Royal Society's programme that attracted Locke, and from which we need to understand his science of nature". Locke's exposure to the natural philosophy of Robert Boyle, the medical philosophy of Thomas Sydenham, his interest in travel literature and his conception of the division of the sciences are examined. From this survey, a cumulative case is presented which establishes, independently of an in-depth exegesis of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the central role for Locke of the construction of natural histories in natural philosophy.

Bears in Eden, or, this is not the garden you're looking for: Margaret Cavendish, Robert Hooke and the limits of natural philosophy

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAN LAWSON
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
English Society

AbstractThis paper investigates Margaret Cavendish's characterization of experimental philosophers as hybrids of bears and men in her 1666 story The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World. By associating experimental philosophers, in particular Robert Hooke and his microscope, with animals familiar to her readers from the sport of bear-baiting, Cavendish constructed an identity for the fellows of the Royal Society of London quite unlike that which they imagined for themselves. Recent scholarship has illustrated well how Cavendish's opposition to experimental philosophy is linked to her different natural-philosophical, political and anthropological ideas. My contribution to this literature is to examine the meanings both of bears in early modern England and of microscopes in experimental rhetoric, in order to illustrate the connection that Cavendish implies between the two. She parodied Hooke's idea that his microscope extended his limited human senses, and mocked his aim that by so doing he could produce useful knowledge. The bear-men reflect inhuman ambition and provide a caution against ignoring both the order of English society and the place of humans in nature.

Res, veluti per Machinas, Conficiatur: Natural History and the 'Mechanical' Reform of Natural Philosophy

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 87-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian G. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Textual Authority ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Natural Histories

AbstractThis paper revisits Bacon's persistent 'mechanical' imagery by which he described the 'aid' through which the human mind would be rendered adequate to framing axioms about nature's processes and properties that underlie all natural phenomena. It argues that the role Bacon ascribed to his own insights into the properties and motions of matter is crucial for grasping such instrumental imagery, because his own writings—both methodological and natural historical—need to be read as themselves comprising, at least in incipient form, the very instruments of which they speak. From that reflexive standpoint, this paper in particular focuses on the 'aid' to the senses that his natural histories were to have offered under the interpretative guidance offered by the Novum organum and other works. The 'hypothetical' status to which Bacon is often thought to have accorded his own natural philosophical insights does not adequately take into account the transformative power Bacon thought these insights should have through his own writings. The fact that Bacon was keenly sensitive to the psychological effects of textual authority in his intellectual milieu prompts new reflection concerning how he intended his own texts to be read, and how we should read them.

Hobbes'forgotten Natural Histories

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Bunce
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
Natural Histories

AbstractThomas Hobbes' natural philosophy is often characterised as rationalistic in opposition to the emerging inductivist method employed by Francis Bacon and fellows of the Gresham College - later the Royal Society. Where as the inductivists researched and published a multitude of natural histories, Hobbes' mature publications contain little natural historical information. Nonetheless, Hobbes read numerous natural histories and incorporated them into his works and often used details from these histories to support important theoretical moves. He also wrote a number of natural histories, some of which remain either unpublished or untranslated. Hobbes' own mature statements about his early interest in natural histories are also misleading. This article attempts to review Hobbes' early writings on natural histories and argues that his works of the 1630s and 1640s owe a significant debt to the natural histories of Francis Bacon, Hobbes' one-time patron.

scholarly journals Activities That May Influence the Risk of Crocodile (Crocodylus Acutus: Reptilia: Crocodilidae) Attack to Humans in the Tempisque River Area, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Uniciencia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Iván Sandoval-Hernández ◽  
Alejandro Duran-Apuy ◽  
Jacqueline Quirós-Valerio
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Habitat Loss ◽  
Crocodylus Acutus ◽  
Popular Knowledge ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

One of the largest populations of crocodiles in Costa Rica is located at the Tempisque River. The species is threatened by habitat loss and poaching; but its populations have grown due to the protection given by law. The research was conducted in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. We made a characterization of popular knowledge, activities and perceptions of 374 residents of the study area. It was found that 55% believe that the crocodiles are abundant, 70% believe that populations have increased. The most dangerous activities done are recreation, swimming and fishing. There are significant differences between the proportions of response (X2: 71, n = 10, p <0.0001 X2). These activities are done daily (25%), weekly (30%), monthly (18%) and annually (10%). The risk of attack and the crocodile’s density in the river are not recognized. Also, a lack of knowledge about the natural history and ecology of the species is shown. The reasons for attacks are: the aggressiveness of the animals and their density. There are differences in the responses on the reasons of the attacks (X2: 35, n 8 p <0.0001). Generally, the crocodile perception is unfavorable.

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