This chapter analyzes how the physics courses of Jean-Robert Chouet
(1642–1731) changed across the twenty years of his career as a professor of philosophy,
first at the Academy of Saumur (starting in 1664) then at the Academy of
Geneva (1669–86). We compare eight surviving student manuscripts, noting much
continuity but also some changes in organization, presentation, and content (in particular
a greater attention to the topics of place and extension important to
Cartesianism). Teaching by dictating a coursebook to students allowed the professor
to adjust his course at every iteration. The students also exercised individual choice
in the format, layout, and trappings of their manuscript coursebook, which could
include an alphabetical index or decorative elements. The most famous of Chouet’s
students whose coursebooks survive is Nicolas Fatio de Duillier (1664–1753), who
was later a friend of Newton’s. He studied philosophy with Chouet in 1678–80 and
his coursebook, which unfortunately does not include the section on physics, is
exceptionally beautifully kept and illustrated.

Keywords Student manuscripts · Physics courses · Academy of Geneva ·
Academy of Saumur · Jean-Robert Chouet · Nicolas Fatio de Duillier

Table of Content

A landmark history that traces the creation, management, and sharing of information through six centuries

Price: $65.00 / £54.00

ISBN: 9780691179544

Published: 01/12/2021

Copyright: 2020

Pages: 796

Size: 7 x 10 in.

Illus: 38 b/w illus.

Anlässlich des 60. Geburtstages von Andreas Sohn, der als Professor für mittelalterliche Geschichte an der Universität Paris XIII – Sorbonne Paris Cité lehrt und forscht, erscheint diese Festschrift. Damit sollen Person und Werk des in Wissenschaft und Kultur international angesehenen Historikers von Kollegen und Freunden, die in mehreren europäischen Ländern (Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien, Österreich, der Schweiz, Ungarn und dem Vatikanstaat) und den USA tätig sind, geehrt werden. Der für die Festschrift gewählte Titel nimmt Bezug auf die periodenübergreifenden Forschungen von Andreas Sohn zur Kirchen-, Ordens-, Sozial-, Stadt- und Universitätsgeschichte sowie zum Kulturerbe Europas, insbesondere Deutschlands, Frankreichs und Italiens.

Buchpräsentation: Graz, Barocksaal des Priesterseminars, Freitag, 28. Juni 2019, 12.15 Uhr

The Renaissance treatise (Latin, tractatus) is an explanatory text presenting descriptions, arguments, and evidence to formulate a valid opinion about an object of knowledge. The variety of topics in this format covers the entire range of scholarly disciplines. Renaissance authors used the notion of tractatus in philosophy, broadly defined, to present the following types of reasoning: encyclopedic overviews of a discipline; interpretations and reorganizations of ancient and medieval texts; mathematical, astrological, and cosmographical descriptions; and logical thinking. Whereas these forms evince different aspects of reasoning and modes of discussion, the term tractatus was also employed merely as an organizational element, in the manner of the late ancient notion of separate essays on the same subject within the same volume.

The notion of a philosophical treatise with which we are nowadays familiar through, for example, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922), was not the sole form that Renaissance philosophical treatises assumed. On the contrary, there were a wealth of forms and formats and different ways of presenting arguments and collecting of evidence, all connected under the headings “philosophy” and tractatus. Authors in this period were highly experimental, trying out new forms for reasoning and explaining.

Storing, Archiving, Organizing: The Changing Dynamics of Scholarly Information Management in Post-Reformation Zurich is a study of the Lectorium at the Zurich Grossmünster, the earliest of post-Reformation Swiss academies, initiated by the church reformer Huldrych Zwingli in 1523. This institution of higher education was planned in the wake of humanism and according to the demands of the reforming church. Scrutinizing the institutional archival records, Anja-Silvia Goeing shows how the lectorium’s teachers used practices of storing, archiving, and organizing to create an elaborate administrative structure to deal with students and to identify their own didactic and disciplinary methods. She finds techniques developing that we today would consider important to understand the history of information management and knowledge transfer.