Evidence in the Age of the New Sciences

Description

The motto of the Royal Society—Nullius in verba—was intended to highlight the members’ rejection of received knowledge and the new place they afforded direct empirical evidence in their quest for genuine, useful knowledge about the world. But while many studies have raised questions about the construction, reception and authentication of knowledge, Evidence in the Age of the New Sciences is the first to examine the problem of evidence at this pivotal moment in European intellectual history. What constituted evidence—and for whom? Where might it be found? How should it be collected and organized? What is the relationship between evidence and proof? These are crucial questions, for what constitutes evidence determines how people interrogate the world and the kind of arguments they make about it. In this important new collection, Lancaster and Raiswell have assembled twelve studies that capture aspects of the debate over evidence in a variety of intellectual contexts. From law and theology to geography, medicine and experimental philosophy, the chapters highlight the great diversity of approaches to evidence-gathering that existed side by side in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this way, the volume makes an important addition to the literature on early science and knowledge formation, and will be of particular interest to scholars and advanced students in these fields. Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii Evidence Before Science (James A. T. Lancaster, Richard Raiswell)....Pages 1-29 Front Matter ....Pages 31-31 Legal Proof and Probability in Early Modern England (Lisa Klotz)....Pages 33-46 Seeking Intellectual Evidence in the Sciences: The Role of Botany in Descartes’ Therapeutics (Fabrizio Baldassarri)....Pages 47-75 Towards Descartes’ Scientific Method: a posteriori Evidence and the Rhetoric of Les Météores (Patrick Brissey)....Pages 77-99 Front Matter ....Pages 101-101 Locke, Pyrard, and Coconuts: Travel Literature, Evidence, and Natural History (Patrick J. Connolly)....Pages 103-122 The Visibility of the Romana Ecclesia: Cesare Baronio and the Evidence of the Invisible (Filip Malesevic)....Pages 123-150 From the Divine Monochord to the Weather-Glass: Changing Perspectives in Robert Fludd’s Philosophy (Luca Guariento)....Pages 151-176 Magical and Mechanical Evidence: The Late-Renaissance Automata of Francesco I de’ Medici (Lily Filson)....Pages 177-206 Front Matter ....Pages 207-207 Spatial Evidence in a New World: Fray Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa’s Geography (Ran Segev)....Pages 209-227 Hutchinsonianism, Newtonian Science, and the Question of Evidence in a Fragmenting World (Robert L. Knetsch)....Pages 229-249 Diet and Hygiene Between Ethics and Medicine: Evidence and the Reception of Alvise Cornaro’s La Vita Sobria in Early Seventeenth-Century England (Federico Bellini)....Pages 251-268 Prognostic Birds and Vulgar Errors. Popular Naturalism in Early Modern England, 1550–1800 (Jennifer Mori)....Pages 269-293 Back Matter ....Pages 295-309