The palace of secrets : Béroalde de Verville and Renaissance conceptions of knowledge / Neil Kenny.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kenny, Neil.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Béroalde de Verville, 1556-1626--Knowledge and learning.

Béroalde de Verville.

Béroalde de Verville, 1556-1626.

France--Intellectual life--16th century.

France.

Intellectual life.

France--Intellectual life--17th century.

Knowledge, Theory of--History.

Knowledge, Theory of.

History.

Renaissance--France.

Renaissance.

Physical Description:

x, 305 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon, 1991.

Summary:

During the Renaissance, different conceptions of knowledge were debated. Dominant among these was encyclopaedism, which treated knowledge as an ordered and unified circle of learning in which branches were logically related to each other. By contrast, writers like Montaigne saw human knowledge as an inherently unsystematic and subjective flux. This study explores the tension between these two views, examining the theories of knowledge, uses of genre, and the role of fiction in philosophical texts. Drawing on examples from sixteenth and seventeenth- century texts, and particularly focusing on the polymath B'eroalde de Verville, Kenny provides an in-depth study of the two competing conceptions of knowledge.

Contents:

1. Renaissance Encyclopaedism 12

1.1 Encyclopaedic ideals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 12

1.2 Genre: Encyclopaedias and miscellanies 35

2. From the Encyclopaedia to the Miscellany 55

2.1 Philosophical forms 57

2.2 Philosophical subjects 61

2.3 Readership 84

3. Structuring Knowledge 90

3.1 Encyclopaedic structures 91

3.2 Encyclopaedic structure under strain 100

3.3 Miscellanies and fragmentation 110

4. Representations of Nature 126

4.1 Meslange, diversite, and difference in nature 127

4.2 Representing meslange, diversite, and difference 136

5. Fiction and Philosophy 158

5.1 Philosophical fictions 158

5.2 Encyclopaedic revelations inside palaces and cabinets 162

5.3 Quests inside and outside palaces and cabinets 185

6. The Status of Knowledge 210

6.1 Ethics 211

6.2 Epistemology 218

6.3 The limits of knowledge 229.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0198158629

OCLC:

24431215