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 appe- tite 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 tech- niques 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. (shrink)

In the poem La Luce, composed in 1685 and dedicated to Christina of Sweden, Giovanni Michele Milani propounds a mechanical and vitalist (meta-)physics of light that complies with Christian tenets by adopting a peculiar version of Democritean atomism. His lecture for the Roman Simposiaci Academy indicates the extent of Milani’s dissatisfaction with Aristotelian philosophy. While he attended the Physico-mathematical Academy and the heterodox Congresso medico romano, he nevertheless, signed La Luce – published posthumously in 1698 with a preface by Francesco (...) Redi – as “Accademico Umorista.” When we examine La Luce together with some excerpts of the unpublished work of Milani’s friend and fellow member of this literary institution – the Dialoghi eruditi by Giuseppe Giusto Guaccimanni – we are presented with an interesting cultural scenario. It would seem that some Umoristi might have joined the Queen in the effort to devise a Christian experimental philosophy which was open to alchemy. The posthumous publication of the poem may well have been triggered by the rivalry between the Umoristi and the Academy of the Arcadia. (shrink)

Kheirandish offers us a work that is both universal – for the way in which it embraces the history of science –, and is also very personal in its organization, since the author has chosen to write this history by recounting two decades of a personal research itinerary within the Arab-Persian sciences.