scholarly journals The Game of the Sphere or of the Universe — a Spiral Race Game from 17th century France

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Adrian Seville
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Planetary Motion ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Tycho Brahe ◽  
Classical Knowledge ◽  
The Universe

Abstract Simple race games, played with dice and without choice of move, are known from antiquity. In the late 16th century, specific examples of this class of game emerged from Italy and spread rapidly into other countries of Europe. Pre-eminent was the Game of the Goose, which spawned thousands of variants over the succeeding centuries to the present day, including educational, polemical and promotional variants.1 The educational variants began as a French invention of the 17th century, the earliest of known date being a game to teach Geography, the Jeu du Monde by Pierre Duval, published in 1645. By the end of the century, games designed to teach several of the other accomplishments required of the noble cadet class had been developed: History, the Arts of War, and Heraldry being notable among them. A remarkable example of a game within this class is the astronomical game, Le Jeu de la Sphere ou de l’Univers selon Tycho Brahe, published in 1661 by E(s)tienne Vouillemont in Paris. The present paper analyses this game in detail, showing how it combines four kinds of knowledge systems: natural philosophy, based on the Ptolemaic sphere; biblical knowledge; astrology, with planetary and zodiacal influences; and classical knowledge embodied in the names of the constellations. The game not only presents all four on an equal footing but also explores links between them, indicating some acceptance of an overall knowledge-system. Despite the title, there is no evidence of the Tychonian scheme for planetary motion, nor of any Copernican or Galilean influence. This game is to be contrasted with medieval race games, based on numerology and symbolism, and with race games towards the end of the Early Modern period in which science is fully accepted.

The Folly of the Cross

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Viladesau
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Theology Of The Cross ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Modern Thought ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Satisfaction Model

This work surveys the ways in which theologians, artists, and composers of the early modern period dealt with the passion and death of Christ. The fourth volume in a series, it locates the theology of the cross in the context of modern thought, beginning with the Enlightenment, which challenged traditional Christian notions of salvation and of Christ himself. It shows how new models of salvation were proposed by liberal theology, replacing the older “satisfaction” model with theories of Christ as bringer of God’s spirit and as social revolutionary. It shows how the arts during this period both preserved the classical tradition and responded to innovations in theology and in style.

Bild-Symbol, Geometrie und Methode: Philosophische Implikationen der frühneuzeitlichen Textillustration

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 73-101
Author(s):  
Thomas Leinkauf
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Geometric Representation ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Three Stages

This article tries to point out that in the early modern period, including the Renaissance, philosophy increasingly developed a certain kind of thinking and arguing that needed to be sustained by ›icons‹, ›pictures‹ or ›signs‹. Following a suggestion made by Stephen Clucas in inviting a group of scholars to discuss the topos of ›silent languages‹ at Birbeck College (University of London), this paper discusses 1. a general possible meaning of ›silent language‹, divided into three modes of symbolic and geometric representation, and introducing 2. three ›stages‹ in the historical development of philosophical systems representing these three modes: Plotinus, Cusanus, the philosophy of the 16th and 17th century.

Bacon’s Novum organum

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Elodie Cassan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Way

Dan Garber’s paper provides materials permitting to reply to an objection frequently made to the idea that the Novum Organum is a book of logic, as the allusion to Aristotle’s Organon included in the very title of this book shows it is. How can Bacon actually build a logic, considering his repeated claims that he desires to base natural philosophy directly on observation and experiment? Garber shows that in the Novum Organum access to experience is always mediated by particular questions and settings. If there is no direct access to observation and experience, then there is no point in equating Bacon’s focus on experience in the Novum Organum with a rejection of discursive issues. On the contrary, these are two sides of the same coin. Bacon’s articulation of rules for the building of scientific reasoning in connection with the way the world is, illustrates his massive concern with the relation between reality, thinking and language. This concern is essential in the field of logic as it is constructed in the Early Modern period.

The Classical Tradition

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Kallendorf
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Classical Tradition ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Renaissance Studies

Even the word “Renaissance” (“rebirth” in French) points to the effort to revive the learning of antiquity that motivated the intellectual elite of that era—for what sprang forth was an urgent awareness of the ancient past, prompting innovations in both ideas and the arts. The classical tradition, accordingly, has long played a central role in Renaissance studies. With the growing interest in nonelite cultures, the classical tradition in what is now sometimes called the early modern period has had to share the scholarly stage with an ever-increasing number of other areas of inquiry, but the recent burst of activity in reception studies has given the classical heritage a new lease on life along with a way to engage with the more theoretical discourse that has flourished in other areas of Renaissance studies over the past generation.

The Concept “Fact”: Legal Origins and Cultural Diffusion

1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Experimental Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Third ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Fact Finding

Facts are something we take for granted, at least most of the time. As ordinary individuals we assume that there are knowable facts, for instance, that the dog chewed the drapes, that England exists, that it rained yesterday, or that babies cry. If, as scholars, that is as historians, social scientists, and natural scientists, we are more aware of the problematical nature of “facts” we nevertheless tend to establish and use facts rather unselfconsciously in our work. On this occasion I want to look at the evolution of the concept of “fact,” and in particular the way “fact” entered English natural philosophy. I will attempt to show that the concept of “fact” or “matter of fact,” so prominent in the English empirical tradition, is an adaptation or borrowing from another discipline—jurisprudence, and that many of the assumptions and much of the technology of fact-finding in law were carried over into the experimental science of the seventeenth century.My paper has three parts. The first discusses the nature of legal facts and fact-finding in the early modern period, focusing on the distinction between “matters of fact” and “matters of law,” the emphasis on first hand testimony by credible witnesses, the preference for direct testimony over inference, and legal efforts to create and maintain impartial proceedings. The second portion attempts to show how legal methods and assumptions were adopted by early modern historiographers and other fact-oriented reporters. The third section attempts to show how the legally constructed concept of “fact” or “matter of fact” was transferred to natural history and natural philosophy and generalized in Locke's empirical philosophy.

Jacques Rohault and Cartesian Experimentalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 387-401
Author(s):  
Mihnea Dobre
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Practical Mathematics ◽  
One Year ◽  
Mature Work ◽  
Early Activity

This chapter explores the intellectual development of Jacques Rohault—although not considered one of the leading figures of the early modern period, well known among historians of science. It attempts to evaluate Rohault’s Cartesianism and to present it in a more nuanced manner than it is usually illustrated in the literature. Focusing on his mature work, published only one year before his death in 1672, but also referring to his earlier activities in Paris and to the publication of his posthumous works, the chapter argues that his “Cartesianism” came rather late in his thinking, while his early activity concerns mathematics and mechanics. The reading endorsed in this chapter opens a fresh perspective on Rohault’s experimentalism, suggesting a transition from practical mathematics to Cartesian natural philosophy.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Universe

BENEDICT DE SPINOZA was one of the most important philosophers of the early modern period and one of the most systematic. Before his death in 1677, at the age of forty-four, he developed a comprehensive conception of the universe and of the place of humanity within it, one that offers distinctive and powerful answers to many of the most fundamental questions that human beings face about how to think, feel, and act....

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