This thesis addresses two specific moments in the professional career of the French surgeon and anatomist Charles Nicholas Jenty (?-at least 1777) whose biography includes long residencies in both England and Spain. While generally being studied in the context of the illustrations included in his anatomical atlases Jenty's biography and the extent of his scientific activities are marked by notable gaps. This thesis focuses on Jenty's membership in The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and the chemical experiments he performed in London in 1761. It introduces for the first time in English an analysis of his surgical treaty published in 1766 in Spanish during his initial career in Spain. Finally, new biographical information is provided as a preliminary study for further investigation. / Le présent mémoire porte sur deux moments concrets dans la carrière professionnelle du chirurgien et l'anatomiste Charles Nicholas Jenty (?-au moins 1777) dont la biographie comprend de longs séjours et en Angleterre et en Espagne. Bien que la vie professionnelle de Jenty a été étudié dans le contexte des illustrations qui font partie de ses atlas anatomiques renommés, sa biographie et l'étendue de ses activités scientifiques se distinguent par des lacunes notables. Le mémoire se concentre sur l'adhésion de Jenty dans la Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, et la réalisation de ses expériences chimiques en 1761 lorsqu'il se trouvait à Londres. Le mémoire présente pour la première fois en langue anglaise l'analyse de son traité de chirurgie publié en 1766 en langue espagnole au moment où il a débuté sa carrière en Espagne. De nouvelles informations biographiques sont également présentées dans le cadre d'une étude préliminaire qui mènera éventuellement à une étude plus approfondie.

Book 3 of Jonathan Swift's Travels into the Remote Nations of the World offers a thorough critique of the eighteenth-century scientific world--a world marked by systematization, theoretical speculation, stories of "progress," and innovation, which people have commonly embraced and into which the "modern" mind had unresistingly and perhaps unconsciously placed itself. Because Book 3 appears to indulge in a transparent attack on some specific eighteenth-century events, ridicule seems to be the primary device used to undermine the practices of the scientific community. However closer inspection reveals that Swift's satire is not grounded in the topical particulars of the Eighteenth Century, but addresses such general problems, such as moral deficiency, intellectual arrogance, tyranny, which are common to human experience. Moreover, his attack, not dependent upon ridicule, involves complex rhetorical strategies, including some subversive reader-indicting techniques that challenge and ultimately compel readers to take an active role in resolving the dilemma (intellectual, philosophical, moral, etc.) into which he has placed them. Thus the process of reading Book 3 makes the reader both an active supporter and sympathetic critic of scientific practices. The resulting tension is a primary contributor to the textual problems that have troubled the critics of Book 3 since the Travels first came out, but it is also what makes scrupulous attention to the text worthwhile.

Locke was a sceptic about the possibility of scientific knowledge of corporeal substance. Scientific knowledge is knowledge which is certain, universal, and instructive. According to Locke, to have certain and instructive knowledge of natural kinds (universal knowledge about species of corporeal substances) requires knowledge of the real essence of natural kinds. Since a real essence is the foundation for the properties a thing has, it must be known before a deduction of the properties can be done. Locke did not believe that it was possible for humans to know the real essence of corporeal substances. In my thesis, I provide an explanation for why he held these views. As my work shows, knowledge of the real essence of a natural kind is an involved process that requires first knowing the nominal essence of the natural kind, and then knowing the inner constitution of each member of the kind, knowing which aspect of the inner constitution of each member correlates to the overlap of properties used to delineate the natural kind, and finally, knowing how that aspect, which is the real essence of the natural kind, produces the properties it does. Without knowledge of the mechanics of how the physical real essence produces the mental ideas we cannot know whether the connection between the real essence and the properties is a necessary connection or a mere correlation. Unless we know why there is a connection, we cannot know, with certainty, that the connection will hold in the future or for other like configurations. Locke relies on the mind-body problem to explain why we cannot know the mechanics behind the connections. The mind-body problem has not been given appropriate emphasis in Lockean study. And yet it is uniquely capable of handling the two claims Locke makes about natural science: (1) our knowledge of corporeal bodies can never qualify as scientific knowledge and (2) our knowledge of corporeal bodies can be improved in ways that are useful to human life.

Following World War II, new institutions were created to manage international health issues and assist developing nations in addressing their public health problems. Bilateral aid agencies and multilateral organizations designed, promoted, financed and implemented various programs to alleviate the burden of disease in the Third World, but also pursued political goals. In this dissertation, I analyze the development of international health activities of the Communicable Disease Center (CDC) from 1948 to 1972, from the first overseas assignment of a CDC officer until the end of major global public health campaigns at the beginning of the 1970s. My focus is on the role and motivations of CDC leaders and field epidemiologists who aimed and worked to transform the public health agency from a marginal international player into an important actor in the institutional constellation.In extending activities from the U.S. to the international arena, the CDC, as a national health agency, faced legal and political obstacles which limited its access to foreign localities where international health programs were being implemented. I argue that if expertise in field epidemiology existed in Atlanta and CDC leaders expressed a desire to see their agency take a more prominent role, the deployment of CDC personnel overseas remained problematic. To circumvent these obstacles, the CDC utilized development agencies, public health technologies and multilateral health organization as conduits to get access to foreign environments, procure international field experience to its epidemiologists and make an impact on the control of infectious diseases. As I show, it was especially during the 1960s that these three trajectories coalesced to ensure CDC's place as a public health actor of international reach and contributed in establishing its credibility. The exploration of the CDC's relationships with these international health actors and technologies also demonstrates the tensions deriving from the arrival of a new actor of international health, the limits of expertise when opposed by political considerations and the various tactics employed to secure a role in the design, implementation and management of public health programs abroad. / Après la Deuxième guerre mondiale, de nouvelles institutions sont créées afin de gérer les dossiers de la santé internationale et d'assister les nations en voie de développement dans la prise en charge de leurs problèmes de santé publique. Les agences d'aide bilatérale et les organisations multilatérales ont imaginé, promu, financé et implanté plusieurs programmes dans le but d'alléger le poids des maladies dans le Tiers monde, mais aussi à des fins de politique étrangère. Dans cette thèse, j'analyse la construction des activités de santé internationale du Communicable Disease Center (CDC) de 1948 à 1972, période correspondant à sa première mission outremer jusqu'à la fin d'importants programmes de santé internationale au début des années 1970. Je me concentre sur le rôle et les motivations des dirigeants du CDC et des épidémiologistes de terrain, qui visaient à transformer leur agence de santé publique, d'abord un acteur marginal, en un joueur important dans la constellation institutionnelle de la santé internationale. Dans l'expansion de leurs activités de la scène nationale à l'échelle internationale, le CDC, en tant qu'agence de santé nationale, a été confronté à des obstacles légaux et politiques limitant leur accès aux territoires étrangers où les programmes de santé internationale sont implantés. Je démontre que si le CDC disposait d'une expertise en épidémiologie de terrain et même si leurs dirigeants désiraient jouer un rôle international important, le déploiement des officiers du CDC à l'étranger demeurait problématique. Afin de contourner ces obstacles, le CDC utilisa les agences de développement international, les technologies de santé publique ainsi que les organisations multilatérales comme conduits afin d'accéder aux territoires d'outremer, donner une expérience internationale à ses épidémiologistes de terrain et modifier profondément les conventions sur le contrôle des maladies infectieuses. Tel que je le démontre, ces trois trajectoires fusionnent dans les années 1960 afin de confirmer le statut du CDC en tant qu'acteur de la santé internationale et contribuent à établir la crédibilité de l'institution. L'exploration des relations du CDC avec ces institutions et les technologies de santé publique permettent également de mettre en relief plusieurs éléments : les tensions découlant de l'arrivée d'un nouvel acteur institutionnel de la santé internationale, les limites de l'expertise qui est parfois en opposition avec des considérations politiques et les diverses tactiques utilisées pour s'assurer une place dans la mise sur pied, l'implantation et l'administration des programmes de santé publique à l'étranger.

Today, the perception of the Alps – and mountains in general - as an object or place of scientific and aesthetic value is an acknowledged element of Western culture. Before the eighteenth century, however, Europe possessed a markedly different mentality towards its mountain heart – one of fear and disdain toward the dangerous alpine desert. Yet the eighteenth century witnessed a reversal of this centuries-long prejudice as the cultivation of empirical methodology, coupled with the concomitant institutionalization of science and emergence of bourgeois culture paved the way for a transformation of Europe's alpine mentality. The pioneers of this change were Horace-Benedict de Saussure and Jean-André de Luc, natural philosophers of Swiss descent. Advocating meticulous observation, precision instrumentation and fieldwork, along with an implicit awareness of alpine aesthetics, Saussure and de Luc became the first to systematically study and appreciate the scientific and aesthetic value of the high Alps. Investigating the roles of Saussure and de Luc in transforming the perception of the Alps, this dissertation will focus on the core elements of their scientific methodology, demonstrating how the confluence of these components provided the catalytic force necessary to cast the Alps anew. / De nos jours, la façon de voir les Alpes et les montagnes en général, en tant qu'objet ou lieu qui a une valeur scientifique et esthétique, est tout à fait accepté par la Culture occidentale, Cependant, avant le XVIII ième siècle, l'Europe possédait une mentalité totalement différente à l'égard de son coeur montagnard, elle considérait ce désert alpin dangereux avec peur et mépris. Le XVIII ième siècle a vu un revirement de ce préjudice qui datait de centaines d'années. La culture de la méthodologie empirique à laquelle s'ajoutera l'institutionnalisation des Sciences et la naissance de la culture bourgeoise, ont ouvert la voie à une transformation de la mentalité alpine en Europe. Horace-Benedict de Saussure et Jean-André de Luc,tous deux physiciens d'origine Suisse, furent les pionniers de ce revirement. C'est en poussant à faire des observations méticuleuses, avec des instruments de précision et en faisant des recherches sur le terrain tout en ayant une sensibilisation absolue à propos des principes esthétiques alpins, c'est ainsi que Saussure et de Luc devinrent les premiers à en faire une étude systématique et à apprécier la valeur à la fois scientifique et esthétique des Hautes Alpes. Cette dissertation mettra l'accent sur les rôles de Saussure et de de Luc quant à la transformation de la perception des Alpes et se concentrera sur les éléments principaux de leur méthodologie scientifique, montrant comment la convergence de ces éléments fournit la force catalytique nécessaire pour présenter les Alpes dans un nouveau contexte. fr

<p> This dissertation is a series of textual case studies on nontraditional sources for <i>li</i>[special characters omitted]"calendro-astronomy" circa 250 BCE - 250 CE: (1) the silk manuscript guide to military planetary astronomy/astrology <i>Wuxing zhan</i>[special chracters omitted] (168 BCE), (2) excavated calendars and state <i>li</i> manuals, and (3) the <i>Jin shu</i>'s [special characters omitted] record of the debate surrounding a failed attempt at li reform in 226 CE. This selection affords us a number of unique cross sections through the astral sciences. Balancing transmitted with excavated sources, I emphasize realia and their perspective on era technical knowledge, the formats in which it was produced and consumed, and its transmission and practice beyond an elite court-centered context. In addition to the three elements of <i>li</i>--calendrics, eclipses, and planetary astronomy--my selection draws together the broad array of astral sciences, exploring distinctions in genre, sociology, and epistemology between, for example, mathematical astronomy, hemerology, and omenology, and the (tortuous) processes by which knowledge moved between them. Each chapter also juxtaposes the normative descriptions of manual literature with products of practice&mdash;tables, calendars, and test results&mdash;to reflect upon the distance between them and, thus, the limitations of the former as historical testimony. Across these cross sections, my study focuses on the question of empiricism and progress. I foreground these topics <i>not</i> because they define twentieth-century notions of science but because, as I argue, they define early imperial notions of <i>li</i>&mdash;a point that our twenty-first-century aversion to positivism and Whig history tends to obscure. To this end, I catalog the conceptual vocabulary of observation and testing, submit empirical practices to mathematical and sociological analysis, and, most importantly, explore the formation and function of legend&mdash;the histories of science that early imperial actors wrote and recounted in their own day. </p><p> As it stands, the dissertation has four body chapters. Chapter 1 provides a history and sociology of the astral sciences in the Han, covering the sources, legend, and conceptual vocabulary of <i>li</i>, the history of Han li from the perspective of both ideas and institutional reforms, and a survey of participants' backgrounds, motivations, education, and epistemological contentions. Chapter 2 examines how the Wuxing zhan manuscript segregates and conflates distinct genres of planetary models, then sketches the subsequent history of these genres, showing how, despite seemingly opposite orientations to reality, actors gradually rewrote and reassessed (crude) hemerology-based omenological (<i>tianwen</i>[special characters omitted]) models through the lens of progress made in mathematical (<i>li</i>) ones. Chapter 3 explores a similar gulf that opened between astronomy and calendrics in this period, as well as the gulf between imperial ideology&mdash;within which the calendar was the premier symbol of cosmo-ritual dominion&mdash;and the actualities of the production, distribution, and use of calendars in a manuscript culture. Lastly, chapter 4 analyzes the two epistemic strategies at the center of (the <i>Jin shu</i>'s take on) the circa 226 CE court debate on <i>li</i>: the quantitative determination of "tightness" (accuracy) of lunisolar and planetary models through competitive testing, and the contestation of claims through the deployment of precedence from the history of the field.</p>

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2006 / "Publication number AAT 3251814."

No description available.

My dissertation concerns the networks of production of early modern books of city views. Its focus is the emerging national and regional identities of the makers of the views in Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia (1544-1628) and competing French city books from the same period. To study the networks I have adopted an interdisciplinary approach that aims to give a measured attention to all individuals involved in the production of the views (cosmographers, patrons, artists, draftsmen, woodcutters, printers). I analyze (1) national myths to which patrons and artists aligned their views, (2) patrons’ depiction of territory and genealogy in their views, (3) national symbols depicted on the views by draftsmen and woodcutters, and (4) draftsmen’s intentional application of “Deutsch” [German] or “Welsch” [French/Italian] styles. Finally, I have mapped views of the all editions of the city books in GIS, in order to visualize and analyze their networks of production over time. It emerges from this inquiry that a necessary condition for the collaborative production of books of city views was the alignment of the diverse interests (scientific, political, dynastic, economic, artistic) of all parties involved along a single unified goal, here the production of a shared national identity. / History of Art and Architecture

We usually encounter objects as instances: a pen, a tree, a stream. We approach them as logically subsumed. But George Eliot's Saint Theresa or Charles Dickens’s Mr. Turveydrop is not an instance of something but rather has instances: the uncounted “Theresas” or the “many Mr. Turveydrops.” The individual functions itself as a concept. It becomes a mental representation of a whole class of things. Logically, it is not enclosed but rather encloses. Referentially, it picks out a domain within the world and opens a new space in the mind. The character becomes many. He is everywhere in the way that maple tree or red is. As concepts, these characters become the constituents of thought; we think with persons. Such types are where investigation of the nature of ideas touches that on the possibilities of artistic representation and the risks of social being. But they are also where art itself feels its surround, referentially and methodologically. Through its shared preoccupation with the concept and shared language of the type, the novel became fully alive to concurrent work in other fields and tried its implications; it assimilated, rebuffed, and creatively misprized contemporary theories of the type in philosophical logic, statistics, sociology, medicine, psychology, comparative anatomy, biological taxonomy, and evolutionary theory. Drawing from the outer edge of the novel and beyond it, the type defined the work of the writers studied here—Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy—from its core. / English