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Translations of works containing Arabic and ancient Greek knowledge of the philosophical and mechanical underpinnings of the natural world—a field of study called natural philosophy—were disseminated throughout twelfth-century England. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, institutional (ecclesiastical/university) scholars received and further developed this natural philosophical knowledge by reconciling it with Christian authoritative sources (the Bible and works by the Church Fathers). The subsequent discourse that developed demonstrated ambivalence towards natural philosophical knowledge; institutional scholars expressed both acceptance and anxiety regarding the theory and practice of alchemy, astrology/astronomy, and humoral/astrological medicine. While the institutional development and discourse surrounding natural philosophical thought is well-represented within medieval scholarship, an examination of the transmission and reception of this institutional discourse by broader sectors of English medieval society is needed. Examining fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English public writings, texts, and copies of Latin works provides an important avenue of analysis when exploring the transmission and reception of institutional natural philosophical discourse to the laity. By comparing the similarities of discourse evident between the institutional and lay texts and the textual approaches the Middle English writers employed to incorporate this discourse, these works demonstrate that the spheres of institutional and lay knowledge traditionally separated by medieval historians overlapped as the clerics and laity began sharing a similar understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the natural world.

Malgré l’acceptation théorique et pratique que l’astrologie médiévale rencontre au 13e siècle latin, son statut philosophique ambigu tient, au moins en partie, à son double partage en art mécanique et en science libérale. Plus mystérieux encore reste le fait qu’elle apparaisse en Occident sans devoir violenter les cadres philosophiques où elle s’inscrit, aussi chrétiens soient-ils. Du point de vue de l’histoire de la philosophie, ce que cette arrivée en douceur passe sous silence, c’est l’enracinement conceptuel toujours déjà préétabli du projet astrologique à l’intérieur d’un contexte philosophique plus global, dans et par lequel l’idée d’influence astrale valide sa raison d’être. En passant par la philosophie naturelle et la métaphysique de Thomas d’Aquin, ce travail veut montrer comment l’astrologie médiévale survient en terres chrétiennes à partir de la rencontre de la hiérarchie causale de l’être propre à l’arabo-aristotélisme néo-platonisant avec une théologie de la providence divine. D’aporie en aporie, la déconstruction de ce que toute astrologie présuppose prend place, de sorte qu’il devient possible de comprendre l’aspect rationnel et proprement philosophique de l’entreprise astrologique au Moyen Âge. / In spite of the theoretical and practical acceptation that medieval astrology is greeted with during the 13th century in the Latin world, its philosophically ambiguous nature is due, at least partly so, to the distinction made between mechanical arts and liberal sciences. Even more mysterious is the fact that it appears in Occident without having to violate the peripheries of Latin philosophy, as Christian as it could be. From a history of philosophy point of view, this rather smooth entrance seems to imply that the astrological project is always-already conceptually rooted in a philosophical context larger than itself, by which it validates its raison d’être. Through the study of Thomas Aquinas’ natural philosophy and metaphysics, this work demonstrates that medieval astrology could occur among the Christian world whenever the causal hierarchy of being brought forth by Arabic aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism walked hand in hand with the Christian theology of divine providence. From an aporia to another, the deconstruction of what any astrology presupposes therefore takes place, from which it becomes possible to properly understand both the rational and philosophical aspect of the astrological enterprise during the Middle Ages.

La thèse porte sur le statut du corps dans la philosophie de Spinoza. Une première partie de la thèse reconstruit la façon dont Spinoza thématise la corporéité, à partir du Court Traité et du problème de l’attribution à Dieu d’une nature étendue. En outre, on démontre aussi que la position qu’on trouve dans l’Ethique est le résultat d’un travail intellectuel qui n’était pas encore accompli au début de l’itinéraire de Spinoza. En particulier, on souligne qu’une meilleure réflexion sur les concepts de partie et du tout, sur la nature des passions et sur le concept de détermination sera essentielle à ce développement. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, on considère trois milieux de référence pour situer la pensée spinozienne par rapport aux enjeux de la nouvelle philosophie de la nature de la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle. D’abord, on reconsidère le statut de la seconde partie des Principes de la philosophie de Descartes et on montre l’infidélité de Spinoza à Descartes sur plusieurs points. Il s’agit d’une infidélité systématique qui témoigne de l’effort spinozien pour donner une cohérence à l’usage du concept cartésien le plus ambigu, celui de détermination. Ensuite, on montre que tout en essayant de poursuivre dans cette ligne, Spinoza peut avoir trouvé chez Hobbes des instruments intellectuels importants. Il s’agit surtout de l’usage que Hobbes fait du concept de mouvement comme véritable essence de tout phénomène physique, dont résulte sa conception du conatus. Cependant, on démontre aussi le désaccord entre la conception hobbesienne de la causalité et la position définitive de Spinoza. A ce propos, on propose de reconsidérer la pensée de Robert Boyle comme l’autre source décisive qui permet à Spinoza de développer sa réflexion physique plutôt du coté de l’activité des corps. Ce faisant, on souligne – en troisième lieu – que Spinoza va s’opposer au développement majeur du cartésianisme de ces années, c’est-à-dire l’occasionalisme, surtout dans la forme que lui avait donnait Arnold Geulincx. / My dissertation examins Spinoza’s account of bodies. I devote the first part of my dissertation to investigating how and why issues linked to the concept of body and, more generally, to physics, become real problems for Spinoza. This leads to the important result of reevaluating the first steps of Spinoza’s philosophical career. I stress the theological context in which, in the Short Treatise (1661 c.a.), the concept of body appeared for the first time as a challenge. How is it possible to demonstrate that the extension is an attribute of God and thus that finite bodies are modifications of God’s infinite substance? In order to answer this question, Spinoza will be forced to work out different further conceptual tools, most notably the mereological part/whole distinction, the status of natural law and the conatus doctrine. My chronological approach shows that the achievements we find in the Ethics (1675) are only the last and most consistent version of Spinoza’s philosophy, which underwrite several major changes through his development. This methodological approach allows us to appreciate several key shifts in Spinoza’s position and thus to frame in a more determinate way the problem of his sources. Firstly, I address the highly debated question of the dependence of Spinoza’s physics on Descartes’ own project. I focus on Spinoza’s attempt to make coherent Descartes’ use of the concept of determination, which turns to be crucial for Spinoza’s own account of physical interactions. As a second step, I explore Spinoza’s relationship with two key figures of the English Modern culture in the pre-Newtonian period: Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle. I stress Spinoza’s debt with Hobbes but also the discrepancies between their accounts of causal interactions. In that view, I underline that Robert Boyle provides an important framework to understand Spinoza’s ontology of activity. As a third and final step, I compare Spinoza’s own evolution with the rise of Occasionalism, which was at the same time a chronologically parallel, but philosophically opposite development of Descartes’ project.

The syllabus in natural philosophy and mathematics was radically changed in the course of the sixteenth century with new subjects, textbooks and methods introduced. Education became more practical and less dependent on medieval antecedents. Printing technology improved textbooks and made it possible to replace them with newer versions. Following sweeping syllabus reform around 1500, the Cambridge Master of Arts course was heavily slanted towards humanism. The old scholastic textbooks were rejected and replaced with modern authors. The purpose of natural philosophy was explicitly to illuminate the providential work of the creator, especially through natural history (a newly developing subject in the sixteenth century thanks to newly translated and promulgated Greek texts) where examples of God's work were there for all to see. Oxford remained wedded to scholastic texts although the trivium was reformed along humanistic lines. Cromwell's visitors in 1535 outlawed scholasticism by decree but gave little indication of the alternative (their white list stipulating only Aristotle). The solution adopted by the Oxford masters was to import the Cambridge syllabus and textbooks wholesale. When the evangelical regime of Edward VI reformed the universities in 1549, the humanist natural philosophy syllabus was adjudged appropriate, especially those parts promoted by Philip Melanchthon at the University of Wittenberg. However, the visitors' background at court meant they valued ethics and politics more highly. The Reformation itself left natural philosophy largely unaffected although the barrier preventing Catholics from entering clerical careers after 1558 appears to have encouraged some to remain philosophers. In mathematics, the 1549 visitation was highly significant. Cambridge University's initiative in 1500 in employing a university lecturer in the subject was in danger of stagnating due to inappropriate appointments. However, John Cheke's statutes in 1549 promoted the use of modern textbooks of practical arithmetic, finance and surveying useful to the centralised Tudor state. He also introduced the new subject of geography as a result of his contacts at court with merchants and explorers. The thesis concludes that during the second half of the sixteenth century,English students could expect a mathematical and philosophical education comparable to that of their Italian peers. This was sufficient to provide graduates with the knowledge they needed to carry these subjects forward in the seventeenth century.

La critique récente sur Aphra Behn (1640-1689) a montré d’une part que ses courts romans entretiennent des liens privilégiés avec le champ de la philosophie naturelle montante et d’autre part, que le monstrueux ou l’exotique sont des motifs privilégiés de ses œuvres. Ce travail vise à mettre en lien ces deux différentes approches, en établissant la centralité de la notion de curiosité dans la fiction d’Aphra Behn. La curiosité est une notion ambivalente au XVIIe siècle qui, bien qu’elle continue à porter des connotations négatives d’origine chrétienne et médiévale, s’est vue revalorisée par la philosophie naturelle. A la même époque, la notion de curiosité suscite également un regain d’intérêt de la part des théoriciens du roman ; Behn se positionne dans le débat esthétique et épistémologique de son temps en revendiquant une mimesis originale du vrai absolu, qui refuse d’intéresser son lecteur par une curiosité pour les choses familières, et choisit de représenter l’extra-ordinaire. Behn tente de discriminer entre une « bonne » et une « mauvaise » curiosité, pour se poser en curieuse et en collectionneuse avisée, mais continue d’entretenir des liens avec une culture plus populaire de la curiosité, celle des spectacles de foires. Le « cabinet de curiosité littéraire » que construit Aphra Behn privilégie des figures de monstres atypiques, qui permettent d’inventer une forme romanesque curieuse et transgressive. / Recent research on Aphra Behn has shown the link between the scientific prose of the period and Behn’s narrative fiction, while other scholars have underscored the importance of bodily and moral deformity in her works. Drawing on these apparently heterogeneous studies, this project aims at providing a global aesthetic framework for Behn’s fiction. The epistemological context of the late seventeenth century offers a stimulating insight in Behn’s fiction, especially through the notion of “curiosity”. This notion is at the centre of both the scientific and literary concerns of the period; the growing interest in natural philosophy progressively rehabilitates curiosity – which had been an object of scorn in the Augustinian tradition – first by valuing curiosity as the ideal attitude of the “scientist”, and by having curiosities as its major object of study – the rare, new, and unusual objects of the Wunderkammern replacing the “universal” objects of study of the Medieval and Renaissance science. At exactly the same time, in the literary field, the notion of curiosity undergoes a redefinition, in a somewhat similar fashion to that which occurs in the scientific field, shifting from the “generalities” of idealized romance to a new conception of curiosity in the emerging genre of the novel. Behn advocates for a radical mimesis of truth and extraordinary curiosities. At the time when Aphra Behn writes her fictional texts, curiosity is therefore a polysemic notion, whose unity can nonetheless be found in a set of specificities: curiosity is concerned, both in science and in literature, with the emotions/reactions of the “curious” scientist or reader; it is what leads us to experiment, and it comes from a desire for knowledge. But curiosity is also a transgressive desire: the distinction between two types of curiosity, a “good” and a “bad” curiosity, is central in Behn’s discourse. The parallel between Behn’s fascination with curiosities and the scientific episteme of her time is obvious in the numerous descriptions of exotica in Oroonoko, as the narrator explicitly compares the objects she shows to those which form part of the Royal Society repository, but the rest of Behn’s fiction is also concerned with this preoccupation with curiosity: in several of her other works, moral irregularities are conjoined with ‘natural’/physical irregularities which belong to the realm of curiosities. The various transgressions depicted in Behn’s fiction can therefore be seen as “curiosities”; Behn’s work can be read as a sort of Wunderkammern, as she herself seems to suggest when she wishes her novels were “esteem’d as Medals in the Cabinets of Men of Wit” – novelists collect and experiment on human nature just as natural philosophers do with nature (and art) in the cabinets of curiosities. But in her fiction Behn actually goes beyond the conventional notion of the cabinet of curiosities, by insisting on moral and physical monstrosity. In underlining the importance of the realm of curiosity in Behn’s fiction, this study aims at showing the specificity of her aesthetics and the originality of her conception of the novel; as she states in the preface to Oroonoko, writers, like painters, are supposed to “erase” defects: by deliberately choosing not to idealize nature, men, or society, and by choosing to systematically depict deformity and exceptions instead (rather than exemplary individuals), Aphra Behn invents her own conception of the novel, a sensationalist aesthetic of the “strange and novel”.

This dissertation examines the intersection between the culture of knowledge and socio-economic conditions of late Ming and Qing China (1550-1800) through the lens of materia medica. I argue that medicine in China during this time developed new characteristics that emphasized the centrality of drugs as objects of pharmacological knowledge, commodities valued by authenticity and efficacy, and embodiment of medical skills and expertise. My inquiry contributes to a deeper understanding of the materiality of healing as a basic condition in early modern societies: on the one hand, textual knowledge about drugs and the substances themselves became increasingly available via the commoditization of texts and goods; on the other hand, anxiety arose out of the unruly nature of potent substances, whose promise to cure remained difficult to grasp in social practice of medicine. / History of Science

Malgré l’acceptation théorique et pratique que l’astrologie médiévale rencontre au 13e siècle latin, son statut philosophique ambigu tient, au moins en partie, à son double partage en art mécanique et en science libérale. Plus mystérieux encore reste le fait qu’elle apparaisse en Occident sans devoir violenter les cadres philosophiques où elle s’inscrit, aussi chrétiens soient-ils. Du point de vue de l’histoire de la philosophie, ce que cette arrivée en douceur passe sous silence, c’est l’enracinement conceptuel toujours déjà préétabli du projet astrologique à l’intérieur d’un contexte philosophique plus global, dans et par lequel l’idée d’influence astrale valide sa raison d’être. En passant par la philosophie naturelle et la métaphysique de Thomas d’Aquin, ce travail veut montrer comment l’astrologie médiévale survient en terres chrétiennes à partir de la rencontre de la hiérarchie causale de l’être propre à l’arabo-aristotélisme néo-platonisant avec une théologie de la providence divine. D’aporie en aporie, la déconstruction de ce que toute astrologie présuppose prend place, de sorte qu’il devient possible de comprendre l’aspect rationnel et proprement philosophique de l’entreprise astrologique au Moyen Âge. / In spite of the theoretical and practical acceptation that medieval astrology is greeted with during the 13th century in the Latin world, its philosophically ambiguous nature is due, at least partly so, to the distinction made between mechanical arts and liberal sciences. Even more mysterious is the fact that it appears in Occident without having to violate the peripheries of Latin philosophy, as Christian as it could be. From a history of philosophy point of view, this rather smooth entrance seems to imply that the astrological project is always-already conceptually rooted in a philosophical context larger than itself, by which it validates its raison d’être. Through the study of Thomas Aquinas’ natural philosophy and metaphysics, this work demonstrates that medieval astrology could occur among the Christian world whenever the causal hierarchy of being brought forth by Arabic aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism walked hand in hand with the Christian theology of divine providence. From an aporia to another, the deconstruction of what any astrology presupposes therefore takes place, from which it becomes possible to properly understand both the rational and philosophical aspect of the astrological enterprise during the Middle Ages.

ix, 268 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / "Words in the World" details the ways that the place of rhetoric and literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries changes in response to the transition from natural philosophy to Cartesian mechanism. In so doing, it also offers a constructive challenge to today's environmental literary criticism, challenging environmental literary critics' preoccupation with themes of nature and, by extension, with representational language. Reading authors from Thomas More to Philip Sidney and Ben Jonson through changes in physics, cartography, botany, and zoology, "Words in the World" argues that literature occupies an increasingly separate place from the real world. "Place" in this context refers to spatiotemporal dimensions, taxonomic affiliations, and the relationships between literature and the physical world. George Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589), for instance, limits the way that rhetoric is part of the world to the ways that it can be numbered (meter, rhyme scheme, and so forth); metaphor and other tropes, however, are duplicitous. In contrast, for an earlier era of natural philosophers, tropes were the grammar of the universe. "Words in the World" culminates with Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621/1651), in which the product of literature's split from the physical world is literary melancholy. Turning to today's environmental literary criticism, the dissertation thus historicizes ecocriticism's nostalgic melancholy for the extratextual physical world. Indeed, Early Modern authors' inquiries into the place of literature and the relationships between that place and the physical world in terms of literary forms and structures, suggests the importance of ecoformalism to Early Modern scholarship. In particular, this dissertation argues that Early Modern authors treat literary structures as types of performative language. This dissertation revises the standard histories of Early Modern developments in rhetoric and of the literary text, and it provides new insight into the materiality of literary form. / Committee in charge: Lisa Freinkel, Chairperson, English; William Rossi, Member, English; George Rowe, Member, English; Ted Toadvine, Outside Member, Philosophy