The Early Modern Prisca Scientia and the Foundations of Modern Science

přednášky C. J. Schilta

The seventeenth century is traditionally associated with the new experimental philosophy and the mechanization and mathematization of the sciences. Yet luminaries like Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton, firmly believed in an ancient, pristine knowledge, a prisca scientia long since lost. The extent to which his belief influenced their works, and in what way it contributed to the new science, remains virtually unexplored. In this lecture I will trace the development of the prisca tradition from the Renaissance to Newton and draw some preliminary lines from the ancients to the moderns.