Ways of making and knowing : the material culture of empirical knowledge / edited by Pamela H. Smith, Amy R. W. Meyers, and Harold J. Cook.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Smith, Pamela H., 1957- editor.

Meyers, Amy R. W., editor.

Cook, Harold J., editor.

Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

Series:

Bard Graduate Center cultural histories of the material world

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Intellectual life--Philosophy.

Intellectual life.

Intellectual life--History.

History.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Empiricism--Philosophy.

Empiricism.

Empiricism--History.

Material culture--Philosophy.

Material culture.

Material culture--History.

Handicraft--Philosophy.

Handicraft.

Handicraft--History.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xi, 430 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2014]

Summary:

"Making" and "knowing" have generally been viewed as belonging to different types and orders of knowledge. "Craft" and "making" have been associated with how-to information, oriented to a particular situation or product, often informal and tacit, while "knowing" has been related to theoretical, propositional, and abstract knowledge including natural science. Although craftspeople and artists have worked with natural materials and sometimes have been viewed as experts in the behavior of matter, the notion that making art can constitute a means of knowing nature is a novel one. This volume, with contributions from historians of science, medicine, art, and material culture, shows that the histories of science and art are not simply histories of concepts or styles, or at least not that alone, but histories of the making and using of objects to understand the world. The common view of craftspeople more or less mindlessly following a collection of recipes or rules -which are said to be fundamentally different from "science" and "art" - has greatly distorted our understanding of the growth of natural knowledge in the early modern period. More intensive examination of material practices makes it clear that the methods of the artisan represent a process of knowledge-making that involved extensive experimentation and observation, in addition to generalizations about matter and nature. As increasing numbers of people came to be immersed in such activities, whether as craftspeople, medical practitioners, merchants, nobles, magistrates, reformers, collectors, or even scholars, the attributes of "nature" were not only articulated in a variety of ways, and not only seen as a resource for human use, but came to be identified with a variety of "goods." Knowing nature could of course lead to material betterment but for many, living according to nature's dictates also led to the development of personal ethics and the public good. As natural knowledge became increasingly important in society in these various ways, it forged new connections among groups, helped create new identities, brought about new kinds of claims to authority and intellectual legitimacy, and gave rise to new ways of thinking about the senses, certainty, and epistemology. None of this could have happened without the conversations and controversies that enabled the assessment of objects in novel ways. -- Publisher's website.

Contents:

Introduction: Making and Knowing / Harold J. Cook, Pamela H. Smith, and Amy R.W. Meyers

Making as Knowing : Craft as Natural Philosophy / Pamela H. Smith

From Skills to Wisdom : Making, Knowing, and the Arts / Suzanne B. Butters

Between Trade and Science : Dyeing and Knowing in the Long Eighteenth Century / Alicia Weisberg-Roberts

How to Cure the Golden Vein : Medical Remedies as Wissenschaft in Early Modern Germany / Alisha Rankin

Evidence, Artisan Experience, and Authority in Early Modern England / Patrick Wallis and Catherine Wright

American Roots : Techniques of Plant Transportation and Cultivation in the Early Atlantic World / Mark Laird and Karen Bridgman

Inside the Box : John Bartram and the Science and Commerce of the Transatlantic Plant Trade / Joel T. Fry

From Plant to Page : Aesthetics and Objectivity in a Nineteenth-Century Book of Trees / Lisa L. Ford

The Labor of Division : Cabinetmaking and the Production of Knowledge / Glenn Adamson

Making Lists : Social and Material Technologies in the Making of Seventeenth-Century British Natural History / Elizabeth Yale

The Preservation of Specimens and the Takeoff in Anatomical Knowledge in the Early Modern Period / Harold J. Cook

Conrad Gessner on an "Ad Vivum" Image / Sachiko Kusukawa

Corals versus Trees : Charles Darwin's Early Sketches of Evolution / Horst Bredekamp

Decay, Conservation, and the Making of Meaning through Museum Objects / Mary M. Brooks

Epilogue: Making and Knowing, Then and Now / Malcolm Baker.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

Other Format:

Online version: Ways of making and knowing

ISBN:

9780472119271

0472119273

9780472120185

0472120182

OCLC:

872646636