Making Evidence and Crafting Gravitational Knowledge in the Early Modern World
Leverhulme Global History of Science Workshop
Generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ¡°Making Evidence and Crafting Gravitational Knowledge in the Early Modern World¡±, to be held at the University of ÌÇÐÄTV, 6th July 2023. ¡¾in person only¡¿
Organisers: Xiaona Wang, Sergio Orozco-Echeverri, Michael Bycroft
Speakers (Alphabet Order): Michael BycroftLink opens in a new window (ÌÇÐÄTV), (Venice), (Cambridge), (ENS Paris-PSL), (Venice), (Antioquia), (Linda Hall Library), (Maynooth), Xiaona Wang (ÌÇÐÄTV).
Any queries: xiaona.wang[at]warwick.ac.uk
Location: Room MB0.08, Statistics Building, University of ÌÇÐÄTV,CV4 7ALTime: 9:30 -17:00, 6th July 2023
Registration form HERE
Deadline for registration, 12:00 Noon on Thurs 29th June 2023
Programme:
9.30¡ª9.45²¹³¾: Welcome and Introduction to Workshop (Xiaona Wang/ Sergio Orozco-Echeverri)
9.45²¹³¾¡ª11.00²¹³¾: Aristotelianism, Pedagogy, and Renaissance Cosmos
¡¤ David McOmish (Venice): Infinite Possibilities and Astronomical Hypotheses: The Surprising Conjectures of Ramus Professors of Mathematics on Post-Aristotelian Motion and Force
¡¤ Matteo Cosci (Venice): Paduan Aristotelianism and the Quaestio de motu gravium et levium
11.00am¡ª11.30am: Coffee
11.30²¹³¾¡ª12.45±è³¾: Brushing Astronomical and cosmological evidence in the Eurasian Canvas
¡¤ Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh (Cambridge): Astronomy as History and History as Astronomy: The Costard-Gaubil Controversy
¡¤ Xiaona Wang (ÌÇÐÄTV): Evidence Making, Jesuit Missionaries, and Debates on a Spherical Earth in Early Modern China
12.45±è³¾¡ª1.45pm: Lunch
1.45pm¡ª3.00±è³¾: Between Abstract Thinking and Instrumental Practicing
¡¤ Christoph Sander (MPIWG/Linda Hall): Pumping Iron: Quantifying Magnetic Force in Early Modern Science.
¡¤ Kevin Tracey (Maynooth): ¡®Knowing¡¯ and ¡®Doing¡¯ in Early Seventeenth Century England: Thomas Blundeville¡¯s Instruments in Print and Practice.
3.00pm¡ª3.30pm: Coffee
3.30±è³¾¡ª4.45±è³¾: Mathematics, Empire, and the Spanish-Iberian World
¡¤ Helbert Velilla Jim¨¦nez (ENS Paris-PSL): Making Mathematical Certainty to Solve the Magnetic Variation in Long-distance Oceanic Voyages of the Spanish Empire.
¡¤ Sergio Orozco-Echeverri (Antioquia): On the Place and Dignity of Earth: Reasoning on Gravity in Early Modern Spanish-American Contexts
4.45±è³¾¡ª5.00±è³¾: Concluding Remarks: Michael Bycroft (ÌÇÐÄTV)
The Rationale of the Workshop:
Evidence-making is one of the most pervasive and fundamental intellectual and social activities in a variety of domains during the early modern period in such fields as medicine, pedagogy, politics, jurisprudence, and in particular, natural science. This workshop examines various aspects of evidence-making and their role in the shaping of knowledge of gravity and gravitation in the early modern world.
The workshop will also compare evidence-making by difference kinds of audience/readership, explore the role of institutional power in organising evidence to test theories, and probe deeper into the relationship between evidence-making and other forms of historical inquiry such as proof, persuasion, observation, wonder, creativity and ingenuity, objectivity, fact, authorship, probability, and so on.
Here ¡®knowledge of gravity and gravitation¡¯ is used in the broadest sense, ¡®from falling bodies to orbiting planets.¡¯ This includes a variety of cosmological ideas, such as microcosm/macrocosm, attractio and tractio Terrae, sympathy and antipathy, the science of weight (gravitas) and motion or terrestrial ¡®free fall¡¯, Keplerian astronomy, Cartesian cosmology, pervasive virtue and force, universal gravitation, etc. The scope of our scrutiny is not only Western European contexts; it also includes other parts of the early modern world where knowledge of nature was produced and circulated, such as East Asia and the Americas.
