About

Dana Jalobeanu is Professor of Early Modern Philosophy, and the leader of the Early Modern Lab. Jalobeanu is a leading historian of early modern philosophy and the sciences, co-editor of the recent Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences (Springer 2022). Her research covers a broad range of topics: experimental philosophy and the emergence of early modern science, early modern interactions between natural and moral philosophy, the history of cosmology and history of physics, (Neo)-Stoicism, Epicureanism and the survival of classical antiquity in the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe.

Trained in theoretical physics and philosophy, she has a PhD in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science from the University of Bucharest (2000), and Habilitation in Philosophy (History and Philosophy of Science) at the same university. She is translating and editing the works of Francis Bacon both for the Romanian edition (Humanitas, Bucuresti, 2011, 2013, 2022) and for the Oxford Francis Bacon (editor and coordinator of volume XX, Sylva Sylvarum).

Jalobeanu’s research is problem driven and often interdisciplinary, combining methods and perspectives from history of philosophy, history of science and philosophy of science.

Dana Jalobeanu is the co-founder of the Princeton-Bucharest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy and co-editor of the Journal of Early Modern Studies. She is the president of the European Society for History of Science (since 2020). She is also Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bucharest, and, from 2014 to 2023 Director of the Humanities Division of the Institute of Research, University of Bucharest.

In parallel with her academic career, Dana Jalobeanu worked as a science journalist and editor for the BBC World Service (Romanian Section), Hotnews and TVR. She has her own youtube channel, The Philosophical Café/Cafeneaua Filosofica, a channel dedicated to disseminating philosophy to the wider public.

Current Research Topics

• Solomon Houses of Early Modern Europe: The Diffusion and Transformation of Baconianism
  Investigating the diffusion of Baconianism across Europe and the transmission and influence of Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum and the New Atlantis in different contexts in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.
• From natural magic to science: the European diffusion of natural magic recipes (and Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s Magia naturalis)
  Investigating the reception and uses of Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s Magia naturalis in the seventeenth century England, in the context of the emergence of experimental philosophy.
• The experimental philosophy of Henry Power: a view from the archives
  This project aims to offer a better understanding of mid-seventeenth century experimental philosophy and the interplay between natural philosophy, natural history, theology and moral philosophy. Its focus is the archive of the natural philosopher, medical practitioner and humanist Henry Power (1621-1668). Among the outcome of the project is a special issue of the Annals of Science co-edited by Dana Jalobeanu and Gideon Manning (in preparation).
• The Recipe Project: how experimental knowledge is transmitted from one context to another
  More here: Recipes, ‘technologies’, experiments: Enactment and the emergence of modern science – Dana Jalobeanu

Recent Publications

Books

• Dana Jalobeanu, Charles Wolfe (eds.), Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, Springer: Cham, 2022, 3 volumes (volume 1: A-G; volume 2: H-N; volume 3: O-Z)
• David Marshall Miller, Dana Jalobeanu (eds.), Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
• Dana Jalobeanu, Spectacolul filosofiei. Cum să citim Scrisorile lui Seneca, (The Theatre of Philosophy: How to read Seneca’s Letters – in Romanian), Humanitas, București, 2022.
• Guido Giglioni, James Lancaster, Sorana Corneanu, Dana Jalobeanu (eds.), Francis Bacon on motion and power, Springer, Cham, 2016.
• Dana Jalobeanu, The Art of Experimental Natural History: Francis Bacon in Context, Zeta Books: Bucharest, 2015.
• Dana Jalobeanu, Peter Anstey (eds)., Vanishing matter and the laws of nature, Routledge: London, 2011

Selection of recent articles

• Creating life in the laboratory: Francis Bacon’s journey from living spirits to animated bodies, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, published online (January 2024), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0037
• Francis Bacon and the practices of measurement, Annals of Science, 71 (2024), 79-99.
• On bodies and their orbs: Kenelm Digby’s Use of a Metaphysics of Light to Ground an Experimental Physics, in Laura Georgescu, Han Thomas Andriaenssen, The Philosophy of Kenelm Digby, Springer, 2022, 183-201.
• (with Peter Anstey), Experimental natural history, in David Marshall Miller, Dana Jalobeanu, eds., The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022, 222-238.
• Dissecting Nature ad vivum: Parts and Wholes in Francis Bacon’s Natural Philosophy, Bruniana & Campanelliana, 28 (1), (2022), 165-183
• (with Oana Matei), Spiritual technologies: Cider Making and Natural Philosophy in Early Modern England, Nuncius, 1, (2022), 315-345.
• Emblems as Epistemic Tools and Heuristic Devices: Bruno, Bacon and Culianu. An Exercise on Perspectival Contextualism, in Daniela Dumbrava, Bogdan Tataru Cabazan (eds.), In-cognita: Ioan Petru Culianu Approaches to Religion, Zeta Books, Bucharest, 2022.
• Superstition, Idolatry and the Advancement of Learning.: From the Brotherhood of Light to the Solomon’s House, Lexicon Philosophicum: International Journal for the History of Texts and Ideas, 9 (2021),11-32.
• On Metaphysics and Method, or How to read Francis Bacon’s Novum organum, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, 58 (3), (2021) 98-118.
• Big Books, Small Books, Readers, Riddles and Contexts: The Story of English Mythography, (essay review) Journal of Early Modern Studies 10 (1) (2021), 95-104.
• Francis Bacon’s „Perceptive“ Instruments, Early Science and Medicine, 25 (6), (2021) 594-617.
• Experiments in the Making: Instruments and Forms of Quantification in Francis Bacon’s Historia Densi et Rari, Early Science and Medicine, 25 (4), (2020) 360-387.
• Enacting recipes: Francis Bacon and Giovan Battista Della Porta on technologies, experiments and processes of nature, Centaurus, 62 (3) (2020), 425-446.
• (with Doina Cristina Rusu) Giovanni Battista Della Porta and Francis Bacon on the creative power of experimentation, Centaurus, 62 (3) (2020): 381-392.
• (with Oana Matei), Treating plants and laboratories: A chemical history of vegetation in 17th century England, Centaurus, 62 (3) (2020) 542-561.
• Francis Bacon on Axioms, Laws, Rules and Principles: An overview, Revue Roumaine de Philosophie, 64, 2, (2020), 325-340.
• Francis Bacon on Sophists, Poets and Other Forms of Self-Deceit (Or, What Can the Experimental Philosopher Learn from a Theoretically Informed History of Philosophy?) , in Peter Anstey, Alberto Vanzo (eds.), Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy, Routledge 2019.
• Rewriting Francis Bacon’s Natural History: Pierre Amboise’s Translation of the Sylva Sylvarum, in Raphaele Garrod, Paul J. Smith (eds.), Natural history in Early Modern France. The Poetics of an Epistemic Genre, Boston, Brill, (2019), 180-205.
• Spirits Coming Alive: The Subtle Alchemy of Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum, Early Science and Medicine 23 (5-6) (2018), 459-486.
• Disciplining experience: Francis Bacon’s Experimental Series and the Art of Experimentation, Perspectives on Science, 24 (2016), 324-342.
• “Borders,” “Leaps” and “Orbs of Virtue:” A Contextual Reconstruction of Francis Bacon’s Extension-Related Concepts, in Boundaries, Extents and Circulations: Space and Spatiality in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Koen Vermeir and Jonathan Regier, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 41, Dordrecht: Springer, 2016, 229-255.
• “The marriage of physics with mathematics:” Francis Bacon on measurement, mathematics and the construction of a mathematical physics, in The Language of nature. Reassessing the Mathematization of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, edited by G. Gordon, B. Hill, E. Slowik and K. Waters, Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science, 20 (2016), 51-81.
• Bacon’s apples: A case study in Baconian experimentation, in Giglioni et. all. (eds), Francis Bacon on motion and Power, Springer, (2016), 83-113.

Links

To the personal website of Dana Jalobeanu