Thomas Browne and the Writing of Early Modern Science
Cambridge University Press, 2/17/2005
EAN 9780521837941, ISBN10: 0521837944
Hardcover, 266 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Claire Preston argues that Thomas Browne's work can be fully understood only within the range of disciplines and practices associated with natural philosophy and early modern empiricism. Early modern methods of cataloguing, collecting, experimentation and observation organised his writing on many subjects from medicine and botany to archaeology and antiquarianism. Browne framed philosophical concerns in the terms of civil behaviour, with collaborative networks of intellectual exchange, investigative selflessness, courtesy, modesty and ultimately the generosity of the natural world itself, all characterising the return to 'innocent' knowledge, which, for Browne, is the proper end of human enquiry. In this major evaluation of Browne's oeuvre, Preston examines how the developing essay form, the discourse of scientific experiment, and above all Bacon's model of intellectual progress and cooperation determined the unique character of Browne's contributions to early modern literature, science and philosophy.
1. Browne's civility
2. Religio Medici
the junior endeavour
3. The civil monument
Pseudodoxia Epidemica and investigative culture
4. The laureate of the grave
Urne-Buriall and the failure of memory
5. The jocund cabinet and the melancholy museum
a brief excursion into Brownean comedy
6. The epitome of the earth
The Garden of Cyrus and verdancy
7. The fruits of natural knowledge
the fugitive writings, and a conclusion.