Does the History of Medicine Begin where the History of Philosophy Ends? An Example of Interdisciplinarity in the Early Modern Era

Abstract

A popular saying attributed to Aristotle states that ‘medicine begins where philosophy ends’—but this principle does not seem entirely valid for the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when medicine and philosophy were considered to be integral parts of the same branch of knowledge. For this reason, although today medicine and philosophy are clearly distinct disciplines, historians of ideas cannot study them entirely separately. Indeed, since the early modern era was a period of profound revision of knowledge, probably only a truly interdisciplinary investigation can identify the conceptual shifts and transfers capable of reinstating medicine in its fundamental role in the development of civilisation and modern thought, in particular as a model of a rational knowledge aimed at improving the social good through a fitting interpretation of experience. This article intends to offer arguments in support of such a historiographical approach, and to illustrate certain interesting methodological ideas that emerge from a study in which the history of philosophy and history of medicine cross-pollinate.     

The Idea of the Social Contract in the History of ‘Agreementism’

One of the recurrent motifs in political thought is the idea of the social contract, according to which a society, a government, or moral principles depend for their existence on agreements between voluntary agents. This association between the social contract and “agreementism” implies that there is nothing about the terminology of contracts that distinguishes it from that of other types of agreements constitutive of normativity. This essay tests this assumption by surveying the terminology of the social contract and by proposing two hypotheses. The first is that all attempts at analysing the idea of the social contract require a formal conceptual frame of reference that is distinguishable from agreementism. The second is that social contract theories can be grouped into four trends, even if the authors of each of these trends are unable to form a coherent body of doctrine. These trends are the Iberian Catholic version of the Counter-Reformation; the Protestant individualist trend of the Enlightenment; the quasi-dialectical trend of the radical Enlightenment; and the contemporary trend of public morality.     

Exile in a Land of Exiles: The Early History of Criminal Transportation Law in New South Wales, 1788–1809

This article considers the peculiar application of English criminal transportation law in the ‘convict colony’ of New South Wales during its foundation years. It demonstrates, first, that transportation was not intended to be within the sentencing jurisdiction of the New South Wales Court, but that it was adopted and practised nonetheless, with confused and incongruous results. In particular, substantial challenges emerged in applying colonial or local sentences to a population that was largely already under sentence of transportation. The result was a raft of innovations and inconsistencies that highlighted the legal and practical problems of performing exile in a land of exiles.     

The History of Cartography in Brazil in the 1940s: Jaime Cortesão's Lecture Courses

Abstract

During the Napoleonic Wars the military croquis, or sketch map, played an important role in the spatial management of the various campaigns. Presumably, many of these sketch maps were destroyed or discarded after their immediate use. Those that survive have received little scholarly notice. Attention is drawn in this article to a large and well-documented collection produced during the campaign in Russia in 1812 and subsequently amassed by the Saxon cartographer Ferdinand Heinrich August von Larisch. The operational value of the military croquis is examined and the relationship between cartographic poetics and historical representation considered.     

On the Spacing of Time: On “The Tide of History”

The author discusses aspects of how time appears and is used by the individual and by society. In focus is what the author calls the ideological time scale as it appears in Western society. The concept of the ideological time scale implies systems of strong, ideological signals transferred through time in the human mind from one generation to another. One such signal is the age-old concept of the hero and the symbolism projected around this concept. The paper ends with an admonition to scholars to be aware of and study the kinds of messages transferred through time by this signal system. These messages carry important information about the ways in which society directs itself in the time continuum.     

Elamite Karintaš and Avestan Kvirinta: Notes on the Early History of Kerend

The toponym Kerend has a long history. This study explores the appearance of Kerend in pre-modern sources, beginning with the toponym Karinta? in the late second millennium BC. Kassite, Elamite and Assyrian rivalry for control over the central western Zagros mountains is discussed and the survival of the name in later antiquity is investigated. A derivative of the name appears in Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography and in the Parthian Stations of Isidore of Charax, as well as in the late Antique Cosmographia of the Anonymous Geographer of Ravenna. A homonymous name from the area east of the Caspian Sea is also discussed, as are several unrelated names occurring in other sources (Achaemenid Elamite, Armenian).