The Losers of the Scientific Revolution.
Das Princeton-Bucharest Seminar für frühneuzeitliche Philosophie wurde 2001 von Dana Jalobeanu (Universität Bukarest), Vlad Alexandrescu (Universität Bukarest) und Dan Garber (Princeton University) ins Leben gerufen. In den darauffolgenden zwei Jahrzehnten fand es jeden Sommer in den Bergen Transsylvaniens statt und entwickelte sich zu einer festen Institution – bekannt für wissenschaftliche Exzellenz ebenso wie für eine offene und kollegiale Atmosphäre. In den letzten Jahren wurde das Seminar unter anderem vom Department of Philosophy in Princeton, dem Institut für Geisteswissenschaften (ICUB) der Universität Bukarest, dem Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study und der Technischen Universität Nürnberg unterstützt.
Ab 2025 findet das Seminar in Nürnberg statt. Die Technische Universität Nürnberg wird dauerhafte Partnerin. Das Thema der diesjährigen Ausgabe lautet: „The Losers of the Scientific Revolution“. Das Seminar ist auch über eine offizielle Facebook-Veranstaltung angekündigt, über die sich Teilnehmende vernetzen und auf dem Laufenden bleiben können.
Datum: 30. Juni – 4. Juli 2025.
Ort: Technische Universität Nürnberg
Organisatoren: Dana Jalobeanu (UTN / Universität Bukarest), Daniel Garber (Princeton University), Rodolfo Garau (Universität Hamburg).
Programm
Montag, 30. Juni
Ort: Ulmenstraße 52i, Seminarraum 31
9.30 – 10.00 Opening remarks (Gyburg Uhlmann, Dana Jalobeanu)
10.00 – 11.10 Inaugural lecture, Daniel Garber, Roads Not Taken.
11.10 – 11.30 Coffee break.
11.30 – 13.30 Reading group 1, Joseph Glanvill on Reason and Religion (Paul Lodge and Henry Straughan)
13.30 – 14.30 Lunch
14.30 – 15.10 Ilary Virtanen, Robert Fludd and Early Modern Science.
15.10 – 15.50 Mattia Mantovani, Descartes the Egyptian.
15.50 – 16.20 Coffee Break.
16.30 – 18.30 Round table and open discussion: One big loser of the Scientific Revolution: Humanism (Dana Jalobeanu, Daniel Garber, Rodolfo Garau).
Dienstag, 1. Juli
Ort: Ulmenstraße 52i, Seminarraum 31
9.30 – 10.30 Invited lecture, Gideon Manning, Losing Description: Henry Powers, Robert Hooke and Early Modern Microscopy.
10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break.
11.00 – 13.00 Reading group 2, Natural magic and the scientific revolution. A reading group on Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s Magia naturalis (Dana Jalobeanu, Donato Verardi, and Shen Chen)
13.00 – 13.50 Lunch
13.50 – 14.30 Alexandru Liciu, Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel as historian of the earth – a loser of the Scientific Revolution?
14.30 – 15.30 Invited talk, Oana Matei, Resurrection from ashes: discussions on the possibility and impossibility of palingenesis (of plants) in the 17th century
Mittwoch, 2. Juli
Ort: Cube One, Conference room, Dr.-Luise-Herzberg-Straße 4, 90461 Nürnberg – Bitte den geänderten Ort beachten!]
9.30 – 10.30 Invited lecture, Gyburg Uhlmann, Symbolic Mathematics: Vieta, Platonic Arithmetics, and Stoic Language Theory
10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break.
11.00 – 13.00 Reading Group 3. Astrology: One of the Main „Losers“ of the Scientific Revolution? (Rodolfo Garau, Steven Vanden Broecke).
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 14.40 Michael Veldman, “They lost to phlogiston?!” Early modern elemental and mechanical theories of fire.
14.40 – 15.20 Ovidiu Babes, Greene against Locke’s Primary and Secondary Qualities.
15.20 – 15.50 Coffee break
15.50 – 16.30 Scott Harkema, Galileo and the Infinite Force of Percussion.
16.30 – 17.10 Ciprian Alexandru, Harvey vs. Harvey. Losing Blood by Circulation.
17.10 – 17.30 Break
17.30 – 19.30 Discussion/Debate: Leviathan and the Air Pump 40 years later (organized by Claudia Dumitru).
Donnerstag, 3. Juli
Ort: Cube One, Conference room
9.30 – 10.30 Invited lecture: Rodolfo Garau, Winning the Battle but Losing the War? The Peculiar Case of Gassendi.
10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break
11.00 – 13.00 Reading Group 4, The War Between Vitalism and Mechanism in the Seventeenth Century: Who Was the Loser? The Case Study of the Debate Between Henry More and Robert Boyle (Daniel Garber).
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 14.40 William Eaton, New Studies in Cartesian Physics: Holes, Shadows, and Boundaries.
14.40 – 15.20 Zach Ottati, Francis Bacon’s Matter Theory: From Atomism to Vitalism.
15.20 – 15.40 Coffee break
15.40 – 16.20 Costel Cristian, Epicurean Model of Atomic Motions in the Context of Modern Natural Philosophy.
16.20 – 17.00 Luca Nahorniac, The Space-Time Structure Of Leibniz’s Monadic World.
17.00 – 17.20 Break
17.20 – 18.30 Invited lecture, Scott Mandelbrote (University of Cambridge), ‘Sir John Finch among the philosophers’
18.30 – 20.00 Discussion – debate: Who was the biggest loser of the seventeenth century?
Freitag, 4. Juli
Ort: Cube One, Conference room
9.30 – 10.30 Invited talk, Mihnea Dobre, Searching for Losers of the Scientific Revolution: The First Modern Physicist.
10.30 – 11.00 Coffee Break
11.00 – 11.40 Laura Georgescu, Digby on Universal, Objective Similarity and Objective Classification.
11.40 – 12.20 Benjamin Goldberg, Losing the Battle, But Winning the War? Nicholas Culpeper and the Struggle to Reform English Medicine.
12.20- 14.30 Lunch & round-table debate: Scientific Revolution or Scientific Reformation? What Historiographic Categories Are We Left With?
Sightseeing: Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände