Jesuit Science and the End of Nature's Secrets

Mark A. Waddell (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

224 Seiten

2015
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-4724-4972-6 (ISBN)

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Jesuit Science and the End of Nature’s Secrets explores how several prominent Jesuit naturalists - including NiccolÃ² Cabeo, Athanasius Kircher, and Gaspar Schott - tackled the problem of occult or insensible causation in the seventeenth century. The search for hidden causes lay at the heart of the early modern study of nature, and included phenomena such as the activity of the magnet, the marvelous powers ascribed to certain animals and plants, and the hidden, destructive forces churning in the depths of the Earth. While this was a project embraced by most early modern naturalists, however, the book demonstrates that the Jesuits were uniquely suited to the study of nature’s hidden secrets because of the complex methods of contemplation and meditation enshrined at the core of their spirituality. Divided into six chapters, the work documents how particular Jesuits sought to reveal and expose nature’s myriad secrets through an innovative blending of technology, imagery, and experiment. Moving beyond the conventional Aristotelianism mandated by the Society of Jesus, they set forth a vision of the world that made manifest the works of God as Creator, no matter how deeply hidden those works were. The book thus not only presents a narrative that challenges present-day assumptions about the role played by Catholic religious communities in the formation of modern science, but also captures the exuberance and inventiveness of the early modern study of nature.

Mark A. Waddell is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, with a joint appointment in the Lyman Briggs College and the Department of History. He received his PhD in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the Johns Hopkins University in 2006.

Introduction; Chapter 1 The Crisis of Certainty; Chapter 2 Building a Better Ontology; Chapter 3 The Demise of Occult Qualities; Chapter 4 Spectacle, Uncertainty, and the Fallibility of the Eye; Chapter 5 Probabilism, or the World as it Might Be; Chapter 6 The Culture of Marvels, Exposed; Chapter 101 Conclusion;

Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	576 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
	Naturwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-4724-4972-X / 147244972X
ISBN-13	978-1-4724-4972-6 / 9781472449726
Zustand	Neuware