Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison Recent documents in Peter Harrison en-us Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:38:20 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/19 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/19 Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:38:14 PDT No one who is familiar with the literature of the early-modern period can be in any doubt of the ubiquity of the metaphor the 'Book of Nature'. Indeed, its constant appearance in religious, literary, and scientific works can have the effect of engendering in the reader a kind of stupor, in which these metaphors are wearily passed over in the search for something more novel.In this essay I hope to convey some sense of the variety of ways in which the metaphor was used during the early modern period. My primary concern, however, will be to show how this trope functioned in arguments concerning the social legitimacy of the new approaches to the natural world characteristic of this period, and some of the ways in which competing frameworks for the interpretation of nature exploited this metaphor in attempts to demonstrate their social legitmacy, and more particularly, their religious utility. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/17 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/17 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:43 PST The aim is to explore the ways in which the Genesis narratives were understood in the mediaeval and early modern West with a view to identifying the kinds of attitudes and behaviours that these texts actually promoted. As will become apparent, it is fairly clear that the biblical imperative 'have dominion' did in fact play a significant role in promoting an active and manipulative engagement with the natural world, particularly during the seventeenth century. At this time, it provided legitimation for the new science and for the mastery of nature that this science promised. By the same token, the intention behind this energetic engagement with nature, then understood in the light of the Fall, was to restore the earth to its prelapsarian perfection. Control of the natural world was thus sought in order to perfect, rather than exploit, nature. What this means is that the two apparently conflicting characterizations 'despot' and 'steward' turn out to be twin aspects of the same role. As for the purported anthropocentric emphasis of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, this is probably far less significant than has often been imagined, for it was precisely during the period when large-scale attempts to master the natural world were under way that anthropocentric attitudes began to wane. In light of this, there is a need to revise commonly held views about the religious origins of Western attitudes towards nature, and to reassess the historical significance of the categories 'despot' and 'steward'. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/18 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/18 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:43 PST [Extract] : In a short paper which appeared thirty years ago in the journal Science, historian Lynn White, Jr., suggested that in "the orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature" may be found the ideological source of our contemporary environmental woes. The Christian doctrine of the creation sets the human being apart from nature, advocates human control of nature, and implies that the natural world was created solely for our use. The biblical text that best exemplifies this view is Gen. 1:28: "And God said to them 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'" In the Christian Middle Ages, according to White, we already encounter evidence of attempts at the technological mastery of nature, and of those incipient exploitative tendencies that come to full flower in scientific and technological revolutions of later eras. All of this is attributed to the influence of Judeo-Christian conceptions of creation. Christianity, White concludes, "bears a huge burden of guilt for environmental deterioration." Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/16 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/16 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:42 PST One of the most far-reaching consequences of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was a crisis of authority that pervaded the whole of Western Christendom. The aftermath of the Reformation saw the development of an unprecedented diversity of religious beliefs and practices in Europe, along with destabilizing wars of religion and the vigorous persecution of religious minorities. In this context the need for a criterion of religious truth became particularly acute. During the medieval period, tradition, scripture, reason, and experience had all been acceptable sources of religious authority, although they were mediated by the magisterium of the Catholic Church. Following the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century, serious challenges were issued to each of these long-established sources of authority. These challenges were underscored by new developments in the natural sciences. Copernican ideas and the revival of ancient atomism called into question long-standing scientific beliefs and prompted a reevaluation of the medieval understanding of the relationship between science and theology. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/15 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/15 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:42 PST [Extract]: Discussions about animals - their purpose, their minds or souls, their interior operations, our duties towards them -have always played a role in human self-understanding. At no time, however, except perhaps our own, have such concerns sparked the magnitude of debate which took place during the course of the seventeenth century. The agenda had been set in the late 1500s by Montaigne, who had made the remarkable (if somewhat rhetorical) claim that animals were both moral and rational, and moreover, more moral and rational than humans. In the century which followed, Descartes, not to be outdone, put forward the even more contentious counter-proposal that animals were not only neither rational nor moral, but that they were not even conscious. The Cartesian hypothesis fueled a debate which continued until well into the eighteenth century. 1 While in recent years much attention has been given to issues of animal consciousness and cognition in seventeenth-century thought, the related question of the moral capabilities of animals has been by comparison neglected. In this paper I shall explore the converse side of the better known arguments about the rational capabilities of the beasts, focusing on seventeenth-century discussions concerning the behaviors and passions of the beasts and the extent to which animals were thought to participate in the moral universe of human beings. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/12 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/12 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:41 PST This article explores in some detail the historical circumstances of the emergence of the dual categories "science" and "religion" with a view to showing their direct relevance for contemporary discussions of the science-religion relation. To a degree both categories distort what it is they claim to represent, and such distortions inevitably carry over into discussions of their relationship. Consideration of the historically conditioned nature of "science" and of "religion" brings to light a number of unspoken assumptions in some mainstream science-religion discussions and highlights the need for serious revision of common approaches to this issue. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/14 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/14 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:41 PST [Introduction] The notion that divine voluntarism played a central role in the development of the empirical sciences is now commonplace amongst historians of the early-modern period. In a 1934 issue of Mind, M. B. Foster first proposed a link between the voluntary activity of God, the contingency of the created order, and the requirement that science be empirically based. In the 1960s, in what was the first of a number of influential articles on the significance of medieval voluntarism, Francis Oakley also drew attention to the impact of this view of the Deity on the natural and political philosophy characteristic of modernity. At that time Oakley made this observation about certain developments in medieval theology: "This was the beginning of that fruitful stream of voluntarist natural law thinking, which, although it made its way with profound effect into the ethical, political and scientific thought of the modern world, has attracted less than its due share of attention from the historians of these subjects." Since then, a number of historians have taken up Oakley's challenge and elaborations of his thesis are to found in many authoritative accounts of early modern science. So firmly entrenched has this thesis become that in a recent review article the historian John Bossy defers to the widespread view that "the fathers of science depended on a nominalist and voluntarist natural theology", confidently declaring that "the story about the Ockhamist revanche first expounded by Francis Oakley ... has surely now sufficiently established itself". There are a number of elements to the 'voluntarism and science' thesis, and several different ways of characterizing divine voluntarism. Most versions of the thesis, however, discern a common logic in the position of early modern empiricists and their medieval forbears: from the concern to preserve the freedom of the Deity follows the claim that none of his creative acts is necessitated; from the unconstrained activity of the Deity follows the contingency of the natural order; from the contingency of the natural order follows the requirement that nature be investigated empirically. The plausible logic of this position is reinforced by establishing the trajectory of this line of thought and identifying the relevant historical actors. Thus the origins of voluntarism are located amongst the medieval 'nominalists', whence it is said to have found its way into early modern thought through the theology of the Protestant Reformers. Those seventeenth-century figures thought best to exemplify the thesis, on account of their dual commitments to voluntarism and to the empirical investigation of nature, are typically Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle, Isaac Barrow, and Isaac Newton.In this paper I will suggest that the voluntarism and science thesis is attended with numerous difficulties. First, there were significant early modern voluntarists who were not empiricists. Second, the central categories 'voluntarism', 'necessity',and 'contingency' are used with such imprecision and ambiguity as to render many versions of the thesis virtually meaningless. Third, the now familiar story about the impact of various forms of medieval voluntarism on the thought of the early modern period is in much of its detail simply wrong. Fourth, close examination of the expressed positions of a number of those early-modern empiricists thought to exemplify the thesis shows that they were not voluntarists in any significant sense of word. Finally, voluntarism is inconsistent with the physico-theological motivations of most early modern natural philosophers, and in particular those usually mentioned in connection with the thesis. In short, the voluntarism and science thesis is fatally flawed and its major contentions should be abandoned. The bulk of this paper will be given over to making this case. However, I also hope to demonstrate that there are important insights in the thesis, and in the final section I will briefly sketch out an alternative proposal for the influence of theological conceptions on the development of experimental philosophy in which these more important insights are preserved. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/13 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/13 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:41 PST [Extract]: "What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation." 1 David Hume's celebrated account of miracles concludes with an elegant symmetry: the argument against miracles applies equally to prophecies, and thus the twin supports of revealed religion are demolished. For the most part commentators have taken Hume at his word, focusing their attentions on his probabilistic argument against belief in breaches of natural laws and assuming that if this argument is effective against miracles, it will apply equally to prophecies. Treatments of the arguments of section ten of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding thus concentrate almost exclusively on the miraculous. In this paper I shall argue that both Hume and his commentators have tended to overlook the distinctive features of prophecy. Hume's chief objection to miracles--that one is never justified in crediting second-hand testimony to miraculous events--does not necessarily apply to the argument from fulfilled prophecies as it was understood in the eighteenth century. I shall further argue that at least some of the apologists for Christian revelation against whom Hume directed his arguments were aware of the kind of reasoning which Hume was to mount against the miraculous, and of the immunity of prophecies to this kind of attack. If we consider Hume's arguments in their historical context, then, we shall discover that not only do they fail to counter the argument from prophecies but that they were known to have failed. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/11 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/11 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:40 PST [Introduction]: Readers of the New Testament could be excused for thinking that there is little consistency in the manner in which miracles are represented in the Gospels. Those events typically identified as miracles are variously described as "signs" (semeia), "wonders" (terata), "mighty works" (dunameis), and, on occasion, simply "works" (erga). (1) The absence of a distinct terminology for the miraculous suggests that the authors of the Gospels were not working with a formal conception of "miracle" - at least not in that Humean sense of a "contravention of the laws of nature," familiar to modern readers. (2) Neither is there a consistent position on the evidentiary role of these events. In the synoptic Gospels -Matthew, Mark, and Luke - Jesus performs miracles on account of the faith of his audience. In John's Gospel, however, it is the performance of miracles that elicits faith. (3) Even in the fourth Gospel, moreover, the role of miracles as signs of Christ's divinity is not straightforward. Thus those who demand a miracle are castigated: "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe." (4) Finally, signs and wonders do not provide unambiguous evidence of the sanctity of the miracle worker or of the truth of their teachings. Accordingly, the faithful were warned (in the synoptic Gospels at least) that "false Christs and false prophets will rise and show signs and wonders [in order] to deceive." (5)The subsequent history of "miracle" saw the formalization of the rather imprecise first-century terms "signs," "wonders," "works," and their evolution into the more exact medieval categories "marvels," "portents," "preternatural" events, and "miracles." This was followed by the eventual emergence in the early modern period of a simple dichotomy between the natural and supernatural along with the familiar notion of miracles as violations of the laws of nature. These different ways of conceptualizing exceptions to nature's normal course are of central importance to historians both of science and of Christianity: the former, because of the intimate connection between the idea of miracle and the idea of a law of nature; the latter because of the miracle narratives of Scripture and the role assumed by miracles in the justification of doctrinal claims. In both spheres, moreover, the issues of evidence and the reliability of testimony are central.In this paper I shall set out three claims relating to the role of the miraculous in the histories of early modern science and religion. The first of these is that in the early modern period we witness a clear shift in the religious function of miracles, from which time they gradually cease to be understood within the context of faith and increasingly play a primary role in the rational justification of religious beliefs. To put it another way, the tension that we encounter in the canonical Gospels is resolved in favor of something that more closely approximates the Johannine than the synoptic position. Second, this shift reinforces a new conception of religion as having less to do with membership of the Church, with inner virtue, or with specific ritual practices, and more to do with subscription to a set of rationally justifiable propositions. The truth of religion, now understood primarily in propositional terms, is something that (in principle at least) can be tested in a neutral, objective sphere. Such tests were necessitated by the competing truth claims of the various new "religions," propositionally conceived. Third, science, or more correctly "natural philosophy," in at least some of its early modern forms, came to play an important role in the adjudication of rival religious claims. Natural philosophers, by virtue of their familiarity with the ordinary course of nature, could claim expertise in the identification of exceptions to that normal course. In addition, experimental philosophers had experience in judging the reliability of testimony to singular events. Natural philosophers could thus argue for the religious significance of their activities, inasmuch as they now performed these crucial adjudicatory functions in the context of this new understanding of true religion as a body of doctrines with objective and rationally justifiable foundations. (6) These transitions gave rise to a formal discourse about miracles that was somewhat removed from popular religious experience - a situation that reflects discussions of the miraculous that now routinely take place in the disciplinary context of the philosophy of religion, and which hinge upon issues of evidence and the status of laws of nature. Peter Harrison http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/10 http://works.bepress.com/peter_harrison/10 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:57:40 PST Natural philosophers, engaged as they were in a branch of philosophy, were expected to conform to the traditional models of the philosophical persona, in which the moral characteristics of the individual were the pledge of the truth of what they knew. That said, the beginnings of a shift of focus from persons to methods was already in train in the seventeenth century. In this chapter I shall suggest that this development owed much to Renaissance and Reformation criticisms of the traditional ideal of the contemplative life and the Aristotelian notions of virtue. Peter Harrison