Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, 2016
This essay considers the uses made of Renaissance love theory by the seventeenth-century English ... more This essay considers the uses made of Renaissance love theory by the seventeenth-century English scholar Robert Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy (first published in 1621). It is argued that Burton’s approach is that of a ‘general scholar’, and a close examination of his sources reveal that he made use not only of the primary texts of Renaissance love theory such as the works of Marsilio Ficino and Leone Ebreo, but also the compendious works of later scholars working in medicine and law, as well as philosophy. Drawing on sources as diverse as Francesco Piccolomini’s weighty philosophical tome on civil science, Vniversa Philosophia de Moribus to a diminutive collection of Platonic commonplaces by Niccolo Liburnio, Burton’s work makes it clear that a history of the reception of Platonism in the seventeenth century needs to consider the various milieux of European general scholarship.
The manuscripts recording the ‘angelic conversations’ of the Elizabethan mathematician and philos... more The manuscripts recording the ‘angelic conversations’ of the Elizabethan mathematician and philosopher John Dee constitute an almost unique witness to sixteenth-century beliefs in angels and their supposed communications with human beings.1 While a great deal of sixteenth-century ink was expended on angelology, and while there is a wide range of surviving sixteenth-century manuscripts recording the rituals and ceremonies by which communication with angels was believed to be possible,2 Dee’s manuscripts are the fullest and most detailed account by an individual who claimed to have actually had such communications. As a record of the experience of angelic communications, Dee’s manuscripts are virtually unparalleled.3 Dee’s conversations have been the subject of numerous modern studies, beginning with Carl Kiesewetter’s cultural- historical study of Dee as a ‘Spiritist’ in 1893,4 and have become a hotly debated topic in intellectual history and the history of science.5 The main focus for these debates has been the complex relationships among magic, science and religion in the sixteenth century, a topic brought to the fore in the writings of Frances Yates and Peter J. French in the 1960s and 70s.6 While Yates’s controversial thesis regarding the role of magic in the emergence of modern science has been thoroughly addressed, the relationship between religion and magic has tended to be viewed as less problematic,7 with Yates’s distinction between ‘passive’ religion and ‘operative’ magic being largely accepted as uncontroversial. Deborah Harkness, for example, has insisted that
Cornelius Gemma and universal method. Clucas, Stephen (2008) Cornelius Gemma and universal method... more Cornelius Gemma and universal method. Clucas, Stephen (2008) Cornelius Gemma and universal method. In: Hirai, H. (ed.) Cornelius Gemma, Cosmology, Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Louvain. Bruniana & campanelliana 10. Pisa. Italy: Fabrizio Serra, pp. ...
A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptist... more A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptista van Helmont in England in the seventeenth century is the work of the mid-seventeenth-century natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. In her Philosophical Letters (1664), Cavendish offers an extended critique of Van Helmont's work (whose Ortus Medicinae had recently been translated into English by John Sadler). In this paper, I compare Cavendish's criticisms with those of Robert Boyle in his Sceptical Chymist (1661). Both Boyle and Cavendish attacked Van Helmont for the obscurity of his chymical vocabulary and concepts, and attacked his seminalism. Although their critiques had much in common, they diverged in their attitudes to Van Helmont's experiments. As an opponent of the experimental philosophy, Cavendish had little interest in the quality of Van Helmont's experimental claims, whereas Boyle was critical of their unreplicability. I also try to show that the two writers had very different polemical agendas, with Boyle defending his vision of chymistry based on a corpuscularian natural philosophy, and Cavendish being as much concerned with establishing her religious orthodoxy as with defending the truth claims of her own materialist vitalism. For Cavendish, Van Helmont was an example of the dangers of mingling theology and natural philosophy. A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptista van Helmont in England in the seventeenth century is the work of
Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, 2016
This essay considers the uses made of Renaissance love theory by the seventeenth-century English ... more This essay considers the uses made of Renaissance love theory by the seventeenth-century English scholar Robert Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy (first published in 1621). It is argued that Burton’s approach is that of a ‘general scholar’, and a close examination of his sources reveal that he made use not only of the primary texts of Renaissance love theory such as the works of Marsilio Ficino and Leone Ebreo, but also the compendious works of later scholars working in medicine and law, as well as philosophy. Drawing on sources as diverse as Francesco Piccolomini’s weighty philosophical tome on civil science, Vniversa Philosophia de Moribus to a diminutive collection of Platonic commonplaces by Niccolo Liburnio, Burton’s work makes it clear that a history of the reception of Platonism in the seventeenth century needs to consider the various milieux of European general scholarship.
The manuscripts recording the ‘angelic conversations’ of the Elizabethan mathematician and philos... more The manuscripts recording the ‘angelic conversations’ of the Elizabethan mathematician and philosopher John Dee constitute an almost unique witness to sixteenth-century beliefs in angels and their supposed communications with human beings.1 While a great deal of sixteenth-century ink was expended on angelology, and while there is a wide range of surviving sixteenth-century manuscripts recording the rituals and ceremonies by which communication with angels was believed to be possible,2 Dee’s manuscripts are the fullest and most detailed account by an individual who claimed to have actually had such communications. As a record of the experience of angelic communications, Dee’s manuscripts are virtually unparalleled.3 Dee’s conversations have been the subject of numerous modern studies, beginning with Carl Kiesewetter’s cultural- historical study of Dee as a ‘Spiritist’ in 1893,4 and have become a hotly debated topic in intellectual history and the history of science.5 The main focus for these debates has been the complex relationships among magic, science and religion in the sixteenth century, a topic brought to the fore in the writings of Frances Yates and Peter J. French in the 1960s and 70s.6 While Yates’s controversial thesis regarding the role of magic in the emergence of modern science has been thoroughly addressed, the relationship between religion and magic has tended to be viewed as less problematic,7 with Yates’s distinction between ‘passive’ religion and ‘operative’ magic being largely accepted as uncontroversial. Deborah Harkness, for example, has insisted that
Cornelius Gemma and universal method. Clucas, Stephen (2008) Cornelius Gemma and universal method... more Cornelius Gemma and universal method. Clucas, Stephen (2008) Cornelius Gemma and universal method. In: Hirai, H. (ed.) Cornelius Gemma, Cosmology, Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Louvain. Bruniana & campanelliana 10. Pisa. Italy: Fabrizio Serra, pp. ...
A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptist... more A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptista van Helmont in England in the seventeenth century is the work of the mid-seventeenth-century natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. In her Philosophical Letters (1664), Cavendish offers an extended critique of Van Helmont's work (whose Ortus Medicinae had recently been translated into English by John Sadler). In this paper, I compare Cavendish's criticisms with those of Robert Boyle in his Sceptical Chymist (1661). Both Boyle and Cavendish attacked Van Helmont for the obscurity of his chymical vocabulary and concepts, and attacked his seminalism. Although their critiques had much in common, they diverged in their attitudes to Van Helmont's experiments. As an opponent of the experimental philosophy, Cavendish had little interest in the quality of Van Helmont's experimental claims, whereas Boyle was critical of their unreplicability. I also try to show that the two writers had very different polemical agendas, with Boyle defending his vision of chymistry based on a corpuscularian natural philosophy, and Cavendish being as much concerned with establishing her religious orthodoxy as with defending the truth claims of her own materialist vitalism. For Cavendish, Van Helmont was an example of the dangers of mingling theology and natural philosophy. A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptista van Helmont in England in the seventeenth century is the work of
Authors include: John Dillon, James Hankins, Valery Rees, Unn Irene Aasdalen, Paul Richard Blum, ... more Authors include: John Dillon, James Hankins, Valery Rees, Unn Irene Aasdalen, Paul Richard Blum, Stéphane Toussaint, Ruth Clydesdale, Sarah Klitenic Wear, Brian Copenhaver, Letizia Panizza, Stephen Clucas, Peter J. Forshaw, Hiro Hirai, David Leech, Constance Blackwell.
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