THE MECHANICAL ARTS IN THE CONTEXT OF TWELFTH- AND THIRTEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT.
Item
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Title
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THE MECHANICAL ARTS IN THE CONTEXT OF TWELFTH- AND THIRTEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT.
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Identifier
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AAI8601703
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identifier
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8601703
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Creator
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WHITNEY, ELSPETH.
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Contributor
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Howard L. Adelson
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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History, Medieval
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Abstract
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Although scholars over the past thirty years have devoted much attention to the relationship of medieval culture and technology, the significance of concepts of the mechanical arts in the Middle Ages has remained unclear. Through an examination of the place of crafts in classifications of the arts and sciences from antiquity through the thirteenth century, this study seeks to provide a fuller picture of how medieval thinkers defined technology as a category of knowledge.;In antiquity from the time of Aristotle and Plato, crafts, although sometimes regarded as non-rational and "illiberal," were also included in divisions of knowledge as productive, "semi-liberal," or liberal arts. Ancient thought on the status of technology was, therefore, flexible and ambiguous enough to allow for creative, positive revision by medieval writers. Drawing upon classical, early medieval Latin and Arabic sources, twelfth- and thirteenth-century scientists and theologians began to give technology moral and intellectual sanction. In the twelfth century, Hugh of St. Victor and his followers placed the mechanical arts, defined as an independent category of knowledge, within the religious context of man's effort to restore himself to his prelapsarian condition. In the thirteenth century, although the Victorine understanding of crafts as an aspect of salvation continued to be influential in the thought of Bonaventure, Vincent of Beauvais and others, a concept of the mechanical arts as applied science serving the community predominated. Albertus Magnus, Robert Kilwardby and Roger Bacon, especially, modified elements taken from the Aristotelian, Arabic, and Victorine traditions to define the mechanical arts as the operative or instrumental side of the theoretical sciences. Medieval thinkers, therefore, attempted in various ways to fashion a coherent and positive view of technology from the diverse body of thought developed by their contemporaries and predecessors. If they did not entirely overcome the constraints of the philosophical tradition inherited from antiquity, they nevertheless made an important contribution to the Western cultural assimilation of technology.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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History
