"Petty magic to experiment": The seventeenth century's Scientific Revolution and the closing of this world to the next

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dc.contributor.advisorChance, Janeen_US
dc.creatorZimmer, Mary E.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2009-06-04T08:09:56Zen_US
dc.date.available2009-06-04T08:09:56Zen_US
dc.date.issued2004en_US
dc.description.abstractThe shift from a traditional, being-based Christian cosmology---in which God creates all things through an ontologically-invested reason in which man shares---to a voluntarist, will-based Christian cosmology---in which God creates all things through an arbitrary act of will knowable to man only through experience---is considered crucial to the rise of empiricism and its related experimental method, two cornerstones of the Scientific Revolution. This dissertation examines how the shift from a being- to a logos-based cosmology, with its entailed shift from a realist to a nominalist ontology, affected this world's relation to a next. It explores this issue by considering the resurrection views of three writers whose works, taken together, span the seventeenth-century both temporally and intellectually, from the vestigial medieval scholasticism of John Donne (1572--1631) through the Renaissance neo-Platonism of Thomas Browne (1605--1682) to the Early-Modern mechanism of Robert Boyle (1627--1691). This dissertation argues that the traditional, being-based cosmologies shared by Donne and Browne underlie their teleological understandings of natural processes and, in doing so, allows them to find evidence in this world for resurrection to the next. Boyle's voluntarist cosmology, on the other hand, banishes inherent teleology from the natural world and thereby silences this world with regard to a next. This dissertation further argues that this shift in cosmology and more specifically, the entailed shift from a realist to a nominalist ontology, allowed man to make nature speak a new, operational language that could be used to man's benefit. By considering works written around the time of London's 1665 plague, we will see how mechanistic medicine produced such operational knowledge through the use of human-made instruments and methods, including experimentation. Although such knowledge provides no intelligence about a next world, it does allow humanity to make its way better in this one.en_US
dc.format.extent160 p.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.callnoTHESIS ENGL. 2004 ZIMMERen_US
dc.identifier.citationZimmer, Mary E.. ""Petty magic to experiment": The seventeenth century's Scientific Revolution and the closing of this world to the next." (2004) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/18727">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/18727</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/18727en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectPhilosophy of Religionen_US
dc.subjectEnglish literatureen_US
dc.title"Petty magic to experiment": The seventeenth century's Scientific Revolution and the closing of this world to the nexten_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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