scholarly journals John Wallis and the Catholics: confessional and theological antagonism in Wallis's mathematics and philosophy

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-503
Author(s):  
Adam D. Richter
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Gregorian Calendar ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Metaphysics Of Time ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
John Wallis ◽  
Roman Catholics

Like many of his contemporaries, the mathematician and Anglican minister John Wallis (1616–1703) repeatedly made disparaging remarks about Roman Catholics, particularly the pope and the Jesuits. This paper considers how Wallis's anti-Catholic attitude affected his reception of ideas about nature and mathematics. A well-known example is his resistance to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in England, which he claimed would be an implicit acknowledgement of the pope's authority. This was not an isolated case in Wallis's career. For instance, the same attitude is evident in his earliest publication, Truth Tried (1643), wherein he adopts a position on the metaphysics of time and place that explicitly opposes the doctrine of transubstantiation. In addition, anti-Catholicism made Wallis more receptive to subjects that otherwise did not interest him, namely numerology and biblical prophecy. This helps to explain his decision to publish a Latin translation of Francis Potter's Interpretation of the Number 666 (1642), which Wallis seems to have appreciated mainly because of its argument that the pope is the Antichrist. These cases offer insights about Wallis's motivations as a natural philosopher and mathematician, and how they relate to anti-Catholicism in early modern English science more generally.

Toward concreteness in the description of Early Modern English vowel alternations

1978 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-225
Author(s):  
Harald Tzeutschler
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
British English ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Alternation Condition ◽  
John Wallis ◽  
Limited Scope

In the dialects of Early Modern English (ENE) described by John Hart (c.1550) and John Wallis (c.1680), as in contemporary American and British English, a number of vowel nuclei alternate in quality and segmental composition, depending on the specification for the feature [+tense]. These alternations have motivated analyses in Chomsky and Halle 1968 (SPE) in which the abstractness of underlying representations, the arbitrariness of diacritically used feature specifications, and the limited scope of some rules, motivate a search for analyses which are preferable in terms of applicable evaluation criteria such as the simplicity metric and the Weak Alternation Condition. Furthermore, the SPE analysis of Hart's system accounts for a version of the phonetic facts which in some respects are inconsistent with Hart's descriptions. In §§ 3 and 4, we will see that, by proceeding from the phonetic facts and not, as did Chomsky and Halle, from an assumption about the underlying representations, we may indeed propose phonological subcomponents which, as § 6 concludes, are more highly valued than their SPE counterparts, described in § 5. In § 7 it will be seen that the present interpretation of the phonetic facts described by John Hart is a more faithful version of that description, and it will be concluded that this fact adds support to the present analysis of Hart's vowel alternations. Historical claims made by Chomsky and Halle will be examined in § 8.

Discovering Architecture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Walker
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Ancient Athens ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Degree Of Confidence ◽  
Architectural Principles ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Architectural Knowledge

This chapter deals with the genesis of architectural knowledge. In particular, it explores those rare moments when early modern English authors wrote about newly discovered examples of ancient architecture, the most important forms of architectural knowledge that existed. I will discuss three such accounts (all published in the Philosophical Transactions) of Roman York, Palmyra, and ancient Athens. These three texts share a preoccupation with truth and accuracy, as befitted the task of communicating highly sought-after architectural knowledge. They also demonstrate the degree of confidence of English writers in this period, not only in how they interpreted ancient architecture, but also in how they sought to criticize previous European authors on the subject. But most importantly, these texts reveal the extent of English intellectuals’ knowledge of the architectural principles of the ancient world and how that knowledge was in a state of flux.

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