L'ordre juridique qui se met en place, en France, aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge a encore tout récemment été l'objet de riches débats : l'auto-développement des coutumes, l'autorité des droits savants et l'interventionnisme du roi de France ont notamment été au cœur de vives controverses historiographiques. La lecture des sources est à l'origine de querelles interprétatives, auxquelles s'ajoutent des difficultés méthodologiques que rencontrent les historiens du droit. Tandis que l'historien n'a accès qu'à une proportion infime du concret, celui-ci s'efforce (...) de combler ces lacunes, parfois même à l'aide d'une projection des catégories juridiques contemporaines. Cet anachronisme des concepts – parfois couplé à un anachronisme des faits – ne constitue-t-il pas l'un des vices rédhibitoires de la discipline? Cette méthode ne présente-t-elle pas, à l'inverse, une indéniable vertu heuristique et disciplinaire? Certains estiment alors que la théorie du droit est anhistorique, quand d'autres critiquent l'emploi par les historiens des concepts contemporains, comme la hiérarchie des normes, la souveraineté ou encore l'État. Outre de telles projections, c'est le sens donné à certains signifiants médiévaux ou modernes qui peut être relativisé, comme c'est le cas notamment pour les notions de droit positif, de droit commun ou encore de loi. Ces difficultés révèlent aussi à certains égards l'ambivalence de l'histoire du droit, écartelée entre science historique et dogmatique juridique. Ce livre propose alors une réflexion épistémologique sur l'un des grands enjeux de l'historiographie juridique contemporaine : peut-on penser l'ordre juridique médiéval et moderne à partir des catégories juridiques contemporaines? (shrink)

Much has been done on the publication of original sources in Arabic during the past 30 years, but much more remains to be done. Some of the recent multiple editions are unnecessary duplication of work and therefore waste of energy. This energy could be better spent on the publication of unpublished sources, and on studies involving the contextualization of Islamic sciences. Furthermore, historians of pre-modern science should work on the popularization of their wonderful subject. This exoteric work is as (...) important as esoteric research, because the survival of the field depends on its image among various audiences outside the community of historians of science. (shrink)

In this volume of conference papers originally presented at the University of Oklahoma, a distinguished group of scholars examines episodes in the transmission of premodern science and provides new insights into its cultural, philosophical and historical significance.

This article examines the, hitherto comparatively unexplored, reception of Greek embryology by medieval Muslim jurists. The article elaborates on the views attributed to Hippocrates (d. ca. 375 BC), which received attention from both Muslim physicians, such as Avicenna (d. 1037), and their Jewish peers living in the Muslim world including Ibn Jumayʽ (d. ca. 1198) and Moses Maimonides (d. 1204). The religio-ethical implications of these Graeco-Islamic-Jewish embryological views were fathomed out by the two medieval Muslim jurists Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. (...) 1285) and Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350). By putting these medieval religio-ethical discussions into the limelight, the article aims to argue for a two-pronged thesis. Firstly, pre-modern medical ethics did exist in the Islamic tradition and available evidence shows that this field had a multidisciplinary character where the Islamic scriptures and the Graeco-Islamic-Jewish medical legacy were highly intertwined. This information problematizes the postulate claiming that medieval Muslim jurists were hostile to the so-called ‘ancient sciences’. Secondly, these medieval religio-ethical discussions remain playing a significant role in shaping the nascent field of contemporary Islamic bioethics. However, examining the exact character and scope of this role still requires further academic ventures. (shrink)

Judges were never bound by law to convict a defendant unless they considered him guilty. Yet, they could be prohibited by law from convicting a person they consider guilty due to the absence of legally prescribed or the presence of legally prohibited evidence.Evaluation of Evidence addresses the question: should the law restrict the freedom of judges in assessing the probative value of evidence in the criminal process? Tracing the treatment of evidence from pre-modern to modern times, Mirjan Damaška argues that (...) there has always been some understanding about rules regarding the use and treatment of evidence, and these rules should not be looked askance as a departure from ideal arrangements. In a time when science and technology have the ability to contribute to factual inquiry, there needs to be acceptance of rules that expand or corroborate evidence produced by our native sensory apparatus. (shrink)

Peter Harrison's Gifford Lectures demonstrate that the modern concepts of “religion” and “science” do not correspond to any fixed sphere of life in the pre-modern world. Because these terms are incommensurate and ideological, they misconstrue the past. I examine the influence and affinities of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy on Harrison's study in order to argue that Harrison's project approaches Wittgenstein's. Harrison's book is a therapeutic history, untying a knot in scholarly language. I encourage Harrison, however, to clarify how future scholars (...) can progress in their study of phenomena once termed “scientific” or “religious” without succumbing to these same mistakes. (shrink)

The paper asserts that the post-modern rejection of “modern” theoretical accounts including ethical-theoretical accounts as unacceptable meta-narratives would concur with an Aristotelian critique of contemporary ethical theories. Hence and Aristotelian critique will be similar to a post-modern critique. The paper sketches an account of what post-modernism in philosophy is and shows its similarity to Aristoteleanism in rejecting “modern” approaches in a significant way since an Aristotelian approach uses different criteria for what counts as ethical knowledge. The paper suggests that if (...) one follows the lead of Aristotle outlined in Book One Chapter Three of the Nichomachean Ethics applied ethics can be seen as similar to what Aristotle called “Rhetoric,” for in the Rhetoric Aristotle shows how one should engage in discourse about issues of the just and the good. The final section addresses the problem of how an Aristotelian approach can avoid the relativism of post-modernism. (shrink)

The separation of science and religion in modern secular culture can easily obscure the fact that in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe ideas about nature were intimately related to ideas about God. Readers of this book will find fresh and exciting accounts of a phenomenon common to both science and religion: deviation from orthodox belief. How is heterodoxy to be measured? How might the scientific heterodoxy of particular thinkers impinge on their religious views? Would heterodoxy in religion create a (...) predisposition towards heterodoxy in science? Might there be a homology between heterodox views in both domains? Such major protagonists as Galileo and Newton are re-examined together with less familiar figures in order to bring out the extraordinary richness of scientific and religious thought in the pre-modern world. (shrink)

The separation of science and religion in modern secular culture can easily obscure the fact that in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe ideas about nature were intimately related to ideas about God. Readers of this book will find fresh and exciting accounts of a phenomenon common to both science and religion: deviation from orthodox belief. How is heterodoxy to be measured? How might the scientific heterodoxy of particular thinkers impinge on their religious views? Would heterodoxy in religion create a (...) predisposition towards heterodoxy in science? Might there be a homology between heterodox views in both domains? Such major protagonists as Galileo and Newton are re-examined together with less familiar figures in order to bring out the extraordinary richness of scientific and religious thought in the pre-modern world. (shrink)

Summary To understand the present situation we must know something about its history. The ‘Rise of the West’, which grew out of the ‘European Miracle’, is a special case of cultural evolution. The development of science is an important element in this process. Cultural evolution went hand in hand with biological evolution. Evolutionary epistemology illuminates the achievements and the evolution of cognitive sensory apparatus of various species. Man's cognitive sensory apparatus is adapted to the ‘mesocosmos’, the world of medium-sized (...) dimensions. The biological structures constitute the hardware of the cognitive sensory apparatus, while certain expectations and theories, which are ontogenetically apriori, constitute the corresponding system software. A distinction is introduced between ‘primary theories’ (linked to the sensory apparatus) and ‘secondary theories’. The latter are the result of attempts to meet the demand for an explanation of phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of ‘primary theories’. Two subsets of ‘secondary theories’ are compared: spiritualistic-personalized theories and scientific theories. From the historical point of view the scientific secondary theories are but a special subset of the class of secondary theories. From the systematic point of view it is instructive to focus on a comparison of the two subsets: what do they have in common? in what respects do they differ? The rise of scientific thinking is closely linked to the ‘European Miracle’. How (and when and why) did the West grow rich? To answer this question we must first produce an explanation of the principle: theories about the consequences of institutional arrangements. Then we can give a historical explanation of why this development took place in Europe and only there. It is claimed that the secret of success, economic wealth and the first approximations to relatively free societies, was the taming of the state, the taming of cleptocracy (independent of the nature of the agency having cleptocratic appetites, be it princes or parliaments). The taming of the state is a pre-democratic achievement. Finally, the consequences of institutional arrangements for scientific progress and innovation are examined. Only if the system is market-like, will it link individual effort with reward and, through the competitive process, encourage the wide dissemination and use of new ideas. There is no tradeoff between freedom on the one hand and economic success and the growth of scientific knowledge on the other. Freedom and the ensuing flexibility is the key to the past and to the future. (shrink)

The article is an analysis of influence of science on development of modern philosophy. In first phase, Ending with kant's pre-Critical work, Occurred elaboration of philosophical implications of new conception of nature developed by science upon basis of renaissance return to neoplatonism. In its second phase, From critical kant to this century, Philosophy, Separated from science, Has remained fundamentally neoplatonic. A third phase now beginning, In which philosophy is being compelled by radical scientific developments to return to (...) inquiry into the nature of the physical. This necessitates return to essentially aristotelian basis, With far-Reaching consequences for future course of philosophy. (shrink)

Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, the alternative involves grasping the challenges that a holistic analysis (...) presents, taking account of the many different levels and paces at which societies function, and developing appropriate methods that help to integrate science and history. Often neglected elements in considerations of collapse are the perceptions and beliefs of a historical society and how a given society deals with change; an important facet of this, almost entirely ignored in the discussion, is the understanding of time held by the individuals and social groups affected by change; and from this perspective ‘collapse’ depends very much on perception, including the perceptions of the modern commentator. With this in mind, this article challenges simplistic notions of ‘collapse’ in an effort to encourage a more nuanced understanding of the impact and process of both social and environmental change on past human societies. (shrink)

A fresh, daring, and genuine alternative to the traditional story of scientific progress Explaining the world around us, and the life within it, is one of the most uniquely human drives, and the most celebrated activity of science. Good explanations are what provide accurate causal accounts of the things we wonder at, but explanation's earthly origins haven't grounded it: we have used it to account for the grandest and most wondrous mysteries in the natural world. Explanations give us a (...) sense of understanding, but an explanation that feels right doesn't mean it is true. For every true explanation, there is a false one that feels just as good. A good theory's explanations, though, have a much easier path to truth. This push for good explanations elevated science from medieval alchemy to electro-chemistry, or a pre-inertial physics to the forces underlying nanoparticles. And though the attempt to explain has existed as long as we have been able to wonder, a science timeline from pre-history to the present will reveal a steep curve of theoretical discovery that explodes around 1600, primarily in the West. Ranging over neuroscience, psychology, history, and policy, Wondrous Truths answers two fundamental questions-Why did science progress in the West? And why so quickly? J.D. Trout's answers are surprising. His central idea is that Western science rose above all others because it hit upon successive theories that were approximately true through an awkward assortment of accident and luck, geography and personal idiosyncrasy. Of course, intellectual ingenuity partially accounts for this persistent drive forward. But so too does the persistence of the objects of wonder. Wondrous Truths recovers the majesty of science, and provides a startling new look at the grand sweep of its biggest ideas. (shrink)

In this volume, Lloyd Strickland makes the key philosophical writings of maverick Enlightenment philosopher André-Pierre Le Guay de Prémontval (1716-1764) available in English for the first time. His writings contain many provocative ideas and arguments, and anticipate modern developments such as open theism, process theology, and animal theodicy.

The realism grounding St. Thomas Aquinas’s pre-modern natural science defends the reception of similitudes of the forms of things known by abstraction. Modern natural science challenges this abstractio- nist account by recasting «form» in the leading role of principle of intelligibility—instead of forms, modern science discovers laws. Thomistic realism is prima facie incompatible with this account. Following Charles De Koninck, this essay outlines a rapprochement between the epistemology of pre-modern, Thomistic natural science and its modern successor. (...) I argue that natural forms are noetic limits towards which physical laws tend, and our grasp of this tendency uses a mode of knowledge comparable to what St. Thomas termed universal in repraesentando. (shrink)

Ce qui frappe chez Spinoza, c'est une volonté constamment manifestée de se rendre maître de son destin. Fils de notable, ses qualités intellectuelles laissaient augurer d'un brillant avenir dans la communauté judéo-portugaise d'Amsterdam. Mais il éprouva le besoin d'élargir son horizon intellectuel. La preuve en est son désir d'apprendre le latin, langue savante de l'Europe chrétienne. Ce fut alors la rupture avec les siens. En 1656, après avoir échappé au poignard d'un fanatique, il fut excommunié par le conseil des rabbins (...) pour hérésie. Devenu polisseur de verres optiques, Spinoza mena dès lors une vie simple et retirée, tout en restant attentif aux événements de l'époque, entouré d'un petit groupe d'amis sûrs. Spinoza fut le premier à proposer une exégèse rationaliste de la Bible, qui l'amena à formuler la distinction entre le croire et le savoir : Dieu n'est pas extérieur au monde, mais immanent à la nature, il est la Nature. Il réfuta également toute supériorité de l'âme sur le corps et substitua ainsi une éthique à la morale : il n'y a pas de Bien ni de Mal, mais du bon et du mauvais. Du Court traité à l'Éthique, en passant par le Traité théologicopolitique, Jean Préposiet a choisi de donner une vue panoramique du projet philosophique de Spinoza. Il suit pas à pas l'élaboration d'un système qui fut en même temps, pour son auteur, une manière de vivre. D'où la part centrale que tient dans l'ouvrage l'élément historique et biographique. Connu pour sa contribution à l'historiographie spinoziste internationale - Spinoza et la liberté des hommes, Bibliographie spinoziste -, Jean Préposiet est également l'auteur chez Tallandier d'une Histoire de l'anarchisme, ouvrage traduit en plusieurs langues. (shrink)

Although the notion of the crisis of European sciences has a general meaning, Husserl mainly focuses on this phenomenon in relation to the modern establishment of a mathematical natural science. However, he does not provide a definitive clarification of how its new method is specifically involved in bringing about such a crisis. Without trying to offer a faithful exegetical contribution, this paper further elaborates on Husserl’s analyses in the Krisis to give a possible answer to this question. After defining (...) the concept of crisis in general, I single out why algebraic thinking is the core of the method that essentially characterizes mathematical physics. Then, I compare this method to a case of pre-modern discipline (namely, Euclidean geometry) to show that the sedimentation of meaning at work in the progressive technization of algebra is exceptional and sufficient to explain the specificity of the modern character of the crisis of the exact sciences. The exclusively technical development of formal mathematics, in fact, elicits those shifts of meaning (such as objectivism) that phenomenology is required to amend to overcome the crisis and to establish an authentic form of knowledge. On the basis of these results, I conclude by suggesting a few consequences that are useful for the understanding of the project of phenomenology of the later Husserl. (shrink)

In early modern medicine, both green sickness and hysteria were understood to be gendered diseases, diseases of women. Green sickness, a disease of young women, was considered so serious that John Graunt, the father of English statistics, thought that in his time dozens of women died of it in London every year. One of the symptoms of hysteria was that women fell unconscious. The force of etymology and medical tradition was so strong that in one instance the gender of the (...) patient seems to have been changed by the recorder to make the case fit medical theory. (shrink)

The paper examines the relation between Foucault’s account of modern race and racism in the "Society Must Be Defended" lectures and his analysis of the emergence of the modern notion of life and its science in The Order of Things . In "Society Must Be Defended ," Foucault uses the term ‘life’ both with respect to pre-modern and modern political regimes, arguing that in the pre-modern eras there was a particular relation of sovereign power to life and death that (...) differs from the relation to life and death which prevails in the modern era. In The Order of Things , Foucault also discusses the concept of life and the historical emergence of the science of life, biology, in the nineteenth century. For Foucault, modern biological racism is a specifically scientific death sentence. The paper argues that the kind of death at issue in this modern racism must be understood in light of the new evolutionary accounts of life as a transorganismic continuity that emerge in the life sciences. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of ideology in the emergence of the empirical sciences and the evolution of philosophy. It argues that the orientation of the religious ideology, Christianity, at the epistemological and ontological levels was very instrumental in the emergence of the empirical sciences in the area dominated by the culture of the Western (Latin) church. This claim is demonstrated by an analysis of the theoretical and methodological orientation of pre-Christian Europe, the epistemological and other philo- sophical values sponsored (...) by Christianity, as well as a comparative analysis of other cultural regions where such philosophical values did not exist. The paper then explores the evolution of philosophy after the emergence of the empirical sciences. It points out that the progress of philosophy along rational lines and the generation of knowledge thereof is not equivalent to embracing the method of the empirical sciences (scientism), but rather is a rediscovery of the rational attitude bearing in mind the context in which it has to operate. (shrink)

The debate on the origins of modern humans is one of the oldest and most controversial in the field of palaeoanthropology. In the 1860s the debate was established in the evolutionary context and, as a conflict between two major schools and various sub-schools, it has continued up until the present day. The opposing schools were and still are, at best, in only partial alignment on the major scientific issues. Each of them is founded in its own metaphysics and focuses on (...) an exclusive set of observations that it is capable of explaining. It would appear, therefore, that the history and present state of modern human origins research may be interpreted, in terms of Kuhn's philosophy of science, as an example of a pre-paradigm scientific dispute. This interpretation shows the immaturity of modern human origins research and calls for the re-examination of palaeoanthropology's basic theoretical propositions as well as of this sciencie's controversial relationship with the society. (shrink)

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works of (...) Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

It is plausible to think that before the emergence of terms like “consciousness” and “Bewusstsein,” philosophers and scientists relied on intuitions about phenomena of subjective experience that we would now classify as “conscious.” In other words, pre-modern thinkers availed themselves of one or another concept of consciousness as they developed their theories of mind, perception, representation, the self, etc., although they did not attend to consciousness in its own right. In the early modern period, terminology of consciousness emerges to pick (...) out concept(s) of consciousness. This brings with it an occasion for philosophical disagreements concerning consciousness among contemporaries, on the one hand, and an occasion for us as interpreters of historical authors to better assess their views on consciousness, on the other. (shrink)

Explores some steps toward non-assimilative encounters in the "global village.".

Richly illustrated study drawing on art, literature and science to explore Victorian attitudes towards sight.

"... some very serious critiques of French existential phenomenology and post-structuralism... the contributors offer some refreshingly new insights into some tried and 'true' philosophical texts and more recent works of literary theory." -- Philosophy and Literature "By bridging the gap between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the authors of The Thinking Muse: Feminism and the Modern French Philosophy largely overcome the cultural polarity between 'male thinker' and 'female muse'." -- Ethics "These engaging essays by American Feminists bring toether feminist philosophy, existential (...) phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. The editors provide an excellent introductory overview, making this an ideal book for courses in feminist theory and philosophy and modern French thought." -- Philosopher's Index "The concerns raised in this volume are substantial.... a solid addition to the canon of American feminist philosophy." -- Philosophy and Literature "... a forum for feminist appropriations of existential and post-structuralist philosophy." -- Canadian Philosophical Reviews Marking a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse (female) and thinker (male), The Thinking Muse revises the scope and methods of philosophical reflection. These engaging essays by American feminists bring together feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

Past and Present brings together almost two dozen newly collected essays by the distinguished American historian and cultural critic, Gertrude Himmelfarb. Their common theme is the intriguing, often unexpected ways in which the past illuminates the present. The novelist William Faulkner wrote that "The past is never dead. It's not even past." In these essays, Himmelfarb shows the truth of this statement. She helps us find a new perspective on contemporary issues by bringing to bear a trenchant analysis of debates (...) and thinkers of the past. She allows the past to inform the present without distorting either past or present. The essays, unified by the common theme of present and past, are varied. The topics range from the disorders of modern democracy to the challenges of postmodernism, from the Victorian ethos to the Jewish question. The thinkers range from Edmund Burke to Leo Strauss, from Cardinal Newman to Lionel Trilling. The political figures range from Benjamin Disraeli to Winston Churchill, from the American founders to Queen Elizabeth II. The underlying premise and principle of the essays is the conviction that the pursuit of knowledge and truth, however difficult or discomforting, eminently matters, in the "practical life,"as Trilling put it,as in the "moral life."Past and Presentis a notable contribution to this endeavor-to understanding where we have been, where we are now, and where we may be-or should be-going. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores how our thinking about time shapes epistemological and ontological understandings of the world. It considers the idea of modernity as constituted by the ancient/modern binary through an examination of Montesquieu’s and Benjamin Constant’s development of this binary in relation to their understandings of commerce, the law of nations and conquest, political rule and freedom in the context of European colonial empire. Modernity demarcates a break in (historical) time between a past and a present that extends into (...) a future. This rupture plays a role in distinctions between modern European and pre-modern non-European societies. The ancient/modern binary underpins conceptions of collective and individual liberty. It associates modernity with individual liberty, progress, reason and science. I analyse how this binary operated across space to categorise various societies as not modern, pre-modern or less developed according to levels of scientific, technological, political and economic progress in Montesquieu’s thought and through Constant’s silences. This article develops an innovative reading of the ancient/modern binary in French political thought. (shrink)

The Fifth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science was held at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 27 August to 2 September 1975. The Congress was held under the auspices of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, and was sponsored by the National Research Council of Canada and the University of Western Ontario. As those associated closely with the work of the Division (...) over the years know well, the work undertaken by its members varies greatly and spans a number of fields not always obviously related. In addition, the volume of work done by first rate scholars and scientists in the various fields of the Division has risen enormously. For these and related reasons it seemed to the editors chosen by the Divisional officers that the usual format of publishing the proceedings of the Congress be abandoned in favour of a somewhat more flexible, and hopefully acceptable, method of pre sentation. Accordingly, the work of the invited participants to the Congress has been divided into four volumes appearing in the University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science. The volumes are entitled, Logic, Foundations of Mathematics and Computability Theory, Foun dational Problems in the Special Sciences, Basic Problems in Methodol ogy and Linguistics, and Historical and Philosophical Dimensions of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. (shrink)

The comparative method, closely identified with Darwinian evolutionary biology, also has a long pre-Darwinian history. The method derives its scientific power from its ability to interpret comparative observations with reference to a theory of relatedness among the entities being compared. Such scientifically powerful strong comparison is distinguished from weak comparison, which lacks such theoretical grounding. This paper examines the history of the strong comparison permitted by the comparative method from the early modern period to the threshold of the Darwinian revolution (...) in the mid nineteenth century. It interprets the work of early pioneers such as Belon, Willis, Perrault, and Tyson from this methodological perspective, rather than focusing on their particular anatomical findings. Although these early writers made formative scientific contributions through their comparative investigations, the more theoretically grounded application of the comparative method by Geoffroy, Cuvier, and Owen was instrumental in laying the foundation for its later incorporation into Darwinian evolutionary theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Emergence of Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210–1685Helen HattabStephen Gaukroger. The Emergence of Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210–1685. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Pp. ix + 563. Cloth, $65.00.The sheer variety of both cognitive and non-cognitive contributions to the emergence of a scientific culture in the West and the complex relations to pre-modern developments that scholars have brought to (...) light over the past decades have put into question both the Enlightenment and Kuhnian accounts of the scientific revolution. Gaukroger’s work performs the ambitious but indispensable task of beginning to formulate an alternative way of understanding this momentous transition, one based on recent scholarship. Gaukroger treats science as both “a particular kind of cognitive product, and as a particular kind of cultural product” (3). His overarching goal is to show that examining the interrelations between the two can teach us something about modernity that focusing on one, to the exclusion of the other, cannot. He argues that the enduring success of Western science was not due to its advances (there were previous advances in other cultures), but due to its ability to consolidate. Successful consolidation promotes the cognitive claims of science and builds a scientific culture to legitimate them. Hence, throughout this book, Gaukroger explores how particular advances (e.g., in astronomy and natural philosophy) were legitimated by their ability to reinforce revelation, unify different disciplines, and exemplify the scientific persona. Since these means of consolidation, unlike methods of scientific discovery, rely on both cultural forces and intellectual advances, Gaukroger makes good on his promise to teach us something that intellectual and cultural histories taken separately cannot.Gaukroger characterizes Western modernity in terms of the eventual assimilation of all cognitive values to scientific ones. He targets the Enlightenment view which, as a result of this assimilation, reinterprets the success of scientific practices over others in ahistorical terms. On this view, the longstanding success of science results solely from cognitive advances, such as the commitment to objectivity (science was assumed to have dissociated itself from religion), the employment of adversarial, non-dogmatic arguments, and the development of quantitative and empirical methods. Gaukroger shows instead that: (1) early modern Epicurean and mechanist natural philosophies forged a closer connection to religious doctrine in response to the ultimate failure to maintain the Thomist reconciliation of theology with Aristotelian natural philosophy; (2) the threat posed by the naturalism of Renaissance philosophers like Pomponazzi led to a privileging of systematization over innovation in late Scholasticism, as well as a renewed interest in natural history, which later spawned the enterprise of physico-theology; (3) the adversarial character of ancient means of cultivating wisdom was rejected in favor of gentlemanly cooperation. This went hand-in-hand with a gradual reassignment of the aims of enquiry from the attainment of a transcendent truth to a productive truth, and the corresponding construction, by Bacon and others, of the scientific persona, which embodied the cognitive virtue of objectivity rather than the ethical virtue of ancient and medieval wisdom. Finally, (4) Beeckman and Descartes failed to achieve the quantification of natural philosophy they aimed for, in large part due to their conflicting commitment to corpuscularian matter theory. The successful replacement of Aristotelian causal explanations in natural philosophy by mechanistic explanations lay in mechanism’s ability to unify all causal explanation, rather than its ability to offer quantitative [End Page 640] explanations of various natural phenomena. Similarly, the experimental methods of Gilbert and Boyle were at first hotly contested, the eventual success of non-foundationalist, empirical approaches owing more to the unifying role played by the experiments of Gilbert, Boyle, and Newton. Although Boyle’s experimental philosophy included a mechanistic matter theory, unlike strict mechanists, experimentalists used experiments to focus and unify heterogeneous phenomena rather than grounding explanations in matter theory.Gaukroger presents the relevant cultural developments and theoretical advances with an impressive degree of detail and accuracy. Readers will gain insights about everything from the differences between early medieval Augustinianism and late medieval Aristotelianism, to Spinozism versus its late seventeenth-century alternatives. Scholars with expertise in specific areas will no doubt take issue with individual claims... (shrink)

What is the body? How was it culturally constructed, conceived, and cultivated before and after the advent of rationalism and modern science? This interdisciplinary study elaborates a cultural genealogy of the body and its legacies to modernity by tracing its crucial redefinition from a live anatomical entity to disembodied, mechanical and virtual analogs. The study ranges from Baroque, pre-Cartesian interpretations of body and embodiment, to the Cartesian elaboration of ontological difference and mind-body dualism, and it concludes with the parodic (...) and violent aftermath of this legacy to the French Enlightenment. It engages work by philosophical authors such as Montaigne, Descartes and La Mettrie, as well as literary works by d'Urfé, Corneille and the Marquis de Sade. The examination of sexuality and the emergence of sexual difference as a dominant mode of embodiment are central to the book's overall design. The work is informed by philosophical accounts of the body (Nietzsche, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty), by feminist theory (Butler, Irigaray, Bordo), as well as by literary and cultural historians (Scarry, Stewart, Bynum, etc.) and historians of science (Canguilhem, Pagel, and Temkin), among others. It will appeal to scholars of literature, philosophy, French studies, critical theory, feminist theory, cultural historians and historians of science and technology. Dalia Judovitz is Professor of French, Emory University. She is also author of Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit and Subjectivity and Representation in Decartes: The Origins of Modernity. (shrink)

L'auteur de cet essai s'attache à montrer, par l'étude des grands penseurs du XVIe et du XVIIe siècle —- Ficin, Nicolas de Cues, Galilée, Pascal, Descartes, Luther, Calvin, Leibniz -—, que l'histoire n'est pas livrée au hasard mais obéit à des déterminismes complexes auxquels l'homme moderne peut d'autant moins échapper qu'il pense, contre maints bons esprits des siècles passés, être libre et voué au bonheur, alors que l'accomplissement sans fin de l'Occident ne peut avoir que des conséquences tragiques. Un livre (...) d'Estienne et Liébault —- L'Agriculture et Maison rustique -— qui parut pour la première fois en 1564 et dont la dernière édition date de 1689 est ici le contrepoint qui permet d'aborder, à travers science, religion, philosophie et hermétisme, les mondes —- Renaissance, Grand Siècle - qui tournent autour de la Maison rustique des mouches à miel dont les chapitres sont reproduits à la fin de l'ouvrage. Les idées de ces mondes, d'où sont-elles venues? D'ici et d'ailleurs? D'une procession allant des principes aux techniques, du nombre aux mathématiques utilitaires, du temps cyclique au temps de l'histoire, ce dont témoignerait l'hexagone de cire des abeilles que Kepler tenait pour un archétype? En recourant à la doctrine de la prédestination, version théologique du déterminisme scientifique, l'auteur entend mettre en évidence le caractère inéluctable du paradigme qui se cristallise à la Renaissance pour rendre manifeste aujourd'hui notre peu de possibles, sinon celui de nous regarder être agis. (shrink)

Fengshui (also called Chinese geomancy) is a pre-modern tradition rooted in Chinese civilization. Chinese civilization is pre-modern and practice-oriented due to the domination of political power in China. In contrast, Western civilization is modernized. It witnessed the development of religion in ancient times, and the growth of science through reason (logic) and experiment in modern times. It is both rational and transcendental. It seems that Fengshui is an intermediate between science and religion. It is not science although (...) its focus is on this world, for it does not seek knowledge and truth. It is not religion although it is mystical, for it does not seek transcendence and good. It is not only superstition (or magic), but also a mystical trade that centers on secular benefits. (shrink)

In the 18th century, the pre-modern Judeo-Greco-Christian problem of freedom and determinism is transformed by Kant into the modern problem of the freedom of human agency in the natural and cultural worlds of deterministic structures; it is this version of the freedom and determinism issue which centres the Science and Humanism debates, and thus marks the history of the social sciences. Anthony Giddens is credited with providing the new vocabulary of ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ in order to formulate the problem (...) of freedom and determinism in those terms, thus making this formulation fruitful. In this book, Charles R. Varela proposes that Kant originally formulated this problem, and makes a series of wide-ranging and groundbreaking observations based on Kant's metaphysics of realism which enables Varela to propose a solution to the structure/agency problem. Subjects revisited in this book include: · "Giddens’ Call" · The stalemate of the social and psychological sciences · The determinist tradition of modern science · Postmodernism This breadth of themes, drawn together by Varela with his work on Kant, fully realizes Giddens’ principle that human agency is a real causal force. It is Kant's conception of causal power that is the causal force Giddens' has called for. _Science For Humanism: The Recovery of Human Agency_ will be of particular interest to students of humanism and therefore realism, Kant and Giddens. (shrink)