Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy

Autores
Wolfe, Charles T; Manzo, Silvia
Año de publicación
2020
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
parte de libro
Estado
versión publicada
Descripción
Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a "long" early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffer- ing from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to "freak occurrences" like Mary Toft's supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the early eighteenth century (Todd 1995). But the term itself has a rich semantic history, coming from the Latin verb monstrare (itself deriving from monere, to remind, warn, advise), "to show," from which we also get words like "monitor," "admonish," "monument," and "premonition"; hence there are proverbs like, in French, le monstre est ce qui montre, difficult to render in English: "the monsters is that which shows." Scholars have discussed how this "monstrative" dimension of the monster is in fact twofold: on the one hand, and most awkwardly, the monster is an individual who is "pointed at," who is shown; on the other hand, the monster is a sign, a portent, and an omen and in that sense "shows us" something (on the complex semantic history of the term across Indo-European languages, see Ochsner 2005). The latter dimension persists in naturalized form in the early modern period when authors like Bacon, Fontenelle, or William Hunter insist that monsters (or anomalies) can show us something of the workings of nature.
Fil: Manzo, Silvia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (UNLP-CONICET); Argentina.
Fil: Wolfe, Charles T. Foscari University.
Fuente
D. Jalobeanu, C.T. Wolfe, Eds. (2020). Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Cham : Springer.
Materia
Filosofía
Historia de la filosofía
Filosofía contemporánea
Filosofía analítica
Laws of nature
Medicine
Chance
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Repositorio
Memoria Académica (UNLP-FAHCE)
Institución
Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación
OAI Identificador
oai:memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar:snrd:Jpm5813

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network_name_str Memoria Académica (UNLP-FAHCE)
spelling Monsters in Early Modern PhilosophyWolfe, Charles TManzo, SilviaFilosofíaHistoria de la filosofíaFilosofía contemporáneaFilosofía analíticaLaws of natureMedicineChanceMonsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a "long" early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffer- ing from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to "freak occurrences" like Mary Toft's supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the early eighteenth century (Todd 1995). But the term itself has a rich semantic history, coming from the Latin verb monstrare (itself deriving from monere, to remind, warn, advise), "to show," from which we also get words like "monitor," "admonish," "monument," and "premonition"; hence there are proverbs like, in French, le monstre est ce qui montre, difficult to render in English: "the monsters is that which shows." Scholars have discussed how this "monstrative" dimension of the monster is in fact twofold: on the one hand, and most awkwardly, the monster is an individual who is "pointed at," who is shown; on the other hand, the monster is a sign, a portent, and an omen and in that sense "shows us" something (on the complex semantic history of the term across Indo-European languages, see Ochsner 2005). The latter dimension persists in naturalized form in the early modern period when authors like Bacon, Fontenelle, or William Hunter insist that monsters (or anomalies) can show us something of the workings of nature.Fil: Manzo, Silvia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (UNLP-CONICET); Argentina.Fil: Wolfe, Charles T. Foscari University.2020info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPartinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_3248info:ar-repo/semantics/parteDeLibroapplication/pdfhttps://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/libros/pm.5813/pm.5813.pdfD. Jalobeanu, C.T. Wolfe, Eds. (2020). Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Cham : Springer.reponame:Memoria Académica (UNLP-FAHCE)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educacióninstacron:UNLPenginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/2025-09-29T11:54:18Zoai:memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar:snrd:Jpm5813Institucionalhttps://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicahttps://www.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/https://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/oaiserver.cgimemoria@fahce.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13412025-09-29 11:54:19.104Memoria Académica (UNLP-FAHCE) - Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educaciónfalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
title Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
spellingShingle Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
Wolfe, Charles T
Filosofía
Historia de la filosofía
Filosofía contemporánea
Filosofía analítica
Laws of nature
Medicine
Chance
title_short Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
title_full Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
title_fullStr Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
title_full_unstemmed Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
title_sort Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Wolfe, Charles T
Manzo, Silvia
author Wolfe, Charles T
author_facet Wolfe, Charles T
Manzo, Silvia
author_role author
author2 Manzo, Silvia
author2_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Filosofía
Historia de la filosofía
Filosofía contemporánea
Filosofía analítica
Laws of nature
Medicine
Chance
topic Filosofía
Historia de la filosofía
Filosofía contemporánea
Filosofía analítica
Laws of nature
Medicine
Chance
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a "long" early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffer- ing from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to "freak occurrences" like Mary Toft's supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the early eighteenth century (Todd 1995). But the term itself has a rich semantic history, coming from the Latin verb monstrare (itself deriving from monere, to remind, warn, advise), "to show," from which we also get words like "monitor," "admonish," "monument," and "premonition"; hence there are proverbs like, in French, le monstre est ce qui montre, difficult to render in English: "the monsters is that which shows." Scholars have discussed how this "monstrative" dimension of the monster is in fact twofold: on the one hand, and most awkwardly, the monster is an individual who is "pointed at," who is shown; on the other hand, the monster is a sign, a portent, and an omen and in that sense "shows us" something (on the complex semantic history of the term across Indo-European languages, see Ochsner 2005). The latter dimension persists in naturalized form in the early modern period when authors like Bacon, Fontenelle, or William Hunter insist that monsters (or anomalies) can show us something of the workings of nature.
Fil: Manzo, Silvia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (UNLP-CONICET); Argentina.
Fil: Wolfe, Charles T. Foscari University.
description Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a "long" early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffer- ing from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to "freak occurrences" like Mary Toft's supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the early eighteenth century (Todd 1995). But the term itself has a rich semantic history, coming from the Latin verb monstrare (itself deriving from monere, to remind, warn, advise), "to show," from which we also get words like "monitor," "admonish," "monument," and "premonition"; hence there are proverbs like, in French, le monstre est ce qui montre, difficult to render in English: "the monsters is that which shows." Scholars have discussed how this "monstrative" dimension of the monster is in fact twofold: on the one hand, and most awkwardly, the monster is an individual who is "pointed at," who is shown; on the other hand, the monster is a sign, a portent, and an omen and in that sense "shows us" something (on the complex semantic history of the term across Indo-European languages, see Ochsner 2005). The latter dimension persists in naturalized form in the early modern period when authors like Bacon, Fontenelle, or William Hunter insist that monsters (or anomalies) can show us something of the workings of nature.
publishDate 2020
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2020
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dc.source.none.fl_str_mv D. Jalobeanu, C.T. Wolfe, Eds. (2020). Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Cham : Springer.
reponame:Memoria Académica (UNLP-FAHCE)
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