Towards a Reassessment of British Aristotelianism

Vivarium ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Sgarbi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Transition ◽  
Modern Logic ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Aristotelian Tradition

Abstract The aim of the paper is to reassess the role of British Aristotelianism within the history of early modern logic between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as a crucial moment of cultural transition from the model of humanistic rhetoric and dialectic to that of facultative logic, that is, a logic which concerns the study of the cognitive powers of the mind. The paper shows that there is a special connection between Paduan Aristotelianism and British empiricism, through the mediation of British Aristotelianism. British Aristotelians took the ideas of the Paduan Aristotelian tradition and carried them to an extreme, gradually removing them from the original Aristotelian context in which they were grounded and developing what would later become the fundamental ideas of British empiricism.

scholarly journals The Historical Role of Leviticus 25 in Naturalizing Anti-Black Racism

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 570
Author(s):  
James W. Watts
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
High Probability ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Permanent Property

Leviticus 25:39–46 describes a two-tier model of slavery that distinguishes Israelites from foreign slaves. It requires that Israelites be indentured only temporarily while foreigners can be enslaved as chattel (permanent property). This model resembles the distinction between White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves in the American colonies. However, the biblical influence on these early modern practices has been obscured by the rarity of citations of Lev. 25:39–46 in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources about slavery. This article reviews the history of slavery from ancient Middle Eastern antiquity through the seventeenth century to show the unique degree to which early modern institutions resembled the biblical model. It then exposes widespread knowledge of Leviticus 25 in early modern political and economic debates. Demonstrating this awareness shows with high probability that colonial cultures presupposed the two-tier model of slavery in Leviticus 25:39–46 to naturalize and justify their different treatment of White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves.

scholarly journals Jesuit Sanctity: Hypothesizing the Continuity of a Hagiographic Narrative of the Modern Age

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Franco Motta ◽  
Eleonora Rai
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of

Abstract The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
New Materials ◽  
History Of ◽  
General Topic ◽  
History Of Universities

This monographic issue of History of Universities presents new materials and case studies in order to deepen our understanding of the role of the academic milieu in the early modern reshaping of natural philosophy. The contributions included in this volume aim to pursue two main axes of research: (1) the reconstruction and exploration of the dialectics between tradition and innovation in the reshaping of natural philosophy; (2) the attempt to constitute and consolidate new traditions in natural philosophy. This introduction presents the general topic of the volume, the methodological approach developed by the contributors and the contents of each contribution.

scholarly journals Body of Knowledge: Renaissance Armor and the Engineering of Mind = Cuerpos del conocimiento: armaduras del Renacimiento y la ingeniería de la mente

2018 ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Felix Jäger
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Other ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Personal Authority ◽  
Historia Natural ◽  
The Mind

This essay charts the role of armor in Renaissance practices of knowledge. Since the advent of gunpowder warfare, armor was largely unfit for combat, yet still became a centerpiece of princely representation and was prominently displayed in early collection spaces. Rather than illustrating chivalric virtues or antiquarian taste, such suits in my reading signal a shift towards a physiological fashioning of learning. Through juxtaposing two key sets of armor – one ‘gothic’ suit situated in the studiolo, the other a ‘grotesque’ garniture for a chamber of curiosities –, my paper traces how these embodied settings conflated epistemological with political sensibilities. While the earlier ensemble acted as a mnemonic ‘prosthesis’ that enhanced the mind of the wearer, the latter evoked natural history imagery to remap the order of things around personal authority. Objects of armor thus spotlight the interplay of material and political culture in engineering the early modern subject.El presente ensayo traza el papel de las armaduras en las costumbres renacentistas del conocimiento. Desde la aparición de las armas de pólvora, las armaduras dejaron de ser apropiadas para el combate, si bien todavía constituyeron una pieza central de representaciones principescas y fueron ampliamente expuestas en espacios de colección. En lugar de ilustrar las virtudes caballerescas o los estilos como antigüedades, estas vestimentas señalan, a mi entender, un giro hacia el conocimiento fisiológico de la moda. A través de la yuxtaposición de dos conceptos clave de las armaduras –uno como vestimenta gótica emplazada en el studiolo (taller de arte), otro como decoración «grotesca» en una sala de curiosidades – mi texto indaga cómo estos elementos ajustados al cuerpo confrontaban las sensibilidades epistemológicas y políticas. Mientras que las primeras actuaban como una prótesis que fortalece la mente del que las usa, las segundas evocan la imaginería de la historia natural para recolocar el orden de las cosas alrededor de la autoridad personal. Las armaduras enfocan de este modo la interacción entre la cultura material y la política en el desarrollo del sujeto moderno.

scholarly journals Regulation and Intellectual Change at the Paris Goldsmiths’ Guild, 1660-1740

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 500-527
Author(s):  
Michael Bycroft
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Craft Guilds ◽  
Literary Techniques

Abstract Economic historians have shown that the regulations of craft guilds were a source of innovation rather than inertia in the economy of early modern Europe. Historians of science have shown that craftsmen contributed to the scientific revolution in the same time and place. But very little is known about the role of guild regulation in intellectual (as opposed to social, political and economic) change. This paper shows that regulation went hand-in-hand with intellectual change at the Paris guild of goldsmiths in the decades around 1700. In this period the wardens of the guild developed sophisticated techniques for organizing and disseminating their large archive of legal documents. They also published two books on the natural history of precious stones that broke with the learned tradition of writing on this topic. The reform of the archive and the reform of natural history were undertaken by the same goldsmiths, for similar reasons, using analogous literary techniques.

scholarly journals Soul searching: a brief history of the mind/body debate in the neurosciences

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
The Self ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

✓Anatomical and physiological understandings of the structure and function of the brain have worked to establish it as the “seat of the soul.” As an organ of reflection, meditation, and memory, the brain becomes synonymous with what defines the “self” through the existence of consciousness—of mind. Thus, the brain has been associated with a range of transcendent concepts—the soul, spirit, mind, and consciousness—that all relate in fundamental ways to each other both in terms of their perceived location within the brain and because of the way each works ultimately to define the person to whom the brain belongs. In this article, the author provides a brief exploration of how interrelated these categories have been when seen in the context of ancient, Renaissance, early modern, and modern philosophical and medical concerns; how the brain has variously been perceived as home to these intimate states of being; and how practitioners from the neurosciences have reflected on these questions. The author provides novel insights into the interrelationships of philosophy, theology, and medicine by examining these issues through the lens of the history of neuroscience.

scholarly journals Curating the Fieldwork Playlist

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Kieran Fenby-Hulse
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice

In this essay, I consider the music that has been chosen as part of the previous essays in this collection. I attempt to understand what this assemblage of musical tracks, this anthropology playlist, might tell us about fieldwork as a research practice. The chapter examines this history of the digital playlist before going on to analyse the varied musical contributions from curatorial, musicological, and anthropological perspetives. I argue that the playlist asks us to reflect on the field of anthropology and to consider the role of the voice, the body, the mind with anthropology, as well as the role digital technologies, ethics, and the relationship between indviduals and the community.

Early Modern Oels and the Singularities of Local History*

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-239
Author(s):  
Maria Piasecka
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Local History ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Print Shop ◽  
Relationship Of

Abstract The article explores the local history of the Silesian city of Oels as presented in selected early modern books and pamphlets published primarily in the local print shop, but also in other cities. A prominent example of such a historical event is the 1535 tempest, descriptions of which were published in its immediate aftermath. The much-later Beschreibung of 1657 is presented as an example of creating local identity through emphasizing two cultural aspects linked to the event: the alleged nefarious role of the Jewish community and the special relationship of the local citizens with the dukes of, at first, the Podebrad, and later the Württemberg families. Although natural disasters are repetitive occurrences, the 1535 tempest was understood by the people of Oels in a singular manner, which was characteristic for the local context. The thesis about the singularity of the local history is further corroborated through a number of examples from Oels. Different aspects of singularity dominate in different publications depicting local events: the singularity of situations, people and places.

Muck, Mummies and Medicine: Disgust in Early Modern Science

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Sarah-Maria Schober
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This essay shows that early modern practices that used human bodily matter cannot be – as hitherto – explained by the absence of the emotion of disgust nor as being conducted in spite of disgust. Instead, it proposes to read those practices’ changing history as part of the history of the ‘paradox of disgust’. Four case studies (on anatomy, excrement, mummies and skulls) demonstrate that disgust was highly productive: it attracted fascination, allowed physicians to fashion themselves, and was even believed capable of healing. Over time and for complex reasons, however, the productive side of disgust declined. Combining current approaches in the history of emotions and material culture studies, this essay sets out not only to propose a new narrative for the changing role of disgust in early modern science and societies, but also to explore how variations in settings and human intervention changed the way emotions were used and perceived.

Logic and the Movement of Reasoning: Pierre Gassendi on the Three Acts of the Mind

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-326
Author(s):  
Sorana Corneanu
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Logic ◽  
Logical Operations ◽  
Formal Mechanism ◽  
Pierre Gassendi ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Good Number

Abstract The aim of this paper is to assess the central role the imagination acquires in Pierre Gassendi’s logic. I trace the structuring scheme of the three acts of the mind—common to a good number of late scholastic and early modern logics—to the Thomistic notion of the movement of reasoning in knowledge and argue that Gassendi revisits this notion in his logic. The three acts scheme is from the beginning a bridge between logic and the natural philosophical treatment of the soul. I show how Gassendi’s take on the three acts is similarly poised between his Logic and his Physics and I discuss the rationale, sources and consequences of his attribution of the three acts to the imagination. I argue for the following points: Gassendi’s conception of the logical role of the imagination answers to his empiricist epistemology, his naturalized view of the mind (which involves a defense of thinking in animals) and his notion of a natural logic; it is also operative in his pairing of the formal mechanism of logical operations with a progressive mechanism of the operations of the mind; and it serves as a counterpart to his experimental understanding of the progress of knowledge.1

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