In Coming To, Timothy M. Harrison uncovers the forgotten role of poetry in the history of the idea of consciousness. Drawing our attention to a sea change in the English seventeenth century, when, over the course of a half century, “conscience” made a sudden shift to “consciousness,” he traces a line that leads from the philosophy of René Descartes to the poetry of John Milton, from the prenatal memories of theologian Thomas Traherne to the unresolved perspective on natality, consciousness, and ethics in the philosophy of John Locke. Each of these figures responded to the first-person perspective by turning to the origins of how human thought began. Taken together, as Harrison shows, this unlikely group of thinkers sheds new light on the emergence of the concept of consciousness and the significance of human natality to central questions in the fields of literature, philosophy, and the history of science.
...MoreReview Emma Gilby (2022) Review of "Coming To: Consciousness and Natality in Early Modern England". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 439-440).
Similar Citations
Article
Weinberg, Shelley;
(2012)
The Metaphysical Fact of Consciousness in Locke's Theory of Personal Identity
(/isis/citation/CBB001210531/)
Book
Edwards, Karen L.;
(1999)
Milton and the Natural World: Science and Poetry in Paradise Lost
(/isis/citation/CBB000111472/)
Article
Kathryn Tabb;
(2018)
Madness as Method: On Locke’s Thought Experiments About Personal Identity
(/isis/citation/CBB500354678/)
Article
Federico Boccaccini;
Anna Marmodoro;
(2017)
Powers, Abilities and Skills in Early Modern Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB647362818/)
Article
Walmsley, Jonathan;
(2003)
The Development of Locke's Mechanism in the Drafts of the Essay
(/isis/citation/CBB000831411/)
Book
Cassandra Gorman;
(2021)
The Atom in Seventeenth-Century Poetry
(/isis/citation/CBB486681154/)
Book
Jolley, Nicholas;
(2013)
Causality and Mind: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB001553076/)
Book
Nolan, Lawrence;
(2011)
Primary and Secondary Qualities: The Historical and Ongoing Debate
(/isis/citation/CBB001035171/)
Book
Seigel, Jerrold E.;
(2005)
The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000930043/)
Thesis
Dye, Amy;
(2005)
Writing Creation in England, 1580--1680
(/isis/citation/CBB001560880/)
Book
McColley, Diane Kelsey;
(2007)
Poetry and Ecology in the Age of Milton and Marvell
(/isis/citation/CBB000774601/)
Book
Duran, Angelica;
(2007)
The Age of Milton and the Scientific Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB000773914/)
Thesis
Silverman, William John, Jr.;
(2011)
Seeing While Blind: Disability, Theories of Vision, and Milton's Poetry
(/isis/citation/CBB001567262/)
Article
Rachel Trubowitz;
(2017)
Reading Milton and Newton in the Radical Reformation: Poetry, Mathematics, and Religion
(/isis/citation/CBB040242782/)
Book
Schwartz, Louis;
(2009)
Milton and Maternal Mortality
(/isis/citation/CBB001230204/)
Thesis
Hartunian, Lydia B.;
(2002)
The Role of Consciousness in Locke's Theory of Mind: Problems and Consequences
(/isis/citation/CBB001562543/)
Book
Lipking, Lawrence;
(2014)
What Galileo Saw: Imagining the Scientific Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001510101/)
Thesis
Navakas, Eugene Glasberg;
(2009)
Virtuous Circles: Skepticism and Travel in Seventeenth-Century English Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB001561153/)
Book
Fleming, James Dougal;
(2008)
Milton's Secrecy and Philosophical Hermeneutics
(/isis/citation/CBB000774596/)
Book
Avramides, Anita;
(2001)
Other Minds
(/isis/citation/CBB000102009/)
Be the first to comment!