Francis Bacon And The Seventeenth Century Intellectual Discourse

This book explores the resistance of three English poets to Francis Bacon's project to restore humanity to Adamic mastery over nature, moving beyond a discussion of the tension between Bacon and these poetic voices to suggest theywere also debating the narrative of humanity's intellectual path.

After a long period of neglect and abuse it is a pleasure to report that the last thirty years have seen a great revival of interest in Bacon, a revival that has produced informed and detailed criticism both at the general level and as more specialized studies, the best of which are included in this volume. - Introduction.

Snider concentrates on three texts: Bacon's Novum Organum, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Butler's Hudibras. He treats the concept of a definitive origin not just as a literary or historical tope but as a complex system of representation that informs the poetry, philosophy, and other writings of the period.

This fourth volume traces the history of Renaissance philosophy and seventeenth century rationalism, covering Descartes and the birth of modern philosophy.

This book explores the dissemination of knowledge around Chinese medicinal substances from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries in a global context. The author presents a microhistory of the caterpillar fungus, a natural, medicinal substance initially used by Tibetans no later than the fifteenth century and later assimilated into Chinese materia medica from the eighteenth century onwards. Tracing the transmission of the caterpillar fungus from China to France, Britain, Russia and Japan, the book investigates the tensions that existed between prevailing Chinese knowledge and new European ideas about the caterpillar fungus. Emerging in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe, these ideas eventually reached communities of scientists, physicians and other intellectuals in Japan and China. Seeking to examine why the caterpillar fungus engaged the attention of so many scientific communities across the globe, the author offers a transnational perspective on the making of modern European natural history and Chinese materia medica.

Covering Descartes and the birth of modern philosophy, this text traces the history of Renaissance philosophy and 17th century rationalism.

Katherine Calloway explores the relationship between science and religion through a wide-ranging selection of early modern English poets.

In Making Wonderful, Martin M. Tweedale tells how an ideology in the West energized an economic expansion that has led to ecological disaster. He takes us back to the rise of cities and autocratic rulers, analyzing how respect for custom and tradition gave way to the dominance of top-down rational planning and organization. Then in response came a highly attractive myth of an eventual future rid of all of humankind's ills, one in which life would be “made wonderful.” Originating in Zoroastrianism and, through Jewish apocalyptic works, flowing into early Christianity, this myth produced utopian beliefs that set the West apart from the other civilizations. Tweedale shows how these beliefs became popular among Western elites in the early modern period and eventually resulted in the distinctly Western doctrine of progress. This doctrine, an almost religious faith in the capacity of science and technology to improve human life, released economic expansion from traditional constraints and has led to our current environmental emergency. Exploring sources from philosophy, religion, and the history of ideas, Making Wonderful is for all readers who are intellectually curious about the roots of our eco-catastrophe.