The dark side of knowledge : histories of ignorance, 1400 to 1800 / edited by Cornel Zwierlein ; contributors Giovanni Ceccarelli [and fifteen others].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Zwierlein, Cornel, editor.

Ceccarelli, Giovanni, contributor.

Series:

Intersections 46.

Intersections : Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture, 1568-1181 ; Volume 46

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ignorance (Theory of knowledge)--History.

Ignorance (Theory of knowledge).

Ignorance (Theory of knowledge)--Social aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (454 pages) : illustrations, tables.

Place of Publication:

Leiden, Netherlands ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : Brill, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How can one study the absence of knowledge, the voids, the conscious and unconscious unknowns through history? Investigations into late medieval and early modern practices of measuring, of risk calculation, of ignorance within financial administrations, of conceiving the docta ignorantia as well as the silence of the illiterate are combined with contributions regarding knowledge gaps within identification procedures and political decision-making, with the emergence of consciously delimited blanks on geographical maps, with ignorance as a factor embedded in iconographic programs, in translation processes and the semantic potentials of reading. Based on thorough archival analysis, these selected contributions from conferences at Harvard and Paris are tightly framed by new theoretical elaborations that have implications beyond these cases and epochal focus. Contributors: Giovanni Ceccarelli, Taylor Cowdery, Lucile Haguet, John T. Hamilton, Lucian Hölscher, Moritz Isenmann, Adam J. Kosto, Marie-Laure Legay, Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, Fabrice Micallef, William T. O´Reilly, Eleonora Rohland, Mathias Schmoeckel, Daniel L. Smail, Govind P. Sreenivasan, and Cornel Zwierlein.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Introduction: Towards a History of Ignorance

1 Law and the Uncertainty of Value in Late Medieval Marseille and Lucca / Daniel Lord Smail

2 Nescience and the Conscience of Judges. An Example of Religion’s Influence on Legal Procedure / Mathias Schmoeckel

3 Speaking Nothing to Power in Early Modern Germany: Making Sense of Peasant Silence in the Ius Commune / Govind P. Sreenivasan

4 Coping with Unknown Risks in Renaissance Florence: Insurers, Friars and Abacus Teachers / Giovanni Ceccarelli

5 (Non-)Knowledge, Political Economy and Trade Policy in Seventeenth-Century France: The Problem of Trade Balances / Moritz Isenmann

6 Ignorance in Europe’s State Financial Culture (Eighteenth Century) / Marie-Laure Legay

7 Voluptas Carnis. Allegory and Non-Knowledge in Pieter Aertsen’s Still-Life Paintings / John T. Hamilton

8 Humanist Styles of Reading in the Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton / Taylor Cowdery

9 Coexistence and Ignorance: What Europeans in the Levant did not Read (ca. 1620–1750)

10 Ignorance about the Traveler: Documenting Safe Conduct in the European Middle Ages / Adam J. Kosto

11 International Crises as Experience of Non-Knowledge: European Powers and the ‘Affairs of Provence’ (1589–1598) / Fabrice Micallef

12 Dealing with Hurricanes and Mississippi Floods in Early French New Orleans. Environmental (Non-) Knowledge in a Colonial Context / Eleonora Rohland

13 ‘Unknown Sciences’ and Unknown Superiors. The Problem of Non-Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Secret Societies / Andrew McKenzie-McHarg

14 Specifying Ignorance in Eighteenth-Century Cartography, a Powerful Way to Promote the Geographer’s Work: The Example of Jean-Baptiste d’Anville / Lucile Haguet

15 Semantics of the Void: Empty Spaces in Eighteenth-Century German Historiography. A First Sketch of a Semiotic Theory / Lucian Hölscher

16 Non-Knowledge and Decision Making: The Challenge for the Historian / William O’Reilly

Index nominum

Index rerum.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-32518-2

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004325180 DOI