De Visione Stellarum


Book Description

In this critical edition of Nicole Oresme's 14th-century treatise on atmospheric refraction, Oresme uses optics and infinitesimals to help solve this vexing problem of astronomy, proposing that light travels along a curve through the atmosphere, centuries before Hooke and Newton.




Nicole Oresme, Questiones in Meteorologica de ultima lectura, recensio parisiensis


Book Description

Nicole Oresme was one of the most original and influential thinkers of the fourteenth century. He is best known for his mathematical discoveries, his economic theories, as well as his vernacular translations of cosmological and ethical texts that were undertaken at the request of King Charles V. This volume sheds light on the beginning of Oresme's scientific activity at the University of Paris (ca. 1340 – ca. 1350), a period of his intellectual career about which little is known. Over the course of this decade, Oresme lectured on many Aristotelian texts on natural philosophy, such as the Physics, On the Heavens, On generation and corruption, Meteorology, and On the Soul. Oresme's commentaries on Aristotle's Meteorology count among his only unpublished texts. This volume presents the first critical edition of books I-II.10 of the second redaction of Oresme's Questions on Meteorology. The edition is preceded by a historical and philological introduction that discusses the context of Oresme’s scientific career and examines the manuscript tradition.




A Cultural History of Color in the Medieval Age


Book Description

A Cultural History of Color in the Medieval Age covers the period 500 to 1400. The medieval age saw an extraordinary burst of color - from illuminated manuscripts and polychrome sculpture to architecture and interiors, and from enamelled and jewelled metalwork to colored glass and the exquisite decoration of artefacts. Color was used to denote affiliation in heraldry and social status in medieval clothes. Color names were created in various languages and their resonance explored in poems, romances, epics, and plays. And, whilst medieval philosophers began to explain the rainbow, theologians and artists developed a color symbolism for both virtues and vices. Color shapes an individual's experience of the world and also how society gives particular spaces, objects, and moments meaning. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Color examines how color has been created, traded, used, and interpreted over the last 5000 years. The themes covered in each volume are color philosophy and science; color technology and trade; power and identity; religion and ritual; body and clothing; language and psychology; literature and the performing arts; art; architecture and interiors; and artefacts. Carole P. Biggam is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Glasgow, UK. Kirsten Wolf is Professor of Old Norse and Scandinavian Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Volume 2 in the Cultural History of Color set. General Editors: Carole P. Biggam and Kirsten Wolf The Cultural Histories Series A Cultural History of Color is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available as hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com . Individual volumes for academics and researchers interested in specific historical periods are also available in print or digitally via www.bloomsburycollections.com .




Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham


Book Description

When William of Ockham lectured on Lombard’s Sentences in 1317-1319, he articulated a new theory of knowledge. Its reception by fourteenth-century scholars was, however, largely negative, for it conflicted with technical accounts of vision and with their interprations of Duns Scotus. This study begins with Roger Bacon, a major source for later scholastics’ efforts to tie a complex of semantic and optical explanations together into an account of concept formation, truth and the acquisition of certitude. After considering the challenges of Peter Olivi and Henry of Ghent, Part I concludes with a discussion of Scotus’s epistemology. Part II explores the alternative theories of Peter Aureol and William of Ockham. Part III traces the impact of Scotus, and then of Aureol, on Oxford thought in the years of Ockham’s early audience, culminating with the views of Adam Wodeham. Part IV concerns Aureol’s intellectual legacy at Paris, the introduction of Wodeham’s thought there, and Autrecourt’s controversies.




Theories of Vision from Al-kindi to Kepler


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.




Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam (Books I-VII)


Book Description

Oresme's commentary is one of the most relevant documents of the discussions at Paris University in the midst of the 14th Century. Original solutions concerning the main philosophical issues are associated with sharp criticism of the realist and nominalist positions.




The A to Z of Medieval Philosophy and Theology


Book Description

The Middle Ages is often viewed as a period of low intellectual achievement. The name itself refers to the time between the high philosophical and literary accomplishments of the Greco-Roman world and the technological advances that were achieved and philosophical and theological alternatives that were formulated in the modern world that followed. However, having produced such great philosophers as Anselm, Peter Abelard, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Peter Lombard, and the towering Thomas Aquinas, it hardly seems fair to label the medieval period as such. Examining the influence of ancient Greek philosophy as well as of the Arabian and Hebrew scholars who transmitted it, The A to Z of Medieval Philosophy and Theology presents the philosophy of the Christian West from the 9th to the early 17th century. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the philosophers, concepts, issues, institutions, and events, making this an important reference for the study of the progression of human thought.




Chaucer and the Making of Optical Space


Book Description

The author links Chaucer's writings with the medieval optical tradition in its various forms (scholastic texts, encyclopedias, exempla, vernacular poetry) both in general cultural terms and through the discussion of specific examples. He shows how the science of optics, or perspectiva, provides an account of spatial perception, including visual error, and demonstrates how these aspects of optical theory impact on Chaucer's poetry. He provides detailed and sustained analysis of the spatial content of narratives across the range of Chaucer's works, relating them to optical ideas and making use of Lefebvre's theory of the production of space. The texts discussed include the Book of the Duchess, House of Fame, Knight's Tale, Miller's Tale, Reeve's Tale, Merchant's Tale, Squire's Tale and Troilus and Criseyde.




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