Vices of the Learned

Towards a Long-Term History of Scholarly Vices
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-72504-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 362, 354 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History

Why are professors still warning their students against dogmatism, prejudice, pedantry, and other centuries-old vices? What explains the persistence of these scholarly vices across the ages?

With case studies from medieval Europe to twenty-first century America, Vices of the Learned offers a panoramic overview of qualities, habits, and inclinations that scholars at various times and places saw as detrimental to their work.

Innovative is the volume’s longue durée approach. The volume breaks new ground in highlighting the importance of “low” genres (aphorisms, proverbs, anecdotes) and stereotypical figures (the pedant, the charlatan, the mammon) in transmitting vices over time.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ten Hagen, Sjang

Paul, Herman J

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Wissenschaftstheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Introduction 1 The Euthalian Tradition and Its Features 2 Additional Items Not Catalogued 3 The Corpus 4 Using the Catalogue 5 Using the Feature Inventory 6 The Euthalian Tradition and Catenae: A Test Case

Catalogue A Substantial Witnesses (22) B Intermediate Witnesses (245) C Chapter Lists and/or Hypotheses Only (264) D In-Text Annotations Only (19) E Miscellaneous Witnesses (40) F Fragmentary Witnesses (37) G Manuscripts with No Euthalian Material (162) H Manuscripts Not Marked in the Catalogue (106)

Features Inventory

Catena Cross-Reference List

Bibliography

Gregory-Aland and Ditykon Number Index

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

1 Introduction: towards a Long-Term History of Scholarly Vices Herman Paul

Part 1 Vice Terms

2 Tracing the Development of curiositas in Early Condemnations of the University From Academics’ Useless Curiosity to Education for Productive Action Richard Newhauser

3 Notes towards a History of “Prejudice,” Early to Late Modern Sorana Corneanu

4 Dogmatism: the Persistence of an Umbrella Term Alexander Stoeger

5 Scholasticism as a Scholarly Vice Term: from the Middle Ages to the Twenty-First Century Sjang ten Hagen

Part 2 Figurations of Vice

6 The Persistence of the Pedant Arnoud Visser

7 The Many Lives of the Charlatan: on the Persistence of an Embodiment of Scholarly Vices Marian Füssel

8 From the Novum Organum to the Forensic Crime Lab: the Modern Afterlives of Francis Bacon’s Idols of the Mind Edurne De Wilde

9 The Mammon Metaphor in American Science: Continuities and Discontinuities, 1890–2010 Pieter Huistra and Herman Paul

Part 3 Media of Circulation

10 Medical Vices and Proverbial Expressions in Eighteenth-Century Medical Dissertations on Moderation, Patience, and Trust Sari Kivistö

11 Mocking Medieval Minds: How Modern Histories of Science Transmitted Scholarly Vices Sjang ten Hagen

12 Student Advice Literature and the Vice of Uninformed Studying: from Hodegetik to Study Vlogs Anne Por

13 Conclusion: How and Why Scholarly Vices Persisted over Time Sjang ten Hagen and Herman Paul

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sjang ten Hagen is Assistant Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Utrecht University. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the project Scholarly Vices: A Longue Durée History at Leiden University.

Herman Paul is Professor of the History of the Humanities at Leiden University. From 2019 to 2025, he led the project Scholarly Vices: A Longue Durée History, out of which this volume has emerged.