Introduction

INTRODUCTIONDISCIPLINES AND FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EARLY MODERN THOUGHT Invited editors: Dana Jalobeanu, Oana Matei, and Laura GeorgescuThe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of unprecedented change, in almost every respect, but particularly in the modes, practices, norms and methods associated with the production of knowledge. They also saw the emergence of new disciplines […]

Read More

Making the “round of knowledge” in Bacon’s wake: Naudé, Comenius, and Browne Sandra DRAGOMIR – Utopia and New Atlantis, utopia revised

MAKING THE “ROUND OF KNOWLEDGE” IN BACON’S WAKE: NAUDÉ, COMENIUS, AND BROWNE1 Christopher D. JOHNSON* Abstract. This paper examines how three of Francis Bacon’s readers, Gabriel Naudé, Jan Amos Comenius, and Thomas Browne, rethink the humanist library, the genre of the silva, and Bacon’s call for a new kind of encyclopedism. Naudé adumbrates the organization […]

Read More

Utopia and New Atlantis, utopia revised

UTOPIA AND NEW ATLANTIS, UTOPIA REVISED Sandra DRAGOMIR* Abstract. This paper is a comparison between two works usually ascribed to the utopian genre: Thomas More’s Utopia, and Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis. My major claim is that the two differ mainly in this respect: if More’s work is utopian, Bacon’s New Atlantis is only disguised under […]

Read More

Macaria and the puritan ethics of direct participation in the transformation of the world

MACARIA AND THE PURITAN ETHICS OF DIRECT PARTICIPATION IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD Oana MATEI* Abstract. This paper explores a particular way in which the Baconian reformation of knowledge can be seen as providing conditions of possibility for the emergence of Puritan ethics in the mid-seventeenthcentury England. Macaria, along with other works belonging to […]

Read More

Core experiments, natural histories and the art of experientia literata: the meaning of Baconian experimentation

CORE EXPERIMENTS, NATURAL HISTORIES AND THE ART OF EXPERIENTIA LITERATA: THE MEANING OF BACONIAN EXPERIMENTATION Dana JALOBEANU* Abstract. Experiment, as a new form of knowledge, was a Baconian creation. It was in Bacon’s project of Great Instauration and in Bacon’s reformed natural history that experiment and experimentationceased to be illustrations of theories and become relatively […]

Read More

A new form of knowledge: experientia literata

A NEW FORM OF KNOWLEDGE: EXPERIENTIA LITERATA Laura GEORGESCU* Abstract. In this paper, I assess Francis Bacon’s methodological considerations on the process of experimentation in order to show that experiments and experimentation have a productive role in his scientific inquiry. By looking at the structure of the problems selected for investigation, and at the ways […]

Read More

Cartesianism and chymistry

CARTESIANISM AND CHYMISTRY Mihnea DOBRE* Abstract. One of the most difficult, yet interesting change in the seventeenth-century natural philosophy was that of chemistry. This essay focuses upon Cartesian re-evaluation of the philosophical disciplines, arguing that, from a systematic perspective, chemistry cannot find a place in natural philosophy. Chemistry, in its seventeenth-century form of “chymistry” shares […]

Read More

Sufficient reason and the causal argument for monism

SUFFICIENT REASON AND THE CAUSAL ARGUMENT FOR MONISM Landon FRIM* Abstract. What is the role of the principle of sufficient reason in Baruch Spinoza’s ontological proof for God’s existence? Is this role identical within Spinoza’s early work on method, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and his magnum opus, the Ethics? This paper […]

Read More