Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-107-51374-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 113, 694 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 991 g

Reihe: Ideas in Context

Seventeenth-century England has long been heralded as the birthplace of a so-called 'new' philosophy. Yet what contemporaries might have understood by 'old' philosophy has been little appreciated. In this book Dmitri Levitin examines English attitudes to ancient philosophy in unprecedented depth, demonstrating the centrality of engagement with the history of philosophy to almost all educated persons, whether scholars, clerics, or philosophers themselves, and aligning English intellectual culture closely to that of continental Europe. Drawing on a vast array of sources, Levitin challenges the assumption that interest in ancient ideas was limited to out-of-date 'ancients' or was in some sense 'pre-enlightened'; indeed, much of the intellectual justification for the new philosophy came from re-writing its history. At the same time, the deep investment of English scholars in pioneering forms of late humanist erudition led them to develop some of the most innovative narratives of ancient philosophy in early modern Europe.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Levitin, Dmitri

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: histories of philosophy between 'Renaissance' and 'Enlightenment'; 2. Ancient wisdom I: the wisdom of the East: Zoroaster, astronomy and the Chaldaeans, from Thomas Stanley to Thomas Hyde; 3. Ancient wisdom II: Moses the Egyptian?; 4. Histories of natural philosophy I. Histories of method; 5. Histories of natural philosophy II. Histories of doctrine: matter theory and animating principles; 6. Philosophy in the early church; 7. Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Levitin, Dmitri
Dmitri Levitin is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Previously, he was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and of the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, also in Cambridge. He has also held positions at the Folger Library and at the University of Edinburgh. His research is on the intellectual, religious and cultural history of early modern Europe. Within these fields, he has published work on the history of science, philosophy, scholarship, medicine, theology, church-state relations, and political and legal thought.