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
- 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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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 |
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_3248 info:ar-repo/semantics/parteDeLibro |
format |
bookPart |
status_str |
publishedVersion |
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv |
https://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/libros/pm.5813/pm.5813.pdf |
url |
https://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/libros/pm.5813/pm.5813.pdf |
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv |
eng |
language |
eng |
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
eu_rights_str_mv |
openAccess |
rights_invalid_str_mv |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
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application/pdf |
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D. 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 Educación instacron:UNLP |
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Memoria Académica (UNLP-FAHCE) |
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Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación |
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UNLP |
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Memoria Académica (UNLP-FAHCE) - Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación |
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memoria@fahce.unlp.edu.ar |
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