Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750

Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher:

Published: 2001-10-10

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13:

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The authors explore the ways in which European naturalists, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, used oddities and marvels to envision and explain the world.


Book Synopsis Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750 by : Lorraine Daston

Download or read book Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750 written by Lorraine Daston and published by . This book was released on 2001-10-10 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors explore the ways in which European naturalists, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, used oddities and marvels to envision and explain the world.


Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750

Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1998-05

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13:

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Discusses how European scientists from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment used wonders, monsters, curiosities, marvels, and other phenomena to envision the natural world.


Book Synopsis Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750 by : Lorraine Daston

Download or read book Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750 written by Lorraine Daston and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-05 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses how European scientists from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment used wonders, monsters, curiosities, marvels, and other phenomena to envision the natural world.


Against Nature

Against Nature

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-05-28

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 0262353814

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A pithy work of philosophical anthropology that explores why humans find moral orders in natural orders. Why have human beings, in many different cultures and epochs, looked to nature as a source of norms for human behavior? From ancient India and ancient Greece, medieval France and Enlightenment America, up to the latest controversies over gay marriage and cloning, natural orders have been enlisted to illustrate and buttress moral orders. Revolutionaries and reactionaries alike have appealed to nature to shore up their causes. No amount of philosophical argument or political critique deters the persistent and pervasive temptation to conflate the “is” of natural orders with the “ought” of moral orders. In this short, pithy work of philosophical anthropology, Lorraine Daston asks why we continually seek moral orders in natural orders, despite so much good counsel to the contrary. She outlines three specific forms of natural order in the Western philosophical tradition—specific natures, local natures, and universal natural laws—and describes how each of these three natural orders has been used to define and oppose a distinctive form of the unnatural. She argues that each of these forms of the unnatural triggers equally distinctive emotions: horror, terror, and wonder. Daston proposes that human reason practiced in human bodies should command the attention of philosophers, who have traditionally yearned for a transcendent reason, valid for all species, all epochs, even all planets.


Book Synopsis Against Nature by : Lorraine Daston

Download or read book Against Nature written by Lorraine Daston and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pithy work of philosophical anthropology that explores why humans find moral orders in natural orders. Why have human beings, in many different cultures and epochs, looked to nature as a source of norms for human behavior? From ancient India and ancient Greece, medieval France and Enlightenment America, up to the latest controversies over gay marriage and cloning, natural orders have been enlisted to illustrate and buttress moral orders. Revolutionaries and reactionaries alike have appealed to nature to shore up their causes. No amount of philosophical argument or political critique deters the persistent and pervasive temptation to conflate the “is” of natural orders with the “ought” of moral orders. In this short, pithy work of philosophical anthropology, Lorraine Daston asks why we continually seek moral orders in natural orders, despite so much good counsel to the contrary. She outlines three specific forms of natural order in the Western philosophical tradition—specific natures, local natures, and universal natural laws—and describes how each of these three natural orders has been used to define and oppose a distinctive form of the unnatural. She argues that each of these forms of the unnatural triggers equally distinctive emotions: horror, terror, and wonder. Daston proposes that human reason practiced in human bodies should command the attention of philosophers, who have traditionally yearned for a transcendent reason, valid for all species, all epochs, even all planets.


Science and the Secrets of Nature

Science and the Secrets of Nature

Author: William Eamon

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 0691214611

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By explaining how to sire multicolored horses, produce nuts without shells, and create an egg the size of a human head, Giambattista Della Porta's Natural Magic (1559) conveys a fascination with tricks and illusions that makes it a work difficult for historians of science to take seriously. Yet, according to William Eamon, it is in the "how-to" books written by medieval alchemists, magicians, and artisans that modern science has its roots. These compilations of recipes on everything from parlor tricks through medical remedies to wool-dyeing fascinated medieval intellectuals because they promised access to esoteric "secrets of nature." In closely examining this rich but little-known source of literature, Eamon reveals that printing technology and popular culture had as great, if not stronger, an impact on early modern science as did the traditional academic disciplines.


Book Synopsis Science and the Secrets of Nature by : William Eamon

Download or read book Science and the Secrets of Nature written by William Eamon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By explaining how to sire multicolored horses, produce nuts without shells, and create an egg the size of a human head, Giambattista Della Porta's Natural Magic (1559) conveys a fascination with tricks and illusions that makes it a work difficult for historians of science to take seriously. Yet, according to William Eamon, it is in the "how-to" books written by medieval alchemists, magicians, and artisans that modern science has its roots. These compilations of recipes on everything from parlor tricks through medical remedies to wool-dyeing fascinated medieval intellectuals because they promised access to esoteric "secrets of nature." In closely examining this rich but little-known source of literature, Eamon reveals that printing technology and popular culture had as great, if not stronger, an impact on early modern science as did the traditional academic disciplines.


Histories of Scientific Observation

Histories of Scientific Observation

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-02

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0226136787

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Includes bibliographical referrences and index.


Book Synopsis Histories of Scientific Observation by : Lorraine Daston

Download or read book Histories of Scientific Observation written by Lorraine Daston and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-02 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes bibliographical referrences and index.


Instruments in Art and Science

Instruments in Art and Science

Author: Helmar Schramm

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 9783110202403

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Dieser Band versammelt originäre Beiträge am Schnittpunkt von Philosophie, Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Kultur- und Theaterwissenschaft. Auf der Grundlage von Falluntersuchungen zum 17. Jahrhundert trägt er zum Verständnis der Rolle bei, die Instrumente im Schnittfeld von Wissenschaft und Kunst spielen. Die Beiträge verfolgen dabei die Hypothese, dass die Entwicklung und Gestaltung von Instrumenten wesentlich zur Eröffnung neuer Felder des Wissens, zur Entstehung neuer kultureller Praktiken, aber auch zur Abgrenzung bestimmter Genres, Methoden und Disziplinen beiträgt. Diese Perspektive führt die Beiträge dieses Bandes dazu, auf neue Weise das, was ein Instrument überhaupt ausmacht, zu durchdenken und eine Reihe von Grundfragen zur Bestimmung des Instrumentes zu erarbeiten: Welche Handlungen verkörpert das Instrument? Welche Handlungen werden durch das Instrument ermöglicht? Wann werden Untersuchungsobjekte ihrerseits Instrumente? Welche Fähigkeiten setzt der Instrumentengebrauch voraus, welche produziert er? Durch die Kombination neuer theoretischer Modelle und historischer Fallstudien, durch den detailgenauen Nachweis des gegenseitigen Einflusses von Kunst und Wissenschaft am Schnittpunkt des Instrumentes betritt dieser Band Neuland. Er ist von großem Wert für alle, die sich für die Vorgeschichte unsere instrumentengeleiteten Wahrnehmung interessieren. Zu den Autoren des Bandes zählen neben den Herausgebern Jörg Jochen Berns, Olaf Breidbach, Georges Didi-Huberman, Peter Galison, Sybille Krämer, Dieter Mersch, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann und Otto Sibum.


Book Synopsis Instruments in Art and Science by : Helmar Schramm

Download or read book Instruments in Art and Science written by Helmar Schramm and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dieser Band versammelt originäre Beiträge am Schnittpunkt von Philosophie, Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Kultur- und Theaterwissenschaft. Auf der Grundlage von Falluntersuchungen zum 17. Jahrhundert trägt er zum Verständnis der Rolle bei, die Instrumente im Schnittfeld von Wissenschaft und Kunst spielen. Die Beiträge verfolgen dabei die Hypothese, dass die Entwicklung und Gestaltung von Instrumenten wesentlich zur Eröffnung neuer Felder des Wissens, zur Entstehung neuer kultureller Praktiken, aber auch zur Abgrenzung bestimmter Genres, Methoden und Disziplinen beiträgt. Diese Perspektive führt die Beiträge dieses Bandes dazu, auf neue Weise das, was ein Instrument überhaupt ausmacht, zu durchdenken und eine Reihe von Grundfragen zur Bestimmung des Instrumentes zu erarbeiten: Welche Handlungen verkörpert das Instrument? Welche Handlungen werden durch das Instrument ermöglicht? Wann werden Untersuchungsobjekte ihrerseits Instrumente? Welche Fähigkeiten setzt der Instrumentengebrauch voraus, welche produziert er? Durch die Kombination neuer theoretischer Modelle und historischer Fallstudien, durch den detailgenauen Nachweis des gegenseitigen Einflusses von Kunst und Wissenschaft am Schnittpunkt des Instrumentes betritt dieser Band Neuland. Er ist von großem Wert für alle, die sich für die Vorgeschichte unsere instrumentengeleiteten Wahrnehmung interessieren. Zu den Autoren des Bandes zählen neben den Herausgebern Jörg Jochen Berns, Olaf Breidbach, Georges Didi-Huberman, Peter Galison, Sybille Krämer, Dieter Mersch, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann und Otto Sibum.


Science in the Archives

Science in the Archives

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-04-04

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 022643253X

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Archives bring to mind rooms filled with old papers and dusty artifacts. But for scientists, the detritus of the past can be a treasure trove of material vital to present and future research: fossils collected by geologists; data banks assembled by geneticists; weather diaries trawled by climate scientists; libraries visited by historians. These are the vital collections, assembled and maintained over decades, centuries, and even millennia, which define the sciences of the archives. With Science in the Archives, Lorraine Daston and her co-authors offer the first study of the important role that these archives play in the natural and human sciences. Reaching across disciplines and centuries, contributors cover episodes in the history of astronomy, geology, genetics, philology, climatology, medicine, and more—as well as fundamental practices such as collecting, retrieval, and data mining. Chapters cover topics ranging from doxology in Greco-Roman Antiquity to NSA surveillance techniques of the twenty-first century. Thoroughly exploring the practices, politics, economics, and potential of the sciences of the archives, this volume reveals the essential historical dimension of the sciences, while also adding a much-needed long-term perspective to contemporary debates over the uses of Big Data in science.


Book Synopsis Science in the Archives by : Lorraine Daston

Download or read book Science in the Archives written by Lorraine Daston and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archives bring to mind rooms filled with old papers and dusty artifacts. But for scientists, the detritus of the past can be a treasure trove of material vital to present and future research: fossils collected by geologists; data banks assembled by geneticists; weather diaries trawled by climate scientists; libraries visited by historians. These are the vital collections, assembled and maintained over decades, centuries, and even millennia, which define the sciences of the archives. With Science in the Archives, Lorraine Daston and her co-authors offer the first study of the important role that these archives play in the natural and human sciences. Reaching across disciplines and centuries, contributors cover episodes in the history of astronomy, geology, genetics, philology, climatology, medicine, and more—as well as fundamental practices such as collecting, retrieval, and data mining. Chapters cover topics ranging from doxology in Greco-Roman Antiquity to NSA surveillance techniques of the twenty-first century. Thoroughly exploring the practices, politics, economics, and potential of the sciences of the archives, this volume reveals the essential historical dimension of the sciences, while also adding a much-needed long-term perspective to contemporary debates over the uses of Big Data in science.


Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence

Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence

Author: Katharine Park

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1400855004

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Katharine Park has written a social, intellectual, and institutional history of medicine in Florence during the century after the Black Death of 1348. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Book Synopsis Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence by : Katharine Park

Download or read book Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence written by Katharine Park and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katharine Park has written a social, intellectual, and institutional history of medicine in Florence during the century after the Black Death of 1348. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Author: R.J.W. Evans

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1351946668

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'Curiosity' and 'wonder' are topics of increasing interest and importance to Renaissance and Enlightenment historians. Conspicuous in a host of disciplines from history of science and technology to history of art, literature, and society, both have assumed a prominent place in studies of the Early Modern period. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to investigate the various manifestations of, and relationships between, 'curiosity' and 'wonder' from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Focused case studies on texts, objects and individuals explore the multifaceted natures of these themes, highlighting the intense fascination and continuing scrutiny to which each has been subjected over three centuries. From instances of curiosity in New World exploration to the natural wonders of 18th-century Italy, Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment locates its subjects in a broad geographical and disciplinary terrain. Taken together, the essays presented here construct a detailed picture of two complex themes, demonstrating the extent to which both have been transformed and reconstituted, often with dramatic results.


Book Synopsis Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment by : R.J.W. Evans

Download or read book Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment written by R.J.W. Evans and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Curiosity' and 'wonder' are topics of increasing interest and importance to Renaissance and Enlightenment historians. Conspicuous in a host of disciplines from history of science and technology to history of art, literature, and society, both have assumed a prominent place in studies of the Early Modern period. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to investigate the various manifestations of, and relationships between, 'curiosity' and 'wonder' from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Focused case studies on texts, objects and individuals explore the multifaceted natures of these themes, highlighting the intense fascination and continuing scrutiny to which each has been subjected over three centuries. From instances of curiosity in New World exploration to the natural wonders of 18th-century Italy, Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment locates its subjects in a broad geographical and disciplinary terrain. Taken together, the essays presented here construct a detailed picture of two complex themes, demonstrating the extent to which both have been transformed and reconstituted, often with dramatic results.


Objectivity

Objectivity

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-02-02

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1942130619

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Objectivity has a history, and it is full of surprises. In Objectivity, Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison chart the emergence of objectivity in the mid-nineteenth-century sciences — and show how the concept differs from alternatives, truth-to-nature and trained judgment. This is a story of lofty epistemic ideals fused with workaday practices in the making of scientific images. From the eighteenth through the early twenty-first centuries, the images that reveal the deepest commitments of the empirical sciences — from anatomy to crystallography — are those featured in scientific atlases: the compendia that teach practitioners of a discipline what is worth looking at and how to look at it. Atlas images define the working objects of the sciences of the eye: snowflakes, galaxies, skeletons, even elementary particles. Galison and Daston use atlas images to uncover a hidden history of scientific objectivity and its rivals. Whether an atlas maker idealizes an image to capture the essentials in the name of truth-to-nature or refuses to erase even the most incidental detail in the name of objectivity or highlights patterns in the name of trained judgment is a decision enforced by an ethos as well as by an epistemology. As Daston and Galison argue, atlases shape the subjects as well as the objects of science. To pursue objectivity — or truth-to-nature or trained judgment — is simultaneously to cultivate a distinctive scientific self wherein knowing and knower converge. Moreover, the very point at which they visibly converge is in the very act of seeing not as a separate individual but as a member of a particular scientific community. Embedded in the atlas image, therefore, are the traces of consequential choices about knowledge, persona, and collective sight. Objectivity is a book addressed to any one interested in the elusive and crucial notion of objectivity — and in what it means to peer into the world scientifically.


Book Synopsis Objectivity by : Lorraine Daston

Download or read book Objectivity written by Lorraine Daston and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Objectivity has a history, and it is full of surprises. In Objectivity, Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison chart the emergence of objectivity in the mid-nineteenth-century sciences — and show how the concept differs from alternatives, truth-to-nature and trained judgment. This is a story of lofty epistemic ideals fused with workaday practices in the making of scientific images. From the eighteenth through the early twenty-first centuries, the images that reveal the deepest commitments of the empirical sciences — from anatomy to crystallography — are those featured in scientific atlases: the compendia that teach practitioners of a discipline what is worth looking at and how to look at it. Atlas images define the working objects of the sciences of the eye: snowflakes, galaxies, skeletons, even elementary particles. Galison and Daston use atlas images to uncover a hidden history of scientific objectivity and its rivals. Whether an atlas maker idealizes an image to capture the essentials in the name of truth-to-nature or refuses to erase even the most incidental detail in the name of objectivity or highlights patterns in the name of trained judgment is a decision enforced by an ethos as well as by an epistemology. As Daston and Galison argue, atlases shape the subjects as well as the objects of science. To pursue objectivity — or truth-to-nature or trained judgment — is simultaneously to cultivate a distinctive scientific self wherein knowing and knower converge. Moreover, the very point at which they visibly converge is in the very act of seeing not as a separate individual but as a member of a particular scientific community. Embedded in the atlas image, therefore, are the traces of consequential choices about knowledge, persona, and collective sight. Objectivity is a book addressed to any one interested in the elusive and crucial notion of objectivity — and in what it means to peer into the world scientifically.