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In the early 1690s Roger North was preparing to remove from London
to Rougham, Norfolk, where he planned to continue his search for
truth, which for him meant knowledge of nature, including human
nature. But this search was interrupted by three events. First,
between c.1704 and the early part of 1706, he read Newton's book on
rational (quantitative) mechanics and, afterwards, his book on
optics in Clarke's Latin translation. Second, towards the latter
part of 1706, he and Clarke, a Norfolk clergyman, corresponded
about matters relating to Newton's two books, after which Clarke
removed to London and the correspondence ceased. Third, in 1712
North received a letter from Clarke, requesting him to read and
respond to his new publication on the philosophy of the Godhead. As
Kassler details, each of these events presented a number of
challenges to North's values, as well as the way of philosophising
he had learned as a student and practitioner of the common law.
Because he never made public his responses to the challenges, her
book also includes editions of North's notes on reading Newton's
books, as well as what now remains of the 1706 and later
correspondence with Clarke. In addition, she presents analyses of
some of North's 'second thoughts' about the issues raised in the
notes and 1706 correspondence and, from an examination of Clarke's
main writings, provides a context for understanding the
correspondence relating to the 1712 book.
Roger North is known today as a biographer and writer on music,
architecture and estate management. Yet his writings, including
thousands of pages still in manuscript, also contain critical
reflections about intellectual and social changes taking place in
England. This feature is little recognised, because North's
reputation as an author was formed between 1740 and 1890, when
seven of his manuscripts were published in editions that
drastically altered his original texts, and when the reception of
these works was influenced by 'Whig' criticism. Although some of
North's writings were later edited according to more rigorous
standards, many critics still utilise the discredited editions and
continue to repeat 'Whig' stereotypes of North. Eschewing such
stereotypes, Jamie C. Kassler provides the first interpretation of
North's philosophy by retrieving what is consistent in his pattern
of thought and by analysing some of his practices and purposes as a
writer. By these methods, she shows that North, a common lawyer by
profession, combined the moral scepticism of Montaigne with the
legal philosophy of Coke, Selden and Hale. The result was a
sceptical philosophy that accounts for North's critical reflections
on the dogmatism of natural-law doctrine, both in its medieval
intellectualist version and in its voluntarist reformulation that
began with Grotius and was developed by Hobbes, Pufendorf and
Locke. Kassler bases her interpretation on a wide range of North's
writings, even those in which one might least expect to find a
philosophy. In addition, one of his manuscripts, which is edited
here for the first time, includes an exposition of his
jurisprudence, as well as his attempt to bring England's past into
the legal tradition. These features form part of North's broader
argument that language, including the language of law, is the
invention of humans and a representation of their changing history
and habits, an argument that he later extended to musical
'language' in his more finished essay, 'The Musicall Grammarian'
(1728).
In 1677 a slim quarto volume was published anonymously as A
Philosophical Essay of Musick. Written by Francis North (1637-85),
chief justice of the Common Pleas, the Essay is in the form of a
legal case argued from an hypothesis. Utilising the pendulum as his
hypothesis, North provided a rationale from mechanics for the
emerging new musical practice we now call 'tonality'. He also made
auditory resonance the connecting link between acoustical events in
the external world and the musical meanings the mind makes on the
basis of sensory perception. Thus began the modern philosophy of
music that culminated with the work of Hermann von Helmholtz. As a
step towards understanding this tradition, Jamie C. Kassler
examines the 1677 Essay in its historical context. After assessing
three seventeenth-century criticisms of it and outlining how one
critic developed some implications in the Essay, she summarises the
basic principles that have guided the modern philosophy of music
from its beginnings in the 1677 Essay. The book includes an
annotated edition of the Essay as well as the comments of the three
critics.
In 1677 a slim quarto volume was published anonymously as A
Philosophical Essay of Musick. Written by Francis North (1637-85),
chief justice of the Common Pleas, the Essay is in the form of a
legal case argued from an hypothesis. Utilising the pendulum as his
hypothesis, North provided a rationale from mechanics for the
emerging new musical practice we now call 'tonality'. He also made
auditory resonance the connecting link between acoustical events in
the external world and the musical meanings the mind makes on the
basis of sensory perception. Thus began the modern philosophy of
music that culminated with the work of Hermann von Helmholtz. As a
step towards understanding this tradition, Jamie C. Kassler
examines the 1677 Essay in its historical context. After assessing
three seventeenth-century criticisms of it and outlining how one
critic developed some implications in the Essay, she summarises the
basic principles that have guided the modern philosophy of music
from its beginnings in the 1677 Essay. The book includes an
annotated edition of the Essay as well as the comments of the three
critics.
This book stresses the interrelatedness of knowledge by extricating
models that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. For
example, science can find models from the technology and semantic
field of music, music can find its models from the technology and
semantic field of science, and each domain may be guided by a
philosophical or metaphysical principle - thus, the title of the
book. But the book itself is structured as a mirror image of its
title. Chapters 1-6 provide instances of the role of music in such
domains as epistemology and logic, as well as in the early modern
sciences of developmental biology, continuum mechanics, anatomy and
physiological psychology, whereas Chapters 7-10 provide instances
of what some other domains of knowledge have given back to the
philosophy and theory of music.
These chapters analyze texts from Isaac Newton's work to shed new
light on scientific understanding at his time. Newton used the
concept of "sensorium" in writings intended for a public audience,
in relation to both humans and God, but even today there is no
consensus about the meaning of his term. The literal definition of
the Latin term 'sensorium', or its English equivalent 'sensory', is
'thing that feels' but this is a theoretical construct. The book
takes readers on a process of discovery, through inquiry into both
Newton's concept and its underlying model. It begins with the human
sensorium. This part of his concept is situated in the context of
the aforesaid writings but also in the context of the writings of
two of Newton's contemporaries, the physicians William Briggs and
Thomas Willis, both of whom were at the forefront of their
respective specialties of ophthalmology and neurology. Only once
the human sensorium has been explored is it possible to generalize
to the unobservable divine sensorium, because Newton's method of
reasoning from experience requires that the second part of his
concept is last in the order of knowledge. And the reason for this
sequence is that his method, the short-hand term for which is
'analogy of nature', proceeds from that which has been observed to
be universally true to that which is beyond the limits of
observation. Consequently, generalization passes insensibly into
reasoning by analogy. Readers will see how certain widespread
assumptions can be called into question, such as that Newton was a
theological voluntarist for whom the will is superior to the
intellect, or that, for Newton, not only the world or universe but
also God occupies the whole extent of infinite space. The insights
afforded through this book will appeal to scholars of the
philosophy of science, human physiology, philosophy of mind and
epistemology, among others.
These chapters analyze texts from Isaac Newton's work to shed new
light on scientific understanding at his time. Newton used the
concept of "sensorium" in writings intended for a public audience,
in relation to both humans and God, but even today there is no
consensus about the meaning of his term. The literal definition of
the Latin term 'sensorium', or its English equivalent 'sensory', is
'thing that feels' but this is a theoretical construct. The book
takes readers on a process of discovery, through inquiry into both
Newton's concept and its underlying model. It begins with the human
sensorium. This part of his concept is situated in the context of
the aforesaid writings but also in the context of the writings of
two of Newton's contemporaries, the physicians William Briggs and
Thomas Willis, both of whom were at the forefront of their
respective specialties of ophthalmology and neurology. Only once
the human sensorium has been explored is it possible to generalize
to the unobservable divine sensorium, because Newton's method of
reasoning from experience requires that the second part of his
concept is last in the order of knowledge. And the reason for this
sequence is that his method, the short-hand term for which is
'analogy of nature', proceeds from that which has been observed to
be universally true to that which is beyond the limits of
observation. Consequently, generalization passes insensibly into
reasoning by analogy. Readers will see how certain widespread
assumptions can be called into question, such as that Newton was a
theological voluntarist for whom the will is superior to the
intellect, or that, for Newton, not only the world or universe but
also God occupies the whole extent of infinite space. The insights
afforded through this book will appeal to scholars of the
philosophy of science, human physiology, philosophy of mind and
epistemology, among others.
This book stresses the interrelatedness of knowledge by extricating
models that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. For
example, science can find models from the technology and semantic
field of music, music can find its models from the technology and
semantic field of science, and each domain may be guided by a
philosophical or metaphysical principle - thus, the title of the
book. But the book itself is structured as a mirror image of its
title. Chapters 1-6 provide instances of the role of music in such
domains as epistemology and logic, as well as in the early modern
sciences of developmental biology, continuum mechanics, anatomy and
physiological psychology, whereas Chapters 7-10 provide instances
of what some other domains of knowledge have given back to the
philosophy and theory of music.
Musical instruments, as resonating systems, have been used as
models for understanding human character from the seventeenth
century onward. In Inner Music, Jamie C. Kassler explores the
implications of this model -- how, for example, someone's
character, conceived instrumentally, "plays" and "is played upon, "
as well as the kinds of "music" it plays.
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