Article ID: CBB001201190

Medieval Representations of Change and Their Early Modern Application (2014)

unapi

The article investigates the role of symbolic means of knowledge representation in concept development using the historical example of medieval diagrams of change employed in early modern work on the motion of fall. The parallel cases of Galileo Galilei, Thomas Harriot, and René Descartes and Isaac Beeckman are discussed. It is argued that the similarities concerning the achievements as well as the shortcomings of their respective work on the motion of fall can to a large extent be attributed to their shared use of means of knowledge representation handed down from antiquity and the Middle Ages. While the interpretation of medieval diagrams was unproblematic in the scholastic context from which they arose, in the early modern context, which was characterized by the confluence of natural philosophy and practical mathematics, it became ambiguous. It was the early modern mathematicians' work within this contradictory framework that brought about a new conceptualization of motion which, in particular, eventually led to an infinitesimal concept of velocity. In this process, the diagrams themselves remained largely unchanged and thus functioned as a catalyst for concept development.

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Authors & Contributors
Schemmel, Matthias
Omodeo, Pietro Daniel
Dong, Hao
Lo, Melissa
Dyck, Maarten Van
Wels, Volkhard
Concepts
Physics
Motion (physical)
Mathematics
Natural philosophy
Astronomy
Mechanics
Time Periods
17th century
Early modern
Renaissance
16th century
Modern
Medieval
Places
Italy
Europe
England
Netherlands
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