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Material Flows in Early Modern History of Science and Technology: A Theoretical and Methodological Introduction

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Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences

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Synonyms

Materiality; Matter; Objects; Substances; Things

Introduction

The following contribution addresses recent themes and concepts in the history of science and technology that are concerned with materials in early modern science, economics, and technology. In the first section, I distinguish between various traditions of thought and dimensions of materials research on a conceptual level. The second section focuses on recent materials-oriented perspectives in the history of early modern science and technology. Models, tools, materials, and substances have always been involved in the production of knowledge as well as in the implementation, dissemination, and consumption of technologies (Klein and Spary 2010, p. 21).

Materials en Vogue

Technological artifacts, epistemic objects, models, raw materials, foodstuffs, and delicacies have long been at the center of historical research. However, perspectives on the social interaction with materials have shifted again and again. For a long...

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Compare some works in the research network “Substance Stories”: http://stoffgeschichte.org. Accessed 1 May 2020.

  2. 2.

    Economic historians pursue a similar goal with the concept of “commodity chains” to emphasize the materiality of goods, their capacity to deteriorate and change, while also pointing to the broader economic processes associated with their extraction, processing, trade, and consumption (Evenden 2011, p. 70).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy, Literary Studies, History of Science and Technology, Berlin University of Technology, Berlin, Germany

    Christian Zumbrägel

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  1. Christian Zumbrägel
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Correspondence to Christian Zumbrägel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Dana Jalobeanu

  2. Dept. of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University Dept. Philosophy & Moral Sci, Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium

    Charles T. Wolfe

Section Editor information

  1. Wissenschaftsgeschichte/History of Science, Technische Universitaet Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Cesare Pastorino

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Zumbrägel, C. (2020). Material Flows in Early Modern History of Science and Technology: A Theoretical and Methodological Introduction. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_254-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_254-1

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