The Probabilistic Logic of Eusebius Amort (1692-1775)

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Hanke*
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Probabilistic Logic ◽  
Epistemic Probability ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Moral Necessity ◽  
Scholastic Philosophy ◽  
Moral Implication

Abstract While classical sources including Aristotle, Cicero and Boëthius addressed different notions of probability, medieval contributions to probability (other than epistemic probability) seem rather scarce. The situation changes during the Second Scholasticism with the post-Tridentine debates on “probable opinion” in moral theology and the introduction of “moral necessity” and “moral implication” (tied to the ideas of frequency, stochastic processes, and propensity) in the debates on compatibilism and theological optimism. The eighteenth-century transformation of scholastic philosophy was marked, among other characteristics, by a gravitation towards the early modern scientific revolution. In his Philosophia Pollingana ad normam Burgundicae, the renowned moral theologian Eusebius Amort (1692-1775) addressed the basic issues of probabilistic logic from the philosophical, logical, and mathematical points of view in an attempt to synthesise earlier scholastic conceptual analyses of probability and probabilistic epistemic logic with the cutting-edge mathematical calculus introduced by Jacob Bernoulli.

The Smugglers' World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Cromwell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Modern World ◽  
French Caribbean ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Political Protests ◽  
Moral Necessity

The Smugglers’ World: Illicit Trade and Atlantic Communities in Eighteenth-Century Venezuela reinterprets the meaning of illicit commerce in the early modern Atlantic. More than simply a transactional relationship or a political economy concern of empires, smuggling became a societal ethos for the communities in which it was practiced. For most of the colonial period, subjects of the commercially neglected province of Venezuela depended on contrabandists from the Dutch, English, and French Caribbean. These illegal yet scarcely patrolled rendezvous came under scrutiny in the eighteenth century as Bourbon reformers sought to regain control and boost productivity in the province. Subsequent crackdowns on smuggling sparked colonial tensions. Illicit trade created interimperial connections and parallel communities based around provisioning as a moral necessity. It threw the legal status of people of color aboard ships into chaos. Smuggling’s participants normalized subversions of imperial law and proffered mutually agreed-upon limits of acceptable extralegal activity. Venezuelan subjects defended their commercial autonomy through passive measures and occasionally through violent political protests. This commercial discourse between the state and its subjects was a key part of empire making and maintenance in the early modern world.

Víctor Navarro Brotóns, Disciplinas, Saberes y Prácticas. Filosofia natural, matemáticas y astronomía en la sociedad española de la época moderna (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2014), 496 pp. ISBN: 9788437094465

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luís Miguel Carolino
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Activity ◽  
Early Modern Spain ◽  
Relative Decline ◽  
Practice Of Science

This chapter reviews the book Disciplinas, Saberes y Prácticas. Filosofia Natural, Matemáticas y Astronomía en la Sociedad Española de la Época Moderna (2014), by Víctor Navarro Brotóns. The book offers a fresh and comprehensive view on the practice of science and natural philosophy in early modern Spain. It is organised in three parts: The sixteenth century and early seventeenth century: the scientific Renaissance; The seventeenth century and early eighteenth century: scientific activity during the Scientific Revolution; and The eighteenth century (up to 1767). Underlying this organisation is the fundamental view that science and scientific activities flourished in Spain particularly during the sixteenth century, entered a period of relative ‘decline’ as the seventeenth century progressed, and experienced a revival in the eighteenth century.

Language Matters: ‘Counsel’ in Early Modern and Modern Medicine

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Sabroe ◽  
Phil Withington
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Successful Scientist

Francis Bacon is famous today as one of the founding fathers of the so-called ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century. Although not an especially successful scientist himself, he was nevertheless the most eloquent and influential spokesperson for an approach to knowledge that promised to transform human understanding of both humanity and its relationship with the natural and social worlds. The central features of this approach, as they emerged in Bacon’s own writings and the work of his protégés and associates after 1605, are equally well known. They include the importance of experiment, observation, and a sceptical attitude towards inherited wisdom (from the ‘ancients’ in general and Aristotle in particular).

Free Trade before Liberalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Tazzara
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Free Trade Zone ◽  
Central Mediterranean ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Institutional Variation ◽  
Intellectual Legacy

Chapter 8 situates Livorno amidst a larger picture of competition in the central Mediterranean. It analyzes the spread of free ports by considering the two axes along which Italian ports liberalized during the early modern period: hospitality toward merchants and openness toward goods. Despite much institutional variation, a maritime free trade zone was in existence by the mid-eighteenth century. The intellectual legacy of free ports such as Livorno was nonetheless ambivalent. Though some Enlightenment thinkers used free ports to formulate general theories of free trade, others believed they promoted the subjection of state policy to foreign merchants.

Baroque Opera

2018 ◽  
pp. 369-385
Author(s):  
Downing A. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Social World ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Nested Structures ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Baroque Opera

The fundamental assumption of commentators from the early modern period is that tasteful music functions simultaneously to express sentiment and to move listener-spectators. The three core elements of the baroque operatic spectacle—poetry, music, and dance—are defined by their ability to express and convey passion. Commentators point to the particular ability of musical language—and its combination with poetry and movement—to represent that which is out of reach of spoken language, or below the threshold of linguistic representation. Although both dramma per musica and the tragédie en musique arose and were fundamentally grounded in monarchical cultural worlds, both also endured successfully as public art forms. Aesthetically, baroque opera exhibits and revels in nested structures, manifested in plays within plays and in references that place the operatic moment within a social world outside the opera. Opera left this aesthetic behind as it moved into the second half of the eighteenth century, influenced by the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the works of Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck among others.

A Note on the Shipbuilding in Bengal in the Late Eighteenth Century

Itinerario ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhaswati Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
The North ◽  
Indian Ocean Trade ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean

Both overseas trade and shipbuilding in India are of great antiquity. But even for the early modern period, maritime commerce is relatively better documented than the shipbuilding industry. When the Portuguese and later the North Europeans entered the intra-Asian trade, many of the ships they employed in order to supplement their shipping in Asia were obtained from the Indian dockyards. Detailed evidence with regard to shipbuilding, however, is very rare. It has been pointed out that the Portuguese in the sixteenth century were more particular than their North-European counter-parts in the following centuries in providing information on seafaring and shipbuilding. Shipbuilding on the west coast has been discussed more than that on the eastern coast of India, particularly the coast of Bengal. Though Bengal had a long tradition of shipbuilding, direct evidence of shipbuilding in the region is rare. Many changes were brought about in the history of India and the Indian Ocean trade of the eighteenth century, especially after the 1750s. When the English became the largest carriers of Bengal's trade with other parts of Asia, this had an impact on the shipbuilding in Bengal. It was in their interest that the British in Bengal had their ships built in that province.

The will to give: charitable bequests, inter vivos gifts and community building in the Dutch Republic, c. 1600–1800

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELISE VAN NEDERVEEN MEERKERK
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Charitable Giving ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
The Will ◽  
Charitable Bequests

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of different social groups in early modern Dutch towns in organising and financing poor relief. Examining both the income structure of Dutch urban poor relief organisations and voluntary donations and bequests by citizens reveals what motivations lay behind their involvement, and how and why these changed over time. In the seventeenth century, ‘middle groups’ donated more often and higher mean amounts, reflecting their efforts to contribute to urban community building. In the eighteenth century, the elite became relatively more involved in charitable giving. Also, the urge to give to one's own religious group seems to have increased in this period.

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