Overview

Perception and analogy explores ways of seeing scientifically in the eighteenth century. The book examines how sensory experience is conceptualised during the period, drawing novel connections between treatments of perception as an embodied phenomenon and the creative methods employed by natural philosophers. Covering a wealth of literary, theological, and pedagogical texts that engage with astronomy, optics, ophthalmology, and the body, it argues for the significance of analogies for conceptualising and explaining new scientific ideas. As well as identifying their use in religious and topographical poetry, the book addresses how analogies are visible in material culture through objects such as orreries, camera obscuras, and aeolian harps. It makes the vital claim that scientific concepts become intertwined with Christian discourse through reinterpretations of origins and signs, the scope of the created universe, and the limits of embodied knowledge.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rosalind Powell
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
Imprint:   Manchester University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.80cm , Height: 2.10cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.526kg
ISBN:  

9781526157041

ISBN 10:   1526157047
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   19 October 2021
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Celestial speculations 2. Light, perception and revelation 3. Seeing in colour 4. Understanding the eye 5. Perception and the body Bibliography Notes Index -- .

Reviews

'The strength of Perception and Analogy comes in its detailed catalogue of how analogies are used to affirm religious beliefs during this period. Scholars working in disability studies will find the chapters on human limitation particularly useful, as Powell’s close readings affirm the centrality of disabled bodies for linking medical and religious discourses during the eighteenth century.' Annika Mann, Eighteenth-Century Fiction -- .

Author Information

Rosalind Powell is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Bristol

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions