Knowledge Lost: A New View of Early Modern Intellectual History

Knowledge lost : a new view of early modern intellectual historyAuthors:Martin Mulsow (Author), H. C. Erik Midelfort (Translator)Until now the history of knowledge has largely been about formal and documented accumulation, concentrating on systems, collections, academies, and institutions. The central narrative has been one of advancement, refinement, and expansion. Martin Mulsow tells a different story. Knowledge can be lost: manuscripts are burned, oral learning dies with its bearers, new ideas are suppressed by censors. ‘Knowledge Lost’ is a history of efforts, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, to counter such loss. It describes how critics of ruling political and religious regimes developed tactics to preserve their views; how they buried their ideas in footnotes and allusions; how they circulated their tracts and treatises in handwritten copies; and how they commissioned younger scholars to spread their writings after death. Filled with exciting stories, ‘Knowledge Lost’ follows the trail of precarious knowledge through a series of richly detailed episodes. It deals not with the major themes of metaphysics and epistemology, but rather with interpretations of the Bible, Orientalism, and such marginal zones as magic. And it focuses not on the usual major thinkers, but rather on forgotten or half-forgotten members of the “knowledge underclass,” such as Pietro della Vecchia, a libertine painter and intellectual; Charles-César Baudelot, an antiquarian and numismatist; and Johann Christoph Wolf, a pastor, Hebrew scholar, and witness to the persecution of heretics.xiii, 434 pages : illustrations, facsimiles, map, portraits ; 25 cmContents: Part 1: Tactics of the intellectual precariat. Section 1: The radical persona. The clandestine precariat The libertine’s two bodies Portrait of a freethinker as a young man The art of deflation, or : how to save an atheist A library of burned books Section 2: Trust, mistrust, courage : epistemic perceptions, virtues, and gestures. Threatened knowledge : prolegomena to a cultural history of truth Harpocratism : gestures of retreat Dare to know : epistemic virtue in historical perspective Part 2: Fragility and engagement in the knowledge bourgeoise. Section 3: Problematic transfers. A table in one hand : historical iconography Family secrets : precarious transfers within intimate circles The lost package : the role of communications in the history of philosophy in Germany Section 4: Communities of fascination and the information history of scholarly knowledge. Protection of knowledge and knowledge of protection : defensive magic, antiquarianism, and magical objects Mobility and surveillance : the information history of numismatics and journeys to the east under Louis XIV Microscripts of the orient : navigating scholarly knowledge from notebooks to booksSubjects: Europe History Idea (Philosophy) Idea (Philosophy) History Idée (Philosophie) Histoire Intellectual life Intellectual life History Knowledge, Theory of Learning and scholarship Learning and scholarship Europe History PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology Savoir et érudition Europe Histoire Théorie de la connaissance epistemology