Philosophies of Technology Intersections Yearbook for Early Modern Studies General Editor Karl A.E. Enenkel Chair of Neo-Latin Literature Faculty of Arts, University of Leiden P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden-NL e-mail: [email protected] Editorial Board W. van Anrooij (University of Leiden) B. Blondé (University of Antwerp) K.A.E. Enenkel (University of Leiden) R.L. Falkenburg (University of Leiden) J.L. de Jong (University of Groningen) E.E.P. Kolfi n (University of Amsterdam) W. Neuber (Free University of Berlin) H. Roodenburg (P.J. Meertens Institute) P.J. Smith (University of Leiden) R.K. Todd (University of Leiden) C. Zittel (Kunsthistorisches Institut/Max Planck Institut, Florence) Advisory Board K. VAN BERKEL (University of Groningen) – F. EGMOND A. GRAFTON (Princeton University) – A. HAMILTON (Warburg Institute) C.L. HEESAKKERS – H.A. HENDRIX (Utrecht University) – F.J. VAN INGEN J.I. ISRAEL (Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.) – M. JACOBS (Free University of Brussels) K.A. OTTENHEYM (Utrecht University) – K. PORTEMAN E.J. SLUIJTER (University of Amsterdam) VOLUME 11 – 2008 Philosophies of Technology Francis Bacon and his Contemporaries Edited by Claus Zittel, Gisela Engel, Romano Nanni, and Nicole C. Karafyllis LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 Illustration on the cover: Salomon de Caus, Von gewaltsamen bewegungen. Beschreibung etlicher, so wol nützlichen alß lustigen Maschinen, Erstes Buch, Problema XII: “Wie durchs Wasser eines Vogels natürlicher Gesang nach zu pfeiffen” (copperplate engraving), Frankfurt 1615. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Philosophies of technology : Francis Bacon and his contemporaries / edited by Claus Zittel . [et al.]. p. cm. — (Intersections ; 11) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17050-6 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Technology—Philosophy. 2. Technology—History—17th century. 3. Science—History—17th century. 4. Bacon, Francis, 1561–1626. I. Zittel, Claus. II. Title. III. Series. T14.P48 2008 601—dc22 2008032054 ISSN 1568-1181 ISBN 978 90 04 17050 6 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all right holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. 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Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS VOLUME ONE Notes on the Editors of this Volume ......................................... ix List of Contributors .................................................................... xi List of Illustrations ...................................................................... xv Introduction ................................................................................ xix Claus Zittel PART I BEGINNINGS “Industrious Observations, Grounded Conclusions, and Profi table Inventions and Discoveries; the Best State of That Province”: Technology and Culture during Francis Bacon’s Stay in France ........................................................... 3 Luisa Dolza Francis Bacon’s Scientia Operativa, The Tradition of the Workshops, and The Secrets of Nature ................................. 21 Jürgen Klein Technical Knowledge and the Advancement of Learning: Some Questions about ‘Perfectibility’ and ‘Invention’ .......... 51 Romano Nanni The Weatherglass and its Observers in the Early Seventeenth Century .............................................................. 67 Arianna Borrelli vi contents PART II BACON: MECHANICS, INSTRUMENTS AND UTOPIAS The Role of Mechanics in Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration .... 133 Sophie Weeks Bacon’s Brotherhood and its Classical Sources: Producing and Communicating Knowledge in the Project of the Great Instauration .................................................................. 197 Dana Jalobeanu The Whale under the Microscope: Technology and Objectivity in Two Renaissance Utopias ............................... 231 Todd Andrew Borlik VOLUME TWO PART III METAPHORIC MODELS The Role of Metaphors in William Harvey’s Thought ............ 253 Jarmo Pulkkinen Legitimating the Machine: The Epistemological Foundation of Technological Metaphor in the Natural Philosophy of René Descartes ....................................................................... 287 Andrés Vaccari Descartes as Bricoleur ................................................................ 337 Claus Zittel contents vii PART IV BACON’S LEGACY: THE IMPACT FOR THE ARTS AND SCIENCES The Poet and the Philosopher: Francis Bacon and Georg Philipp Harsdörffer ...................................................... 375 Berthold Heinecke Formal Causes and Mechanical Causes: The Analogy of the Musical Instrument in Late Seventeenth-Century Natural Philosophy ................................................................. 411 Benjamin Wardhaugh The Modern Wonder and its Enemies: Courtly Innovations in the Spanish Renaissance .................................................... 429 Daniel Damler The Gap between Theory and Practice: Hydrodynamical and Hydraulical Utopias in the 18th Century ...................... 457 Moritz Epple Sentimental Hydraulics: Utopia and Technology in 18th-Century France .............................................................. 495 Thomas Brandstetter History Redoubled: The Synthesis of Facts in Linnaean Natural History ....................................................................... 513 Staffan Müller-Wille Rescue Attempts: Scientifi c Images and the Mysteries of Power in the Era of Louis XIV ............................................. 539 Pablo Schneider Index Nominum ......................................................................... 573 NOTES ON THE EDITORS OF THIS VOLUME Gisela Engel works as a researcher and organizer at Zentrum zur Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit/Center for Research in Early Modern History, Culture and Science (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main). Main interests: history of political theories, Gender Studies, early modern cultural and social history. She is editor of the series Salecina- Beiträge zur Gesellschafts- und Kulturkritik, co-editor of Frankfurter Kulturwis- senschaftliche Beiträge and co- editor of the journal Zeitsprünge. Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit and Eigene und fremde Frühe Neuzeiten. Genese und Geltung eines Epochenbegrieffs (2003); Technik in der Frühen Neuzeit – Schrittmacher der europäischen Moderne (2004); Expansionen in der Frühen Neuzeit (2004); Fallstudien: Theorie—Geschichte—Methode (2007). Nicole C. Karafyllis is Professor of Philosophy at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). Her main interests of research are philosophy of nature and technology, theory of life sciences, cultural philosophy of plants, anthropology, history of botany and technology, theory of biofacts, Arabic Philosophy. Selected publications: Biologisch, Natürlich, Nachhaltig. Philosophische Aspekte des Naturzugangs im 21. Jahrhundert (2001); Die Phänomenologie des Wachstums (forthcoming 2008); (as editor) Biofakte – Versuch über den Men- schen zwischen Artefakt und Lebewesen (2003); Technik in der Frühen Neuzeit – Schrittmacher der europäischen Moderne (co-ed.) (2004). Romano Nanni graduated at the University of Florence in Moral Philosophy, with a dissertation on “Il pensiero di Croce e il problema del fascismo nel primo Carlo Antoni” (published in 1987). For some years he has been director of the Biblioteca Leonardiana & Museo Leonardiano in Vinci (Florence). He established (2006), with the Uni- versity of Florence, the Vinci Summer School on Renaissance, and projected (2007) e-Leo—Archiv for the history of technics and science (www .leonardodigitale.com). He is the author of Ovidio metamorfoseos, Letteratura Italiana Antica (2001), and has co-edited Leonardo e il mito di Leda. Modelli, memorie e metamorfosi di un’invenzione (2001); Nello specchio del genio. Studi storici, cultura urbana e genius loci tra Otto e Novecento nel segno di Leonardo (2001). x notes on the editors of this volume Leda: storia di un mito dalle origini a Leonardo (2008). Forthcoming: Leonardo e le arti meccaniche (2009). Claus Zittel works at the Kunsthistorisches Institut / Max Planck Institut in Florence and teaches Philosophy and German Literature at the Universities of Frankfurt am Main and Olsztyn (Poland). He is doing research on “Forms and Functions of aesthetic knowledge generation in Early Modern Europe”, and is inter alia the author of: Selbstaufhe- bungsfi guren bei Nietzsche (1995); Das ästhetische Kalkül von Friedrich Nietzsches ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ (2000); Theatrum philosophicum. Descartes und die Rolle ästhetischer Formen in der Wissenschaft (forthcoming 2009); Editor