Goldberg, Benjamin (Author)
The generation of animals was a difficult phenomenon to explain in the seventeenth century, having long been a problem in natural philosophy, theology, and medicine. In this paper, I explore how generation, understood as epigenesis, was directly related to an idea of rational nature. I examine epigenesis—the idea that the embryo was constructed part-by-part, over time—in the work of two seemingly dissimilar English philosophers: William Harvey, an eclectic Aristotelian, and Margaret Cavendish, a radical materialist. I chart the ways that they understood and explained epigenesis, given their differences in philosophy and ontology. I argue for the importance of ideas of harmony and order in structuring their accounts of generation as a rational process. I link their experiences during the English Civil war to how they see nature as a possible source for the rationality and concord sorely missing in human affairs.
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Thesis
Ekholm, Karin Jori;
(2011)
Generation and Its Problems: Harvey, Highmore and Their Contemporaries
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Sleigh, Charlotte;
(2012)
Jan Swammerdam's Frogs
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Xiaona Wang;
(2019)
By Analogy to the Element of the Stars: The Divine in Jean Fernel's and William Harvey's Theories of Generation
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Michaelian, Kourken;
(2009)
Margaret Cavendish's Epistemology
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Article
Rosengren, Cecilia;
(2012)
Vad betyder en armbȧge? Om innebörden i Margaret Cavendishs frontespiser
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Justin Begley;
Benjamin Goldberg;
(2023)
The Medical World of Margaret Cavendish: A Critical Edition
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Cummins, Juliet;
Burchell, David;
(2007)
Science, Literature, and Rhetoric in Early Modern England
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Thesis
Sarkar, Debapriya;
(2014)
Possible Knowledge: Forms of Literary and Scientific Thought in Early Modern England
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Book
Margaret Cavendish;
Anne M. Thell;
(2020-01-27)
Grounds of Natural Philosophy
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Parageau, Sandrine;
(2011)
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Thell, Anne M.;
(2015)
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Bowerbank, Sylvia Lorraine;
(2004)
Speaking for Nature: Women and Ecologies of Early Modern England
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Chapter
Evans, Meredith;
(2013)
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Book
Andrew Cunningham;
(2022)
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Article
Attie, Katherine Bootle;
(2013)
Selling Science: Bacon, Harvey and the Commodification of Knowledge
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Thesis
Neuss, Michael James;
(2013)
Balancing Blood, Balancing Books: Medicine, Commerce, and the Royal Court in Seventeenth-Century England
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Book
Sarah Carvallo;
(2018)
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Thesis
Liou, Jennifer Hwa Yu;
(2013)
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Article
Sarah E. Parker;
(2016)
The Reader as Authorial Figure in Scientific Debate
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Thesis
Dye, Amy;
(2005)
Writing Creation in England, 1580--1680
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