Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and His Contemporaries

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Claus Zittel
BRILL, 2008 - Biography & Autobiography - 577 pages
The essays in the present volume attempt to historically reconstruct the various dependencies of philosophical and scientific knowledge of the material and technical culture of the early modern era and to draw systematic conclusions for the writing of early modern history of science. The divisive transformation of humanist scholarly culture, the Scholastic school philosophy, as well as magic in the form of a philosophy of practice is always associated with the work of Francis Bacon. All of these essays in this volume reflect the close interaction between technical models and knowledge production in natural philosophy, natural history and epistemology. It becomes clear that the technological developments of the early modern era cannot be adequately depicted in the form of a pure history of technology but rather only as part of a broader, cultural history of the sciences.

Contributors include: Todd Andrew Borlik, Arianna Borrelli, Thomas Brandstetter, Daniel Damler, Luisa Dolza, Moritz Epple, Berthold Heinecke, Dana Jalobeanu, J rgen Klein, Staffan M ller-Wille, Romano Nanni, Jarmo Pulkkinen, Pablo Schneider, Andr s Vaccari, Benjamin Wardhaugh, Sophie Weeks, and Claus Zittel.
 

Contents

Industrious Observations Grounded Conclusions and Profi table Inventions and Discoveries the Best State of That Province Technology and Culture ...
3
Francis Bacons Scientia Operativa The Tradition of the Workshops and The Secrets of Nature Jürgen Klein
21
Technical Knowledge and the Advancement of Learning Some Questions about Perfectibility and Invention Romano Nanni
51
The Weatherglass and its Observers in the Early Seventeenth Century Arianna Borrelli
67
PART II BACON MECHANICS INSTRUMENTS AND UTOPIAS
131
The Role of Mechanics in Francis Bacons Great Instauration Sophie Weeks
133
Bacons Brotherhood and its Classical Sources Producing and Communicating Knowledge in the Project of the Great Instauration Dana Jalobeanu
197
The Whale under the Microscope Technology and Objectivity in Two Renaissance Utopias Todd Andrew Borlik
231
Descartes as Bricoleur Claus Zittel
337
PART IV BACONS LEGACY THE IMPACT FOR THE ARTS AND SCIENCES
373
The Poet and the Philosopher Francis Bacon and Georg Philipp Harsdörffer Berthold Heinecke
375
Formal Causes and Mechanical Causes The Analogy of the Musical Instrument in Late SeventeenthCentury Natural Philosophy Benjamin Wardhaugh
411
The Modern Wonder and its Enemies Courtly Innovations in the Spanish Renaissance Daniel Damler
429
The Gap between Theory and Practice Hydrodynamical and Hydraulical Utopias in the 18th Century Moritz Epple
457
Sentimental Hydraulics Utopia and Technology in 18thCentury France Thomas Brandstetter
495
History Redoubled The Synthesis of Facts in Linnaean Natural History Staffan MullerWille
515

PART III METAPHORIC MODELS
253
The Role of Metaphors in William Harveys Thought Jarmo Pulkkinen
253
Legitimating the Machine The Epistemological Foundation of Technological Metaphor in the Natural Philosophy of René Descartes Andrés Vaccari
287
Rescue Attempts Scientific Images and the Mysteries of Power in the Era of Louis XIV Pablo Schneider
539
Index Nominum
573

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About the author (2008)

Claus Zittel, Kunsthistorisches Institut/Max Planck Institut in Florence, teaches Philosophy and German Literature at the Universities of Frankfurt am Main and Olsztyn in Poland.Gisela Engel, Ph.D. in English Philology (1973) is Senior Lecturer at Frankfurt University. She has edited extensively in the field of Early Modern Studies.Romano Nanni is Director of the Biblioteca Leonardiana at Vinci (Italy). He has published extensively on Leonardo´s oeuvre and early modern technology.Nicole Karafyllis is a biologist and a philosopher. She has published extensively on the ethics of technology and on the technology assessment of renewable resources.