Pub Date : 2023-06-02DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20230066
J. Regier
Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), a preeminent natural philosopher, physician and astrologer of the sixteenth century, is known for the great diversity of his intellectual pursuits and writings. Across much of his work, we find an overriding concern with the dangers of human life, how those dangers might be foreseen, and how their effects can be mitigated. This essay begins by considering the epistemic significance of anxiety as it is described in his autobiography, the De propria vita. When Cardano had devoted so much effort to working out method and sense in medicine and astrology, why do episodes of foreknowledge in the autobiography seem so haphazard and disorienting? I use this question to examine Cardano’s views on the possibilities and limits of human foreknowledge, paying special attention to his treatise on dreams, the Somniorum Synesiorum libri quatuor, and his commentary on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.
吉罗拉莫·卡尔达诺(1501-1576)是16世纪杰出的自然哲学家、医生和占星家，以其知识追求和著作的多样性而闻名。在他的大部分作品中，我们发现了对人类生命危险的压倒一切的关注，如何预见这些危险，以及如何减轻它们的影响。这篇文章首先考虑焦虑的认识论意义，因为它是在他的自传中描述的，De propria vita。当卡尔达诺在医学和占星术中投入了如此多的精力来研究方法和意义时，为什么自传中预言的情节看起来如此偶然和迷失方向?我用这个问题来研究卡尔达诺关于人类预知的可能性和局限性的观点，特别关注他关于梦的论文，《梦与联觉》(Somniorum Synesiorum libri quatuor)，以及他对托勒密《四部曲》(Tetrabiblos)的评论。
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Pub Date : 2023-06-02DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20230065
K. Vermeir
{"title":"Education and the Cultivation of the Early Modern Self: Cultura Animi as Self-Care in Juan Luis Vives","authors":"K. Vermeir","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230065","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44328325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-02DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20230067
Silvia Manzo
In presenting self-preservation as the most general law of nature, set at the summit of the structure of the natural world, Francis Bacon characterized the universal appetite for self-preservation as an innate instinct which, in the case of living beings, is primarily associated with the emotion of fear. Bacon’s philosophy offers several techniques of self-care to manage the fear of accidents of fortune from which the existence and well-being of the self is under constant threat. This article reconstructs Bacon’s treatment of divinatory arts and their contributions to self-care. We will explore how he adopts traditional divinatory arts and reforms them: oneirocritics, physiognomy, and astrology. We will contend that Bacon’s approach to divinatory arts as techniques for self-care and the management of fortune shows some salient points shared with his natural philosophy: in both cases, the approach is hermeneutical, with the goal of exerting human power. With regard both to nature and to fortune, however, our power to modify the state of things extends only so far. The range of decisions we can make is not unlimited but encompasses only what is “in our power,” that is, what depends on us.
{"title":"Francis Bacon on Self-Care, Divination, and the Nature–Fortune Distinction","authors":"Silvia Manzo","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230067","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In presenting self-preservation as the most general law of nature, set at the summit of the structure of the natural world, Francis Bacon characterized the universal appetite for self-preservation as an innate instinct which, in the case of living beings, is primarily associated with the emotion of fear. Bacon’s philosophy offers several techniques of self-care to manage the fear of accidents of fortune from which the existence and well-being of the self is under constant threat. This article reconstructs Bacon’s treatment of divinatory arts and their contributions to self-care. We will explore how he adopts traditional divinatory arts and reforms them: oneirocritics, physiognomy, and astrology. We will contend that Bacon’s approach to divinatory arts as techniques for self-care and the management of fortune shows some salient points shared with his natural philosophy: in both cases, the approach is hermeneutical, with the goal of exerting human power. With regard both to nature and to fortune, however, our power to modify the state of things extends only so far. The range of decisions we can make is not unlimited but encompasses only what is “in our power,” that is, what depends on us.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49267454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-02DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20230064
Steven Vanden Broecke
In articulating the uses of their art, late-medieval astrologers often invoked the maxim that “the wise man will rule the stars” (sapiens dominabitur astris). However, it is by no means clear whether this invocation sought to emphasize ‘domination’ over the natural and social world, or the ontological self-government that is at stake in the pursuit of ‘wisdom’. Many historians have interpreted the past pursuit of astrology in terms of an interest in dominance over the natural and social world. Taking inspiration from a recent ‘ascetic turn’ in the history of early modern science and philosophy, however, this article argues that late-medieval astrology was approached and appreciated as an art of self-government (both in body and in soul) and uncovers what this entailed. In so doing, we also demonstrate that the undifferentiated view of astrology as a pre-modern counterpart of modern prospective knowledge practices is anachronistic.
{"title":"Astrological Self-Government at the Fifteenth-Century Court of Bourbon","authors":"Steven Vanden Broecke","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230064","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In articulating the uses of their art, late-medieval astrologers often invoked the maxim that “the wise man will rule the stars” (sapiens dominabitur astris). However, it is by no means clear whether this invocation sought to emphasize ‘domination’ over the natural and social world, or the ontological self-government that is at stake in the pursuit of ‘wisdom’. Many historians have interpreted the past pursuit of astrology in terms of an interest in dominance over the natural and social world. Taking inspiration from a recent ‘ascetic turn’ in the history of early modern science and philosophy, however, this article argues that late-medieval astrology was approached and appreciated as an art of self-government (both in body and in soul) and uncovers what this entailed. In so doing, we also demonstrate that the undifferentiated view of astrology as a pre-modern counterpart of modern prospective knowledge practices is anachronistic.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42527059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20220061
T. Cheung
Cabanis’ „Kunst der Koexistenz“ des Menschen in sozialen Ordnungen beruht auf dessen „tierischer Existenz“ als ein individuiertes physiologisches „Gesamtsystem“, das sich seinerseits aus verschiedenen, interagierenden „Reaktionszentren“ zusammensetzt und in einem bestimmten Verhältnis zur es umfassenden „Außenwelt“ steht. In diesem Aufsatz untersuche ich die Doppelstruktur physiologischer und sozialer „Koexistenz“ im Rahmen einer Existenzbedingungen und Entwicklungspotentiale umfassenden „Wissenschaft des Menschen“.
{"title":"Cabanis’ Kunst der Koexistenz lebender Systeme","authors":"T. Cheung","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20220061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20220061","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Cabanis’ „Kunst der Koexistenz“ des Menschen in sozialen Ordnungen beruht auf dessen „tierischer Existenz“ als ein individuiertes physiologisches „Gesamtsystem“, das sich seinerseits aus verschiedenen, interagierenden „Reaktionszentren“ zusammensetzt und in einem bestimmten Verhältnis zur es umfassenden „Außenwelt“ steht. In diesem Aufsatz untersuche ich die Doppelstruktur physiologischer und sozialer „Koexistenz“ im Rahmen einer Existenzbedingungen und Entwicklungspotentiale umfassenden „Wissenschaft des Menschen“.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46085986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20220060
Domenico Bertoloni Meli
While most Renaissance scholars working on compendia of learning, geography, surgery, legal history, art history, the Reformation, and botany will be familiar with the name of Johann Schott, few have appreciated the range and impact of the Strasbourg printer’s publications. Here I discuss a handful among the over two hundred books and other materials he printed: Gregor Reisch’s Margarita Philosophica; the edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia with Waldseemüller’s maps; Hans von Gersdorff, Feldtbuch der Wundarzney; and – the main focus this essay – Herbarum vivae eicones, with figures by Hans Weiditz and text by Otto Brunfels. Schott can be seen as an architect or active agent of his publications; his innovative use of images and color can be seen as having progressively developed from his early prints to his celebrated herbal.
{"title":"Images & Color: The Strasbourg Printer Johann Schott (1477–1548) and His Circle","authors":"Domenico Bertoloni Meli","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20220060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20220060","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000While most Renaissance scholars working on compendia of learning, geography, surgery, legal history, art history, the Reformation, and botany will be familiar with the name of Johann Schott, few have appreciated the range and impact of the Strasbourg printer’s publications. Here I discuss a handful among the over two hundred books and other materials he printed: Gregor Reisch’s Margarita Philosophica; the edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia with Waldseemüller’s maps; Hans von Gersdorff, Feldtbuch der Wundarzney; and – the main focus this essay – Herbarum vivae eicones, with figures by Hans Weiditz and text by Otto Brunfels. Schott can be seen as an architect or active agent of his publications; his innovative use of images and color can be seen as having progressively developed from his early prints to his celebrated herbal.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46267995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20220059
Bruno A Martinho, António Manuel Lopes Andrade
This article focuses on the analysis of a medical consilium about a rhino horn written around 1570 by the Portuguese royal physician Jorge Godines to the Spanish ambassador in Lisbon. It sheds light on the processes of knowledge production concerning rhino and unicorn horns in early modern Lisbon. Through micro-historical analysis, we will demonstrate how demand, supply, and the availability of specimens, experience, information, and intellectual networks contributed to the establishment of a specific geography of scientific knowledge around the city. The analysis hopes to contribute to the disclosure of a more heterogeneous scientific landscape in early modern Europe, where practices of knowledge production depended very much on local contacts and on the agents’ individual trajectories.
{"title":"In Search of the Unicorn’s Virtue in a Rhino Horn Cup: Consumption of Rhino Horns and the Production of Knowledge in Early Modern Lisbon","authors":"Bruno A Martinho, António Manuel Lopes Andrade","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20220059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20220059","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article focuses on the analysis of a medical consilium about a rhino horn written around 1570 by the Portuguese royal physician Jorge Godines to the Spanish ambassador in Lisbon. It sheds light on the processes of knowledge production concerning rhino and unicorn horns in early modern Lisbon. Through micro-historical analysis, we will demonstrate how demand, supply, and the availability of specimens, experience, information, and intellectual networks contributed to the establishment of a specific geography of scientific knowledge around the city. The analysis hopes to contribute to the disclosure of a more heterogeneous scientific landscape in early modern Europe, where practices of knowledge production depended very much on local contacts and on the agents’ individual trajectories.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42757592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-29DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20220054
R. Garau, Doina‐Cristina Rusu
All historians of science are familiar with the debates on the issue of action at a distance surrounding Newtonian physics.1 Even prior to Newton, however, action at a distance represented a major concern for natural philosophers and practitioners of the various arts in the early modern period.2 This is because certain phenomena – such as tides and magnetic attraction – appeared to display causation without bodily contact.3 The widespread belief in the action of remote stellar constellations and heavenly bodies provided the theoretical
{"title":"Action at a Distance in Pre-Newtonian Natural Philosophy: An Introduction","authors":"R. Garau, Doina‐Cristina Rusu","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20220054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20220054","url":null,"abstract":"All historians of science are familiar with the debates on the issue of action at a distance surrounding Newtonian physics.1 Even prior to Newton, however, action at a distance represented a major concern for natural philosophers and practitioners of the various arts in the early modern period.2 This is because certain phenomena – such as tides and magnetic attraction – appeared to display causation without bodily contact.3 The widespread belief in the action of remote stellar constellations and heavenly bodies provided the theoretical","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45412701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-29DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20220056
Christoph Sander
In 1558, the famous natural magician Giambattista della Porta was the first to allude to a method of transmitting secret messages by using manipulated magnetic compasses. Soon thereafter, this idea, known in modern historiography as ‘magnetic telegraphy’, was spelled out and advertised by many early modern scholars as a promising technology of communication by action at a distance. In 1609, Daniel Schwenter created the most sophisticated design for the fulfillment of this potential: two compass needles were to be magnetized in a highly codified procedure to establish a sympathetic bond between them. Used in a compass circumscribed by an alphabet, one needle would turn to a certain letter whenever the other needle was moved to that same letter. Through ‘sympathy’, it was thought that this could made to occur even over a distance of many miles. The idea’s first critic, the Jesuit, Leonardo Garzoni, was quick to dismiss it as charlatanry, and many later authors argued that the device could not work as there was no such ‘sympathy’ or magnetism between the two devices. Though only a fanciful pipe dream of natural magic, this pseudo-technology of a magnetic telegraph yet testifies to the imagination of early modern scholars in having prefigured the modern reality of instantaneous global communication.
1558年，著名的自然魔术师詹巴蒂斯塔·德拉·波尔塔(Giambattista della Porta)第一个提到了一种通过操纵磁罗盘传递秘密信息的方法。此后不久，这个在现代史学中被称为“磁性电报”的想法，被许多早期现代学者阐述和宣传为一种有前途的远距离通信技术。1609年，丹尼尔·施文特(Daniel Schwenter)为实现这一潜力创造了最复杂的设计:将两根罗盘针以高度规范化的程序磁化，以在它们之间建立交感神经连接。在一个由字母限定的指南针中使用，当另一个针移动到同一个字母时，一个针就会转向某个字母。人们认为，通过“同情”，即使相隔数英里，也能发生这种情况。这个想法的第一个批评者，耶稣会士莱昂纳多·加尔佐尼，很快就把它斥为骗局，许多后来的作者认为，这个设备无法工作，因为两个设备之间没有这种“共鸣”或磁力。尽管这只是自然魔法的白日梦，但这种伪磁电报技术证明了早期现代学者的想象力，他们预言了即时全球通信的现代现实。
{"title":"How to Send a Secret Message from Rome to Paris in the Early Modern Period: Telegraphy between Magnetism, Sympathy, and Charlatanry","authors":"Christoph Sander","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20220056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20220056","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In 1558, the famous natural magician Giambattista della Porta was the first to allude to a method of transmitting secret messages by using manipulated magnetic compasses. Soon thereafter, this idea, known in modern historiography as ‘magnetic telegraphy’, was spelled out and advertised by many early modern scholars as a promising technology of communication by action at a distance. In 1609, Daniel Schwenter created the most sophisticated design for the fulfillment of this potential: two compass needles were to be magnetized in a highly codified procedure to establish a sympathetic bond between them. Used in a compass circumscribed by an alphabet, one needle would turn to a certain letter whenever the other needle was moved to that same letter. Through ‘sympathy’, it was thought that this could made to occur even over a distance of many miles. The idea’s first critic, the Jesuit, Leonardo Garzoni, was quick to dismiss it as charlatanry, and many later authors argued that the device could not work as there was no such ‘sympathy’ or magnetism between the two devices. Though only a fanciful pipe dream of natural magic, this pseudo-technology of a magnetic telegraph yet testifies to the imagination of early modern scholars in having prefigured the modern reality of instantaneous global communication.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43679197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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