Jonathan Regier
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View article: Shadows of the Thrown Spear: Girolamo Cardano on Anxiety, Dreams, and the Divine in Nature
Shadows of the Thrown Spear: Girolamo Cardano on Anxiety, Dreams, and the Divine in Nature Open
Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), a preeminent natural philosopher, physician and astrologer of the sixteenth century, is known for the great diversity of his intellectual pursuits and writings. Across much of his work, we find an overriding c…
View article: Special Issue Introduction: Individuality, Self-Care, and Self-Preservation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Science
Special Issue Introduction: Individuality, Self-Care, and Self-Preservation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Science Open
View article: Celestial Physics
Celestial Physics Open
It has long been recognized that astronomy was a catalyst of the Scientific Revolution, spurring on deeply consequential speculation about the nature of the cosmos and its physical principles. Yet the history of celestial physics is far ri…
View article: Special Issue Introduction
Special Issue Introduction Open
The aim of this special issue is to explore varieties of animism in western European natural philosophy from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The issue focuses on “natural-philosophical animism,” by which we mean the position tha…
View article: A Hot Mess: Girolamo Cardano, the Inquisition, and the Soul
A Hot Mess: Girolamo Cardano, the Inquisition, and the Soul Open
Girolamo Cardano makes a number of surprising, even shocking claims about the soul in his De subtilitate, one of the most widely read works of natural philosophy in the sixteenth century. When he was finally investigated by the Roman Inqui…
View article: Stars, Crystals and Courts: Johannes Kepler and Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt
Stars, Crystals and Courts: Johannes Kepler and Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt Open
The new star of 1604 twinkled marvelously.Kepler devoted a chapter to its scintillation in De stella nova (1606).Two centuries later, François Arago reviewed the opinions of his predecessors in the course of his own exposé on stellar scint…
View article: Ficino on the Exalted and Suffering Body: Comparing the Platonic Theology and On the Christian Religion
Ficino on the Exalted and Suffering Body: Comparing the Platonic Theology and On the Christian Religion Open
To what extent does Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic theology correspond to his Christian theology? This question, although too wide to grasp all at once, furnishes the inspiration for the following essay. Here I discuss the human body in the Pl…
View article: SCENES WITH THE EARTH AS ACTOR: AGENCY AND THE EARLY-MODERN EARTH
SCENES WITH THE EARTH AS ACTOR: AGENCY AND THE EARLY-MODERN EARTH Open
This essay asks how several major figures of Renaissance and early-modern philosophy saw the Earth as agential. It argues that the Earth’s agency served as a well-articulated and fundamental concept in their philosophies. That is, figures …
View article: Reading Cardano with the Roman Inquisition: Astrology, Celestial Physics, and the Force of Heresy
Reading Cardano with the Roman Inquisition: Astrology, Celestial Physics, and the Force of Heresy Open
In the first decades after the founding of the modern Roman Inquisition in 1542, Girolamo Cardano was the most prominent natural philosopher to face imprisonment and trial. A trove of Inquisitorial letters, decrees, and censurae have survi…
View article: Introduction: History of early astronomy in Centaurus
Introduction: History of early astronomy in Centaurus Open
International audience
View article: “Qualis alio modo reperiri non potest.” A Few Words on Copernican Necessity
“Qualis alio modo reperiri non potest.” A Few Words on Copernican Necessity Open
View article: Scientific Reasoning in Action-From the Early Modern Period to 1900, 10-12 October
Scientific Reasoning in Action-From the Early Modern Period to 1900, 10-12 October Open
View article: Ghosts in the Celestial Machine
Ghosts in the Celestial Machine Open
The brief reflection that follows is a discussion of how and why celestial bodies were seen as alive in the celestial physics of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. From Aristotle to the angelology of the Scholastics and through…
View article: 5. Book Reviews and Notices
5. Book Reviews and Notices Open
Reviews and Notices of Omodeo, Copernicus in the Cultural Debates of the Renaissance: Reception, Legacy, Transformation, Brill 2014; Gentilcore, Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine and Society, 1450-1800, Bloomsbury 2015…
View article: An unfolding geometry : appropriating proclus in the harmonice mundi (1619)
An unfolding geometry : appropriating proclus in the harmonice mundi (1619) Open
Johannes Kepler’s Harmonices mundi libri V (1619) is capable of leaving the modern reader with an impression of grandeur and triviality. It is long, complicated, and at times impenetrable. It mixes heavy metaphysical concoctions with an at…