Science, Pseudo-science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (319 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Pseudo-science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought by : Stephen A. McKnight

Download or read book Science, Pseudo-science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought written by Stephen A. McKnight and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important interdisciplinary study, Stephen A. McKnight brings together such prominent scholars as Allen Debus, B. J. T. Dobbs, Klaus Vondung, David Walsh, and Wilbur Applebaum to discuss a major development in cultural, political, and scientific history: a new understanding of the role of magic, alchemy, and other esoteric traditions in the evolution of early modern thought. Twentieth-century historians of science have labeled these traditions "pseudo-science". In the early modern period, however, they were treasured by many philosophers, theologians, and scientists as the prisca theologia, revelations by God to the great wise men of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean, including Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, Moses, Pythogoras(sic), and Plato. Recent research has shown that these materials were earnestly studied by Ficino, Pico, Agrippa, Bruno, Campanella, and Bacon. Even the great patriarch of the Scientific Revolution, Isaac Newton, employed alchemical and theological elements in his work. Science, Pseudo-Science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought shows that "pseudo-science", especially magic and alchemy, was a crucial part of the theories and experiments that produced the scientific advances of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In addition, it shows that these traditions have a strong utopian component, depicting man as a "terrestrial god" capable of mastering nature and perfecting society. In the early modern period, this utopian theme became intertwined with the enthusiasm for scientific progress to produce the distinctly modern dream of social perfection through science. Scholars and students of history, philosophy, political science, and theology willfind this a provocative addition to our understanding of the modern world.

Science, Pseudo-Science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780795001468
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Pseudo-Science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought by : New Library Press.Net

Download or read book Science, Pseudo-Science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought written by New Library Press.Net and published by . This book was released on 2001-06 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004679146
Total Pages : 449 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century by : Coudert

Download or read book The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century written by Coudert and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-14 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If he had lived among the Greeks, he would now be numbered among the stars." So wrote Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his epitaph for Francis Mercury van Helmont. Leibniz was not the only contemporary to admire and respect van Helmont, but although famous in his own day, he has been virtually ignored by modern historians. Yet his views influenced Leibniz, contributed to the development of modern science, and fostered the kind of ecumenicalism that made the concept of toleration conceivable. The progressive nature of van Helmont's thought was based on his deep commitment to the esoteric doctrines of the Lurianic Kabbalah. With his friend Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, van Helmont edited the Kabbala Denudata (1677-1684), the largest collection of Lurianic Kabbalistic texts available to Christians up to that time. Because the subject matter of this work appears so difficult and arcane, it has never been appreciated as a significant text for understanding the emergence of modern thought. However, one can find in it the basis for the faith in science, the belief in progress, and the pluralism characteristic of later western thought. The Lurianic Kabbalah thus deserves a place it has never received in histories of western scientific and cultural developments. Although van Helmont's efforts contributed to the development of religious toleration, his experience as a prisoner of the Inquisition accused of "Judaising" reveals the problematic relations between Christians and Jews during the early-modern period. New Inquisitional documents relating to van Helmont's imprisonment will be discussed to illustrate the difficulties faced by anyone advocating philo-semitism and toleration at the time.

Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401722781
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture by : M. Goldish

Download or read book Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture written by M. Goldish and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earliest scientific studies of Jewish messianism were conducted by the scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums school, particularly Heinrich Graetz, the first great Jewish historian of the Jews since Josephus. These researches were invaluable because they utilized primary sources in print and manuscript which had been previously unknown or used only in polemics. The Wissenschaft studies themselves, however, prove to be polemics as well on closer inspection. Among the goals of this group was to demonstrate that Judaism is a rational and logical faith whose legitimacy and historical progress deserve recognition by the nations of Europe. Mystical and messianic beliefs which might undermine this image were presented as aberrations or the result of corrosive foreign influences on the Jews. Gershom Scholem took upon himself the task of returning mysticism and messianism to their rightful central place in the panorama of Jewish thought. Jewish messianism was, for Scholem, a central theme in the philosophy and life of the Jews throughout their history, shaped anew by each generation to fit its specific hopes and needs. Scholem emphasized that this phenomenon was essentially independent of messianic or millenarian trends among other peoples. For example, in discussing messianism in the early modern era Scholem describes a trunk of influence on the Jewish psyche set off by the expulsion from Spain in 1492.

The Renaissance Utopia

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317017986
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Renaissance Utopia by : Chloë Houston

Download or read book The Renaissance Utopia written by Chloë Houston and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of European utopias in context from the early years of Henry VIII’s reign to the Restoration, this book is the first comprehensive attempt since J. C. Davis’ Utopia and the Ideal Society (1981) to understand the societies projected by utopian literature from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) to the political idealism and millenarianism of the mid-seventeenth century. Where Davis concentrated on understanding utopias historically, Renaissance Utopia also seeks to make sense of utopia as a literary form, offering both a new typology of utopia and a new history of European humanist utopianism. This book examines how the utopia was transformed from an intellectual exercise in philosophical interrogation to a serious means of imagining practical social reform. In doing so it argues that the relationship between Renaissance utopia and Renaissance dialogue is crucial; the utopian mode of discourse continued to make use of aspects of dialogue even when the dialogue form itself was in decline. Exploring the ways in which utopian texts assimilated dialogue, Renaissance Utopia complements recent work by historians and literary scholars on early modern communities by providing a thorough investigation of the issues informing a way of modelling a very particular community and literary mode - the utopia.

Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800

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Publisher : OUP USA
ISBN 13 : 0195327659
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (953 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 by : Kasper von Greyerz

Download or read book Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 written by Kasper von Greyerz and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the pre-industrial societies of early modern Europe, religion was a vessel of fundamental importance in making sense of personal and collective social, cultural and spiritual exercises. This text presents Kaspar von Greyerz's important overview and interpretation of the religions and cultures of Early Modern Europe.

The Alchemical Virgin Mary in the Religious and Political Context of the Renaissance

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Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443893560
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

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Book Synopsis The Alchemical Virgin Mary in the Religious and Political Context of the Renaissance by : Urszula Szulakowska

Download or read book The Alchemical Virgin Mary in the Religious and Political Context of the Renaissance written by Urszula Szulakowska and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-05-11 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores the survival of Roman Catholic doctrine and visual imagery in the alchemical treatises composed by members of the Lutheran and Anglican confessions during the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. It discusses the reasons for such unexpected confessional survivals in a time of extreme Protestant iconoclasm and religious reform. The book presents an analysis of the manner in which Catholic doctrines concerning the Virgin Mary, the Holy Trinity and the Eucharist were an essential factor in the development of alchemical theory and illustration from the medieval period to the seventeenth century. The role of the Joachimites, radical members of the Franciscan Order, in the history of alchemy is an important issue. The Apocalypse of St. John (the Book of Revelation) and other scriptural texts and specifically Roman Catholic Marian devotions are also considered regarding their influences on late medieval alchemy and on the sixteenth and seventeenth century alchemical literature composed by Protestants. Additional issues explored here include the role played by alchemy in strengthening the leaders of the European defence against the invading Ottoman Turks, as well as the importance of the figure of the Virgin Mary as the Apocalyptic Woman in the same cause. Special consideration is given to the role played by the apocalyptic Mary within alchemical texts and pictures as an emblem of the mercurial quintessence and also in her form as the Bride of the scriptural Wisdom books which also entered alchemical discourse. Additional issues discussed in this book include the little-regarded problem of “confessional” alchemy, namely, whether there were distinct “Protestant” and “Roman Catholic” types of alchemy. The treatises under consideration include the Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (1419; 1433), the Rosarium Philosophorum (1550), Reusner’s Pandora (1582; 1588) and the Pandora of Faustius (1706), as well as the work of Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Johann Daniel Mylius, Jacob Boehme and pseudo-Nicolas Flamel, among many others. Their works are contextualised within the religious reforms instigated by Martin Luther, as well as within the unorthodox radical theology devised by Paracelsus and his alchemical followers. The Marian theology of Paracelsus is also of particular interest here.

Listening and Knowledge in Reformation Europe

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030038378
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Listening and Knowledge in Reformation Europe by : Anna Kvicalova

Download or read book Listening and Knowledge in Reformation Europe written by Anna Kvicalova and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates a host of primary sources documenting the Calvinist Reformation in Geneva, exploring the history and epistemology of religious listening at the crossroads of sensory anthropology and religion, knowledge, and media. It reconstructs the social, religious, and material relations at the heart of the Genevan Reformation by examining various facets of the city’s auditory culture which was marked by a gradual fashioning of new techniques of listening, speaking, and remembering. Anna Kvicalova analyzes the performativity of sensory perception in the framework of Calvinist religious epistemology, and approaches hearing and acoustics both as tools through which the Calvinist religious identity was constructed, and as objects of knowledge and rudimentary investigation. The heightened interest in the auditory dimension of communication observed in Geneva is studied against the backdrop of contemporary knowledge about sound and hearing in a wider European context.

Passage to Modernity

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Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780300065015
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Passage to Modernity by : Louis K. Dupré

Download or read book Passage to Modernity written by Louis K. Dupré and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did modernity begin with the Renaissance and end with post-modernism? Dupre challenges both these assumptions, discussing the roots, development and impact of modern thought and tracing the principles of modernity to the late 14th century.

New Worlds Reflected

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317087755
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis New Worlds Reflected by : Chloë Houston

Download or read book New Worlds Reflected written by Chloë Houston and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utopias have long interested scholars of the intellectual and literary history of the early modern period. From the time of Thomas More's Utopia (1516), fictional utopias were indebted to contemporary travel narratives, with which they shared interests in physical and metaphorical journeys, processes of exploration and discovery, encounters with new peoples, and exchange between cultures. Travel writers, too, turned to utopian discourses to describe the new worlds and societies they encountered. Both utopia and travel writing came to involve a process of reflection upon their authors' societies and cultures, as well as representations of new and different worlds. As awareness of early modern encounters with new worlds moves beyond the Atlantic World to consider exploration and travel, piracy and cultural exchange throughout the globe, an assessment of the mutual indebtedness of these genres, as well as an introduction to their development, is needed. New Worlds Reflected provides a significant contribution both to the history of utopian literature and travel, and to the wider cultural and intellectual history of the time, assembling original essays from scholars interested in representations of the globe and new and ideal worlds in the period from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and in the imaginative reciprocal responsiveness of utopian and travel writing. Together these essays underline the mutual indebtedness of travel and utopia in the early modern period, and highlight the rich variety of ways in which writers made use of the prospect of new and ideal worlds. New Worlds Reflected showcases new work in the fields of early modern utopian and global studies and will appeal to all scholars interested in such questions.

The Word and the World

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 0230206476
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis The Word and the World by : K. Killeen

Download or read book The Word and the World written by K. Killeen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-04-11 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the impact of biblical reading practices on scientific thought in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. It addresses the idea that the natural philosophers of the era forged their new sciences despite, rather than because of, the pervasive bible-centeredness of early modern thought.

Eschatology and the Technological Future

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317576659
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis Eschatology and the Technological Future by : Michael S. Burdett

Download or read book Eschatology and the Technological Future written by Michael S. Burdett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rapid advancement of technology has led to an explosion of speculative theories about what the future of humankind may look like. These "technological futurisms" have arisen from significant advances in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology and are drawing growing scrutiny from the philosophical and theological communities. This text seeks to contextualize the growing literature on the cultural, philosophical and religious implications of technological growth by considering technological futurisms such as transhumanism in the context of the long historical tradition of technological dreaming. Michael Burdett traces the latent religious sources of our contemporary technological imagination by looking at visionary approaches to technology and the future in seminal technological utopias and science fiction and draws on past theological responses to the technological future with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Ellul. Burdett’s argument arrives at a contemporary Christian response to transhumanism based around the themes of possibility and promise by turning to the works of Richard Kearney, Eberhard Jüngel and Jürgen Moltmann. Throughout, the author highlights points of correspondence and divergence between technological futurisms and the Judeo-Christian understanding of the future.

Invoking Angels

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Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271051434
Total Pages : 408 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Invoking Angels by : Claire Fanger

Download or read book Invoking Angels written by Claire Fanger and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A collection of essays examining medieval and early modern texts aimed at performing magic or receiving illumination via the mediation of angels. Includes discussion of Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts"--Provided by publisher.

A History of the Life Sciences, Revised and Expanded

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Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 9780203911006
Total Pages : 522 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of the Life Sciences, Revised and Expanded by : Lois N. Magner

Download or read book A History of the Life Sciences, Revised and Expanded written by Lois N. Magner and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2002-08-13 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear and concise survey of the major themes and theories embedded in the history of life science, this book covers the development and significance of scientific methodologies, the relationship between science and society, and the diverse ideologies and current paradigms affecting the evolution and progression of biological studies. The author d

Verse and Transmutation

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004254838
Total Pages : 390 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

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Book Synopsis Verse and Transmutation by : Anke Timmermann

Download or read book Verse and Transmutation written by Anke Timmermann and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-09-25 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Verse and Transmutation: A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry identifies and investigates a corpus of twenty-one anonymous Middle English recipes for the philosophers’ stone through critical editions and studies on their histories in early modern manuscripts, literature and libraries.

Alchemical Belief

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Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271078030
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Alchemical Belief by : Bruce Janacek

Download or read book Alchemical Belief written by Bruce Janacek and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did it mean to believe in alchemy in early modern England? In this book, Bruce Janacek considers alchemical beliefs in the context of the writings of Thomas Tymme, Robert Fludd, Francis Bacon, Sir Kenelm Digby, and Elias Ashmole. Rather than examine alchemy from a scientific or medical perspective, Janacek presents it as integrated into the broader political, philosophical, and religious upheavals of the first half of the seventeenth century, arguing that the interest of these elite figures in alchemy was part of an understanding that supported their national—and in some cases royalist—loyalty and theological orthodoxy. Janacek investigates how and why individuals who supported or were actually placed at the traditional center of power in England’s church and state believed in the relevance of alchemy at a time when their society, their government, their careers, and, in some cases, their very lives were at stake.

Teaching and Learning about Science

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 946091053X
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (69 download)

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Book Synopsis Teaching and Learning about Science by : Derek Hodson

Download or read book Teaching and Learning about Science written by Derek Hodson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Findings generated by recent research in science education, international debate on the guiding purposes of science education and the nature of scientific and technological literacy, official and semi-official reports on science education (including recommendations from prestigious organizations such as AAAS and UNESCO), and concerns expressed by scientists, environmentalists and engineers about current science education provision and the continuing low levels of scientific attainment among the general population, have led to some radical re-thinking of the nature of the science curriculum.