Leonardo da Vinci Our Contemporary?

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Witoszek
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Free Inquiry ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
A Value ◽  
Ethical Vision ◽  
European Renaissance ◽  
The Way

This essay polemicizes with a number of historians who claim that the European Renaissance has either “failed” or “continues to recede from us at an accelerating rate” (Burke 1998: 41; Barzun 2000; Bouswma 2002). I explore and revalue the ideas and representations of Renaissance humanism and the way they become manifest in the work of Leonardo da Vinci. I argue three main points: Firstly, that there is a fascinating, and much underestimated, ecological strain in Leonardo’s opus, a view of relationship between humans and nature, which has a bearing on a paradigm shift required by the current environmental and social crisis. Secondly, in the project of re-imagining a sustainable future, there is much to learn from the way in which a small and subversive community of Renaissance umanisti managed—against all odds—to forge a ground-breaking ethical vision which became the foundation of Western modernity. Finally, both Leonardo’s legacy and a reinvention of humanity and nature in the ideas of the Renaissance writers and thinkers, draw attention to a unique code of “eco-humanism”—a value platform emphasizing human dignity, nature’s autonomy and authority, the importance of free inquiry and dialogue, as well as the codex of limitations to human pursuits.

Geology Emerges as a Science

2021 ◽  
pp. 6-33
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Principles Of Geology ◽  
The Way

This chapter and the next one cover the way in which geology came to be a science in its own right, spanning the early centuries of geology. Lives of crucial individual scientists from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century are discussed by relating the stories and discoveries of each, commencing with Leonardo da Vinci and continuing with the European geologists, including Nicholaus Steno, Abraham Werner, James Hutton, Charles Lyell, and early fossilists such as Etheldred Benet. Steno, Werner, Hutton and Lyell, and other early geologists revealed and wrote about the basic principles of geology, painstakingly untangling and piecing together the threads of the Earth’s vast history. They made sense of jumbled sequences of rocks, which had undergone dramatic changes since they were formed, and discerned the significance of fossils, found in environments seemingly incongruous to where the creatures once lived, as ancient forms of life. They set the stage for further research on the nature of the Earth and life on it, providing subsequent generations of geologists and those who study the Earth the basis on which to refine and flesh out the biography of the Earth.

“That Free Play of Human Affection”: The Humanist Ethics of Walter Pater’s The Renaissance

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 486-521
Author(s):  
Thomas Albrecht
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Fundamental Freedom ◽  
Secular Humanism ◽  
Aesthetic Responses ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Uncertainty ◽  
Ethical Vision

Thomas Albrecht, “‘That Free Play of Human Affection’: The Humanist Ethics of Walter Pater’s The Renaissance” (pp. 486–521) This essay aims to refute received, persistent misconceptions of Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), and of aestheticism generally, as an asocial and amoral sensualism, and as a deliberate separating of art from human lives and the world. Contrary to these misconceptions, it finds a humanist ethical vision in The Renaissance, specifically in the essays Pater devotes to Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci. Drawing on an established post-Enlightenment, post-Romantic tradition of Victorian secular humanism, Pater defines this vision in terms of human sympathies for the feelings and suffering of other persons. And he defines it in aesthetic terms, in terms of art’s unique capacity to depict human feelings and suffering, and thereby to arouse sympathies in the viewer. At the same time, the essay contends that Pater in The Renaissance also defines his ethical vision in a more unprecedented, radical way. Beyond the solicitation of human sympathies, he frames it in terms of a fundamental uncertainty and unpredictability, a fundamental freedom and singularity, of human ethical relationships and responses. For Pater, this uncertainty and freedom are the qualities that make an ethics genuinely ethical. Pater finds these qualities, and this kind of genuine ethics, epitomized in the unpredictability and freedom of human aesthetic responses, including his own, to art and beauty.

scholarly journals Learning at the Science Museum. A study on the public's experiences with different types of visit at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan, Italy

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (04) ◽  
pp. A01 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Villa
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Personal Meaning ◽  
Visitor Experience ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Depth Of Knowledge ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Guided Tour ◽  
The Way

This study aims to investigate whether different types of museum visits have specific ways to influence the visitors' experience and learning. Three types of museum visits as offered by the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan, Italy were taken into consideration: free tour, guided tour, and lab. The study involved visitors over 25 years of age. The way visits took place, the visitors' learning and experiences were investigated based on evidence collected using methods such as Personal Meaning Mapping and observation. Our study has revealed that the outcomes of the visits vary in terms of visitor experience and depth of knowledge on the main subject. No significant differences were found as concerns the level of attention (visitors proved to be attentive while at the museum regardless of the type of visit).

Replication of Internal Biological Surfaces

1972 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 308-309
Author(s):  
J. A. Nowell ◽  
J. Pangborn ◽  
W. S. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Rat Lung ◽  
Tubular Structures ◽  
Cerebral Ventricles ◽  
Internal Surfaces ◽  
Biological Surfaces ◽  
Dog Kidney ◽  
Lung And Kidney ◽  
Scanning Electron

Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century, used injection replica techniques to study internal surfaces of the cerebral ventricles. Developments in replicating media have made it possible for modern morphologists to examine injection replicas of lung and kidney with the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Deeply concave surfaces and interrelationships to tubular structures are difficult to examine with the SEM. Injection replicas convert concavities to convexities and tubes to rods, overcoming these difficulties.Batson's plastic was injected into the renal artery of a horse kidney. Latex was injected into the pulmonary artery and cementex in the trachea of a cat. Following polymerization the tissues were removed by digestion in concentrated HCl. Slices of dog kidney were aldehyde fixed by immersion. Rat lung was aldehyde fixed by perfusion via the trachea at 30 cm H2O. Pieces of tissue 10 x 10 x 2 mm were critical point dried using CO2. Selected areas of replicas and tissues were coated with silver and gold and examined with the SEM.

Leonardo Da Vinci.—II

1910 ◽  
Vol 69 (1782supp) ◽  
pp. 138-140
Author(s):  
Edward P. Buffet
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci

The Beginnings of Islam in Afghanistan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arezou Azad
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Political System ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Conversion ◽  
The Way

Covering the period from 709 to 871, this chapter traces the initial conversion of Afghanistan from Zoroastrianism and Buddhism to Islam. Highlighting the differential developments in four regions of Afghanistan, it discusses the very earliest history of Afghan Islam both as a religion and as a political system in the form of a caliphate.  The chapter draws on under-utilized sources, such as fourth to eighth century Bactrian documents from Tukharistan and medieval Arabic and Persian histories of Balkh, Herat and Sistan. In so doing, it offers a paradigm shift in the way early Islam is understood by arguing that it did not arrive in Afghanistan as a finished product, but instead grew out of Afghanistan’s multi-religious context. Through fusions with Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, early Abrahamic traditions, and local cult practices, the Islam that resulted was less an Arab Islam that was imported wholesale than a patchwork of various cultural practices.

A Scientific World-View of Nature and Environmental Problem with a Special Concentration on Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s Understanding of Environmental Sustainability (Perspektif Sains terhadap Krisis Alam dan Persekitaran: Pemikiran Seyyed Hossein Nasr tentan)

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-328
Author(s):  
Md. Abu Sayem
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
World View ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
World Views ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
European Renaissance

The present paper attempts to expose how the scientific world-view of nature contributes to the present environmental crisis. Alongside this, it relates European Renaissance, humanism, secularism, the scientific and industrial revolutions, modern philosophy, scientism, technology-based modern life, consumerism-based modern society, etc. with current environmental problems. By focusing on Nasr’s traditional understanding of nature, the paper explores how materialistic and mechanistic world-views are deeply connected with the present ecological crisis. It also offers a critical analysis of Nasr’s spiritual and religious world-view of nature and examines its relevance. In doing so, it aims to highlight some demerits of the present world-view, and to call to reform current perceptions of nature by revitalizing traditional wisdom in order to protect the environment from further degradation. Thus, the paper is scholarly addition to the ongoing discourse on the issue of religions and the environment. Keywords: Eco-theology, Environmental Degradation, Materialistic and Mechanistic Views of Nature, Scientism, Spiritual Crisis of Modern humans, Religious and Spiritual World-Views.   Abstrak Kertas kajian ini menerangkan bagaimana pandangan saintifik telah menyumbang kepada krisis alam sekitar semasa. Disamping itu, kertas ini akan menhubungkaitkan Gerakan Revolusi Humanisma di Eropah, sekularisme, revolusi  sains dan perindustrian, falsafah moden, saintisme, kehidupan moden yang berasaskan teknologi, masyarakat moden yang berasaskan consumerisme, etc. dengan krisis alam sekitar yang berlaku dewasa ini.  Dengan memahami pandangan Nasr terhadap alam sekitar, kertas ini akan merungkai bagaimana pandangan materialistik (kebendaan) dan mekanistik mempengaruhi krisis ekologi masa kini. Ia juga akan menganalisa pandangan spiritual dan agama Nasr terhadap alam sekitar secara kritikal dan akan menilai sejauh mana kesesuaiannya. Dengan sedemikian dapat menyedarkan manusia tentang kecacatan pandangan semasa, yang kemudiannya akan membawa kepada pembaharuan persepsi mereka terhadap alam sekitar dengan cara menghidupkan semula nilai-nilai tradisional demi mengelakkan kemerosotan alam sekitar. Kertas ini akan memuatkan idea-idea para cendiakawan dalam membincangkan isu  berkaitan agama dan alam sekitar. Kata Kunci: Eko-Teologi, Kemerosotan Alam Sekitar, Pandangan Materialistik dan Makanistik terhadap Alam, Saintisme, Krisis Spiritual Manusia Moden, Perspektif Spiritual dan Agama.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document