Das niederländische Städtebuch des Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato (Wien 1973)

Quaerendo ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-220
Author(s):  
Peter H. Meurer

AbstractIn the first half of his life Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato (b. Vicenza 1608 - d. Vienna 1678) served as an officer in various armies. In about 1640 he embarked on a career as a publicist, and in 1664 was appointed court historian by Emperor Leopold II. Among his many works is a geographical and historical description of the Low Countries (Vienna 1673) to which 138 plans of fortresses are appended. The majority of these are copies after Blaeu and Beaulieu, and only a few are of any value as partially or wholly original sources. From the point of view of the history of science the atlas is a perfect illustration of how the leading role in urban topography gradually passed from the Dutch to the French school during the last third of the seventeenth century.

Author(s):  
Anna Kołos

The article addresses the issue of one of the more intense and captivating European scientific disputes, likewise common to Poland, in the era of the seventeenth-century transformation of knowledge formation, which centered around the possibility of the existence of vacuum, and which culminated in 1647. The fundamental aim of the article comes down to an attempt to determine a position in the scientific-cognitive debate, from which the pro and anti-Polish and European representatives of The Republic of Letters (Respublica literaria)  could voice their opinions. In the course of the analysis of the mid-seventeenth century scientific discourse, the reflections of Valeriano Magni, Torricelli, Jan Brożek, Wojciech Wijuk Kojałowicz, Blaise Pascal, Giovanni Elefantuzzi, Jacob Pierius, and Pierre Guiffart are subjected to close scrutiny. From the perspective of contextualism in the history of science, experiments demonstrating the existence of vacuum are perceived as anomalies that fall into the crisis of normal science, largely based on Aristotle’s physics. The conflict between the old and the new is not, however, presented as a battle of progression with epigonism, but merely as a contest between opposing individual views and the concept of science, which before the formation of the new paradigm was accompanied by ambiguous verification criteria.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-230
Author(s):  
Michael Segre

Abstract This article endeavors to contribute to a better understanding of the literary contexts of early biographies of scientists written during the Scientific Revolution. To what extent are these biographies influenced by stereotypes that are an inadequate fit for modern history of science? Its claim is that there was, indeed, a literary model for biographies of scientists, and that this model had deep roots in Biblical and classical literature. While the model was similar to that used in Renaissance biographies of artists, it did not fully emerge until as late as the seventeenth century.


Author(s):  
Richard Hingley

The works examined above have been explored through a chronological study based upon the four overlapping themes of civility/ Romanization, the walling out of humanity, Roman incomers, and ruination, emphasized through a reading of the sources to explore how the discovery of objects and sites has helped to inform a number of contrasting interpretations that went in and out of fashion. A number of more local and fragmented tales have also been addressed in passing and it is evident that a very different account could have been articulated if I had drawn more directly upon such ideas. Tales, such as those of Onion the Silchester Giant, Graham’s creation of a breach in the Antonine Wall, King Arthur and his ‘O’on’ at Camelon in central Scotland and the activities of the devil at Rodmarton, provide information about how local people interpreted the physical remains of the Romans in Britain. The focus on elite tales in this book should not detract from the potential of local myths, but a thorough study of such material remains to be undertaken. Instead, this book has emphasized stories that have been told about the pre- Roman and Roman history of Britain that served to develop relevant national and imperial tales. The significance of the civilizing of the ancient Britons drove a particular approach to the ancient sources during the early seventeenth century that emphasized the passing on of Roman civility to people of England (or Lowland Britain). From this point of view, the ruined Roman Walls projected the territorial limit of civility, beyond which were the lands of barbarians. Towards the end of the century, a new interpretation arose that placed emphasis on the Roman settlers, their ‘stations’, and roads, reflecting the contemporary military aspect of society while envisaging England (or Lowland Britain) as the inheritor of Roman civility. This military conception was redefined and updated during the succeeding centuries as an analogy for the extension of state control over the Scottish Highlands and later for the exploration, documentation, and domination of territories in India and elsewhere.


Author(s):  
Staffan Müller-Wille

This article explores what both historians of medicine and historians of science could gain from a stronger entanglement of their respective research agendas. It first gives a cursory outline of the history of the relationship between science and medicine since the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century. Medicine can very well be seen as a domain that was highly productive of scientific knowledge, yet in ways that do not fit very well with the historiographic framework that dominated the history of science. Furthermore, the article discusses two alternative historiographical approaches that offer ways of thinking about the growth of knowledge that fit well with the cumulative and translational patterns that characterize the development of the medical sciences, and also provide an understanding of concepts such as ‘health’ and ‘life’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-66
Author(s):  
Kevin van Bladel

AbstractIn Central Asia in the early eleventh century, the Chorasmian scholar Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī recognized that the Arabic works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were inventions of recent centuries falsely written in the name of the ancient sage of legend. He did, however, accept the existence of a historical Hermes and even attempted to establish his chronology. This article presents al-Bīrūnī’s statements about this and contextualizes his view of the Arabic Hermetica as he derived it from Arabic chronographic sources. Al-Bīrūnī’s argument is compared with the celebrated seventeenth-century European criticism of the Greek Hermetica by Isaac Casaubon. It documents a hitherto unknown but significant event in the reception history of the Hermetica and helps to illustrate al-Bīrūnī’s attitude toward the history of science.


Author(s):  
Marco Aurélio Clemente Gonçalves ◽  
Mariele Regina Pinheiro Gonçalves ◽  
Pablo Eduardo Ortiz

The discovery of x-rays, one of the most beautiful experiments ever carried out, generates numerous controversies and these, in turn, can trigger a series of counterproductive information regarding not only the History of Science but also the teaching  activity. The aim of this article is to resolve these controversies concerning what ocurred and highlight the important role of the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, highlighting not only his genius but, especially in this case in particular, his condition of second-order observer. It is not uncommon to find information in various media refering to this discovery under the claim that it was the result of a fortuitous event, and this denotes a profound lack of knowledge about the facts or a disrespect for the renowned discoverer. Such allegations about the event depreciate the extraordinary discovery that impacts humanity, from the deed  to the present. Thus, through a brief historical reconstruction, it was tried to present here what had happened judiciously. With this respect, the brilliant scientist is given the status of a second-rate observer, from the philosophical point of view. This condition resonates with the diachronic aspect of the History of Science, according to the perspective presented here, and it is also supported by the time taken by the discoverer from the beginning of his research until the end of it. Keywords: X-Ray. Second-Order Observer. History of Science. ResumoO descobrimento dos raios-x, um dos mais belos experimentos já realizados, gera inúmeras controvérsias e essas, por sua vez, podem desencadear uma série de informações contraproducentes no tangente não só a História da Ciência como também à atividade de ensino. O presente artigo tem como objetivo dirimir tais polêmicas com respeito ao ocorrido e destacar o importante papel do físico alemão Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, destacando não só sua genialidade, mas sobretudo, neste caso em particular, a sua condição de observador de segunda ordem. Não é raro encontrar em diversos meios de comunicação informações com respeito a referida descoberta sob a alegação de que a mesma fora fruto de um caso fortuito e isso denota profundo desconhecimento sobre os fatos, ou então, desrespeito com o renomado descobridor. Tais alegações sobre o sucedido depreciam a descoberta extraordinária que impacta a humanidade, desde o feito até a atualidade. Assim, através de breve reconstrução histórica, buscou-se aqui apresentar o ocorrido criteriosamente. Com este respeito passa-se a atribuir ao brilhante cientista a condição de observador de segunda ordem, do ponto de vista filosófico. Tal condição encontra ressonância no aspecto diacrônico da História da Ciência, segundo a perspectiva aqui apresentada e está amparada, também, pelo tempo empreendido pelo descobridor desde o início de sua pesquisa até a finalização da mesma. Palavras-chave: Raios-x. Observador de Segunda Ordem. História da Ciência.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA SHAPIRO

ABSTRACT:I reflect critically on the early modern philosophical canon in light of the entrenchment and homogeneity of the lineup of seven core figures: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. After distinguishing three elements of a philosophical canon—a causal story, a set of core philosophical questions, and a set of distinctively philosophical works—I argue that recent efforts contextualizing the history of philosophy within the history of science subtly shift the central philosophical questions and allow for a greater range of figures to be philosophically central. However, the history of science is but one context in which to situate philosophical works. Looking at the historical context of seventeenth-century philosophy of mind, one that weaves together questions of consciousness, rationality, and education, does more than shift the central questions—it brings new ones to light. It also shows that a range of genres can be properly philosophical and seamlessly diversifies the central philosophers of the period.


1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Crosland

So much of the history of science has been written from the point of view of the scientist or the proto-scientist that it may be salutary for the modern reader occasionally to consider how science and its early practitioners were viewed from the outside. We must not be too surprised if a pioneering activity performed by controversial agents was misunderstood or misrepresented and if what emerges is, therefore, sometimes less of a portrait than a caricature. We are concerned here much less with what natural philosophers actually did than what they were thought to have done, or what they were thought to stand for. The image is sometimes more influential than the reality. Considering that the period to be studied is one of major political and social unrest and that the principal spokesman, Edmund Burke (1729–1797), had made his reputation mainly in the arena of parliamentary politics, we can anticipate rather more polemic than dispassionate argument. In the formation of public opinion a colourful exaggeration or even an occasional sneer are often more effective than the objective exposition of a case. The spectacles through which Burke looked at his world sometimes magnified and often distorted, but they produced a view of knowledge and society shared by many of his contemporaries and of considerable subsequent influence.


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