Author: David C. Lindberg
Publisher: Variorum Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Studies in the History of Medieval Optics
Author: David C. Lindberg
Publisher: Variorum Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Publisher: Variorum Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Studies in Medieval Astronomy and Optics
Author: J.L. Mancha
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000944492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
In this selection of studies, J.L. Mancha explores aspects of the development of medieval optics and astronomy, including some medieval antecedents of the work of early modern astronomers. The articles deal with Latin, Hebrew and Arabic texts, and the process of translation and transmission of knowledge, and focus on three main themes. First, the theory and astronomical use of the pinhole camera in the 12th and 13th centuries; the texts edited here contain a solution to the problem of the formation of images cast by light through triangular apertures, equivalent to Kepler's, a description of the correct procedure for measuring solar apparent diameters using finite apertures, and a derivation of the Sun's eccentricity from its apparent diameters at apogee and perigee. Second, the characteristics of the Latin and Provençal versions of Levi ben Gerson's astronomical work, composed in collaboration with the author, as well as his tables and canons for finding syzygies and the mathematical methods used in the derivation of parameters. Third, different aspects of the survival of homocentric astronomy in the Middle Ages, especially al-Bitruji's model for trepidation and the technique for calculating the hippopede resulting from Eudoxan couples.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000944492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
In this selection of studies, J.L. Mancha explores aspects of the development of medieval optics and astronomy, including some medieval antecedents of the work of early modern astronomers. The articles deal with Latin, Hebrew and Arabic texts, and the process of translation and transmission of knowledge, and focus on three main themes. First, the theory and astronomical use of the pinhole camera in the 12th and 13th centuries; the texts edited here contain a solution to the problem of the formation of images cast by light through triangular apertures, equivalent to Kepler's, a description of the correct procedure for measuring solar apparent diameters using finite apertures, and a derivation of the Sun's eccentricity from its apparent diameters at apogee and perigee. Second, the characteristics of the Latin and Provençal versions of Levi ben Gerson's astronomical work, composed in collaboration with the author, as well as his tables and canons for finding syzygies and the mathematical methods used in the derivation of parameters. Third, different aspects of the survival of homocentric astronomy in the Middle Ages, especially al-Bitruji's model for trepidation and the technique for calculating the hippopede resulting from Eudoxan couples.
Science, Optics, and Music in Medieval and Early Modern Thought
Author: Alistair Cameron Crombie
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780907628798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508
Book Description
A.C. Crombie is one of the best known writers on the history of Science. Science, Optics and Music in Medieval and Early Modern Thought brings together a coherent body of essays that complement his books and are of independent value. A.C. Crombie traces general themes in the development of Science: the Aristotelian inheritance and the importance of the search for logical explanation in the middle ages; the ambitions and limitations of experiment and quantification; changing attitudes to scientific progress; the relations between Science and the Arts, and between Mathematics, Music and Medical Science; and the study of the senses. In particular he shows how the mechanistic hypothesis stimulated the experimental and philosophical study of vision.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780907628798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508
Book Description
A.C. Crombie is one of the best known writers on the history of Science. Science, Optics and Music in Medieval and Early Modern Thought brings together a coherent body of essays that complement his books and are of independent value. A.C. Crombie traces general themes in the development of Science: the Aristotelian inheritance and the importance of the search for logical explanation in the middle ages; the ambitions and limitations of experiment and quantification; changing attitudes to scientific progress; the relations between Science and the Arts, and between Mathematics, Music and Medical Science; and the study of the senses. In particular he shows how the mechanistic hypothesis stimulated the experimental and philosophical study of vision.
From Sight to Light
Author: A. Mark Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022652857X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 470
Book Description
From its inception in Greek antiquity, the science of optics was aimed primarily at explaining sight and accounting for why things look as they do. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the analytic focus of optics had shifted to light: its fundamental properties and such physical behaviors as reflection, refraction, and diffraction. This dramatic shift—which A. Mark Smith characterizes as the “Keplerian turn”—lies at the heart of this fascinating and pioneering study. Breaking from previous scholarship that sees Johannes Kepler as the culmination of a long-evolving optical tradition that traced back to Greek antiquity via the Muslim Middle Ages, Smith presents Kepler instead as marking a rupture with this tradition, arguing that his theory of retinal imaging, which was published in 1604, was instrumental in prompting the turn from sight to light. Kepler’s new theory of sight, Smith reveals, thus takes on true historical significance: by treating the eye as a mere light-focusing device rather than an image-producing instrument—as traditionally understood—Kepler’s account of retinal imaging helped spur the shift in analytic focus that eventually led to modern optics. A sweeping survey, From Sight to Light is poised to become the standard reference for historians of optics as well as those interested more broadly in the history of science, the history of art, and cultural and intellectual history.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022652857X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 470
Book Description
From its inception in Greek antiquity, the science of optics was aimed primarily at explaining sight and accounting for why things look as they do. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the analytic focus of optics had shifted to light: its fundamental properties and such physical behaviors as reflection, refraction, and diffraction. This dramatic shift—which A. Mark Smith characterizes as the “Keplerian turn”—lies at the heart of this fascinating and pioneering study. Breaking from previous scholarship that sees Johannes Kepler as the culmination of a long-evolving optical tradition that traced back to Greek antiquity via the Muslim Middle Ages, Smith presents Kepler instead as marking a rupture with this tradition, arguing that his theory of retinal imaging, which was published in 1604, was instrumental in prompting the turn from sight to light. Kepler’s new theory of sight, Smith reveals, thus takes on true historical significance: by treating the eye as a mere light-focusing device rather than an image-producing instrument—as traditionally understood—Kepler’s account of retinal imaging helped spur the shift in analytic focus that eventually led to modern optics. A sweeping survey, From Sight to Light is poised to become the standard reference for historians of optics as well as those interested more broadly in the history of science, the history of art, and cultural and intellectual history.
Seeing Through the Veil
Author: Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802036058
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Book Description
During the later Middle Ages, new optical theories were introduced that located the power of sight not in the seeing subject, but in the passive object of vision. This shift had a powerful impact not only on medieval science but also on theories of knowledge, and this changing relationship of vision and knowledge was a crucial element in late medieval religious devotion. In Seeing through the Veil, Suzanne Conklin Akbari examines several late medieval allegories in the context of contemporary paradigm shifts in scientific and philosophical theories of vision. After a survey on the genre of allegory and an overview of medieval optical theories, Akbari delves into more detailed studies of several medieval literary works, including the Roman de la Rose, Dante's Vita Nuova, Convivio, and Commedia, and Chaucer's dream visions and Canterbury Tales. The final chapter, 'Division and Darkness, ' centres on the legacy of allegory in the fifteenth century. Offering a new interdisciplinary, synthetic approach to late medieval intellectual history and to major works within the medieval literary canon, Seeing through the Veil will be an essential resource to the study of medieval literature and culture, as well as philosophy, history of art, and history of science.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802036058
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Book Description
During the later Middle Ages, new optical theories were introduced that located the power of sight not in the seeing subject, but in the passive object of vision. This shift had a powerful impact not only on medieval science but also on theories of knowledge, and this changing relationship of vision and knowledge was a crucial element in late medieval religious devotion. In Seeing through the Veil, Suzanne Conklin Akbari examines several late medieval allegories in the context of contemporary paradigm shifts in scientific and philosophical theories of vision. After a survey on the genre of allegory and an overview of medieval optical theories, Akbari delves into more detailed studies of several medieval literary works, including the Roman de la Rose, Dante's Vita Nuova, Convivio, and Commedia, and Chaucer's dream visions and Canterbury Tales. The final chapter, 'Division and Darkness, ' centres on the legacy of allegory in the fifteenth century. Offering a new interdisciplinary, synthetic approach to late medieval intellectual history and to major works within the medieval literary canon, Seeing through the Veil will be an essential resource to the study of medieval literature and culture, as well as philosophy, history of art, and history of science.
Measuring Shadows
Author: Raz Chen-Morris
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027107731X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
In Measuring Shadows, Raz Chen-Morris demonstrates that a close study of Kepler’s Optics is essential to understanding his astronomical work and his scientific epistemology. He explores Kepler’s radical break from scientific and epistemological traditions and shows how the seventeenth-century astronomer posited new ways to view scientific truth and knowledge. Chen-Morris reveals how Kepler’s ideas about the formation of images on the retina and the geometrics of the camera obscura, as well as his astronomical observations, advanced the argument that physical reality could only be described through artificially produced shadows, reflections, and refractions. Breaking from medieval and Renaissance traditions that insisted upon direct sensory perception, Kepler advocated for instruments as mediators between the eye and physical reality, and for mathematical language to describe motion. It was only through this kind of knowledge, he argued, that observation could produce certainty about the heavens. Not only was this conception of visibility crucial to advancing the early modern understanding of vision and the retina, but it affected how people during that period approached and understood the world around them.
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027107731X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
In Measuring Shadows, Raz Chen-Morris demonstrates that a close study of Kepler’s Optics is essential to understanding his astronomical work and his scientific epistemology. He explores Kepler’s radical break from scientific and epistemological traditions and shows how the seventeenth-century astronomer posited new ways to view scientific truth and knowledge. Chen-Morris reveals how Kepler’s ideas about the formation of images on the retina and the geometrics of the camera obscura, as well as his astronomical observations, advanced the argument that physical reality could only be described through artificially produced shadows, reflections, and refractions. Breaking from medieval and Renaissance traditions that insisted upon direct sensory perception, Kepler advocated for instruments as mediators between the eye and physical reality, and for mathematical language to describe motion. It was only through this kind of knowledge, he argued, that observation could produce certainty about the heavens. Not only was this conception of visibility crucial to advancing the early modern understanding of vision and the retina, but it affected how people during that period approached and understood the world around them.
Roger Bacon and the Sciences
Author: Jeremiah Hackett
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004100152
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 474
Book Description
A major updating of scholarship on the philosophy and thought of Roger Bacon. In particular, it treats his philosophy of language, science and mathematics, moral philosophy, medicine, physics and metaphysics, and his history and sociology of religion.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004100152
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 474
Book Description
A major updating of scholarship on the philosophy and thought of Roger Bacon. In particular, it treats his philosophy of language, science and mathematics, moral philosophy, medicine, physics and metaphysics, and his history and sociology of religion.
Theories of Vision from Al-kindi to Kepler
Author: David C. Lindberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226482359
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Kepler's successful solution to the problem of vision early in the seventeenth century was a theoretical triumph as significant as many of the more celebrated developments of the scientific revolution. Yet the full import of Kepler's arguments can be grasped only when they are viewed against the background of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance visual theory. David C. Lindberg provides this background, and in doing so he fills the gap in historical scholarship and constructs a model for tracing the development of scientific ideas. David C. Lindberg is professor and chairman of the department of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226482359
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Kepler's successful solution to the problem of vision early in the seventeenth century was a theoretical triumph as significant as many of the more celebrated developments of the scientific revolution. Yet the full import of Kepler's arguments can be grasped only when they are viewed against the background of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance visual theory. David C. Lindberg provides this background, and in doing so he fills the gap in historical scholarship and constructs a model for tracing the development of scientific ideas. David C. Lindberg is professor and chairman of the department of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World
Author: Dallas G. Denery II
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521827843
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
During the later Middle Ages people became increasingly obsessed with vision, visual analogies and the possibility of visual error. In this book Dallas Denery addresses the question of what medieval men and women thought it meant to see themselves and others in relation to the world and to God. Exploring the writings of Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, Peter Aureol and Nicholas of Autrecourt in light of an assortment of popular religious guides for preachers, confessors and penitents, including Peter of Limoges' Treatise on the Moral Eye, he illustrates how the question preoccupied medieval men and women on both an intellectual and practical level. This book offers a unique interdisciplinary examination of the interplay between religious life, perspectivist optics and theology. Denery presents significant new insights into the medieval psyche and conception of the self, ensuring that this book will appeal to historians of medieval science and those of medieval religious life and theology.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521827843
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
During the later Middle Ages people became increasingly obsessed with vision, visual analogies and the possibility of visual error. In this book Dallas Denery addresses the question of what medieval men and women thought it meant to see themselves and others in relation to the world and to God. Exploring the writings of Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, Peter Aureol and Nicholas of Autrecourt in light of an assortment of popular religious guides for preachers, confessors and penitents, including Peter of Limoges' Treatise on the Moral Eye, he illustrates how the question preoccupied medieval men and women on both an intellectual and practical level. This book offers a unique interdisciplinary examination of the interplay between religious life, perspectivist optics and theology. Denery presents significant new insights into the medieval psyche and conception of the self, ensuring that this book will appeal to historians of medieval science and those of medieval religious life and theology.
Influences
Author: Mary Quinlan-McGrath
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226922855
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
Today few would think of astronomy and astrology as fields related to theology. Fewer still would know that physically absorbing planetary rays was once considered to have medical and psychological effects. But this was the understanding of light radiation held by certain natural philosophers of early modern Europe, and that, argues Mary Quinlan-McGrath, was why educated people of the Renaissance commissioned artworks centered on astrological themes and practices. Influences is the first book to reveal how important Renaissance artworks were designed to be not only beautiful but also—perhaps even primarily—functional. From the fresco cycles at Caprarola, to the Vatican’s Sala dei Pontefici, to the Villa Farnesina, these great works were commissioned to selectively capture and then transmit celestial radiation, influencing the bodies and minds of their audiences. Quinlan-McGrath examines the sophisticated logic behind these theories and practices and, along the way, sheds light on early creation theory; the relationship between astrology and natural theology; and the protochemistry, physics, and mathematics of rays. An original and intellectually stimulating study, Influences adds a new dimension to the understanding of aesthetics among Renaissance patrons and a new meaning to the seductive powers of art.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226922855
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
Today few would think of astronomy and astrology as fields related to theology. Fewer still would know that physically absorbing planetary rays was once considered to have medical and psychological effects. But this was the understanding of light radiation held by certain natural philosophers of early modern Europe, and that, argues Mary Quinlan-McGrath, was why educated people of the Renaissance commissioned artworks centered on astrological themes and practices. Influences is the first book to reveal how important Renaissance artworks were designed to be not only beautiful but also—perhaps even primarily—functional. From the fresco cycles at Caprarola, to the Vatican’s Sala dei Pontefici, to the Villa Farnesina, these great works were commissioned to selectively capture and then transmit celestial radiation, influencing the bodies and minds of their audiences. Quinlan-McGrath examines the sophisticated logic behind these theories and practices and, along the way, sheds light on early creation theory; the relationship between astrology and natural theology; and the protochemistry, physics, and mathematics of rays. An original and intellectually stimulating study, Influences adds a new dimension to the understanding of aesthetics among Renaissance patrons and a new meaning to the seductive powers of art.