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Introduction
The meaning and scope of zoology, the science devoted to the study of animals, are apparently self-evident, judging from the origin of the term (from the Greek zôion, “animal,” and logos, “discourse,” “science”) as well as the actual practice of so-called zoologists in the course of the last two centuries. In that respect, the early modern period may appear as a golden age for this field when we consider, for example, the number of works focused on animals published from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, often with lavish engravings, the implication of a variety of actors in these studies (scholars, amateurs, collectors, and illustrators), the diversity of approaches (erudition, observation, and experimentation), the abundance of theoretical reflections and debates (e.g., on classifications, or on mechanism vs. animism), and the emergence of new concepts (e.g., transformism). However, the mere notion of “zoology,” and the word...
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Schmitt, S. (2022). Zoology, 16th–18th Centuries. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31069-5_184
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