OU History of Science

Recent MA Theses

Van Herd
Supervisor: Peter Barker

The Concept of Ungrund in Jakob Boehme

INTRODUCTION

This thesis analyses Jakob Boehme's (1575-1624) seminal concept of Ungrund, an idea which has strongly influenced the history of science in many ways. Ungrund (according to its use in Boehme's last major work, the Mysterium Magnum of 1622) can best be defined as an atopical negation which has the status of a paradox or negation in the laws of logic. For example, the Greeks used two terms to describe negation, ouk on and mh on. The first describes a negation which is absolute; an unspeakable, unthinkable negation which is totally devoid of any ontological status altogether. It is in this sense that Boehme used the term in his late writings. The second term, mh on, denominates a relative nothingness. This is the familiar "primordial chaos" or "matrix" posited by many classical writers as that out of which the natural order is created or, more accurately, out of which it emanates. Indeed, Boehme deploys Ungrund in his early works to describe a relative nothingness. However, later in his career he shifts usages; perhaps under the influence of Scultetus and the Goerlitz Paracelsian Circle among whom were his friends Tobias Kober, Abraham Walther (the well-known chemist), and Kurtz (a prominent physician). To indicate a relative nothingness, in the 1622 Mysterium Magnum and all his works thereafter, he uses "matrix" or Salitter. When he does use Ungrund in these later works, he indicates an absolute negation, devoid of ontological status. In his 1624 Mysterium Magnum, a philosophical/ exegetical commentary on the Book of Genesis, Boehme is conjoining two concepts, creatio ex nihilo and creatio ex aliquo. I then examine Boehme's concept of God Himself becoming out of this Ungrund through an iterative process which preserves the traditional dogma of Divine aseity.

Sir Isaac Newton was, in fact, influenced by Jakob Boehme's concept of Ungrund. B. J. Gibbons has notes that "there is in fact a superficial resemblance between Newton's system and Boehme's: both construct the universe as pervaded by mysterious forces of attraction and repulsion." She believes that this is a clear evidence that Boehme influenced Newton but that historians of science have not taken this seriously. I examine Gibbons' further suggestion that Newton's "demonstration that white light can be broken up into a spectrum of colours ... was devised to test a metaphysical and religious hypothesis rather than a purely physical one." Newton sought to demonstrate the presence of the Ungrund with his refracting prism because Ungrund was the central idea around which the impressive company of Cambridge Platonists gathered, of which group Newton was a prominent member.

Darcy Lefevre
Supervisor: Judith Overmier

Astronomy, Printers and the Melanchthon Circle:
A Publishing History of the Wittenberg Interpretation of Copernicus

INTRODUCTION

Cosmology underwent great changes during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe. In 1500 the accepted view was that the sun traveled around the Earth. The system described by Ptolemy in the second century A.D. was the predominant model. But during the course of the sixteenth century a number of competing models emerged. One of these was the heliocentric system of Nicolas Copernicus.

Copernicus' De Revolutionibus was published in 1543, but received relatively little attention. A few astronomers regarded it as useful for the mathematical models it presented, even if the cosmology was too radical for their taste. Especially at the University of Wittenberg in Germany, students of the Lutheran reformer Philip Melanchthon adopted Copernican mathematical models as a part of a new emphasis on mathematics in their curriculum. This group made Copernicus famous as an astronomical reformer, not a cosmological innovator. Their work was assisted by the willing cooperation of Protestant printers.

This thesis examines the works published by the most important group of astronomers who rejected heliocentrism but used Copernicus' mathematical models. In particular it outlines their publications in a selected group of astronomical genres. It then examines the connections that the printers of these works have to the astronomers and the books. In this manner, it demonstrates the usefulness of the history of printing and, publishing for scholars in other areas.

The first chapter will give basic historical and historiographical background material. First will be the discussion about the competing cosmological models of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe and Copernicus, and the publication of De Revolutionibus. This will be followed by historiographical background on the "Melanchthon Circle" and the "Wittenberg Interpretation of Copernicus.” The second chapter gives biographical details about the Melanchthon circle authors included in the thesis. This is followed in chapter three by an examination of the works, divided by genre. The books range from basic astronomy textbooks, to highly technical works, to tables and translations. For each of these works, information about the printers and their relation to the books and authors is included. Also included in the final chapter are conclusions about the usefulness of the study of the history of printing for historical scholarship in general. There are also a number of recommendations on how this material may provide background for further research.

Darcy Lefevre
Supervisor: Peter Barker

Demonstratio Halonis: A Manuscript Preserving Two Sets of Student Notes from a Lecture by Erasmus Reinhold at the University of Wittenberg

ABSTRACT

In the year 2000, the University of Oklahoma History of Science Collections acquired a manuscript(1) that the bookseller, H. P. Kraus, described as "excerpts from an unpublished treatise or lecture by Erasmus Reinhold (1511-1553) on atmospheric refraction." A small booklet with marbled paper wrappers, it is neatly written in ink faded to brown, with diagrams and headings in red. As the first heading is "Demonstratio Halonis" or "Demonstration of a Halo," that is how I will refer to the manuscript. It covers just over six pages, includes three diagrams, and probably dates from around 1550. Upon closer examination it appears to be the recopied notes of two students who had heard a lecture by Reinhold at the University of Wittenberg, on optical phenomena in the atmosphere, understood with the aid of Euclid's geometry. Although the theory of refraction is used in the course of the lecture, this is not the main topic. It is equally incorrect to identify the subject as "atmospheric refraction," a phrase that usually indicates the study of the effect of the atmosphere on light from celestial objects passing through it. As we will see, the topic of the lecture is meteorological, although it connects with contemporary issues in astronomy. This thesis will analyze this previously unexamined manuscript in both its physical makeup and its intellectual content.

The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first of these provides the necessary background for situating the manuscript historically. This is accomplished by explaining what the university and its curriculum would have held for one of the note-takers. The second examines the notes themselves. This includes a transcription and translation of the text as well as an analysis of the physical attributes of the work. The final chapter covers the intellectual content of the manuscript. It examines the sources to which the notes refer and analyzes the meaning of the text.

This manuscript is important because it allows us to examine a portion of what one of the foremost astronomers of his day was teaching his students about optics. It shows what sources he thought were important to mention to his students. It also reveals something of how the students understood the material. And as Wittenberg after its reforms by Melanchthon was the beginning of a new intellectual tradition that was then passed down to other people, such as Johannes Kepler, it shows us some of the material that could then be handed down to the next intellectual generation.

Natalie Peck
Supervisor: Katherine Pandora

'The Perfect Socialism': The Social Philosophy of Anna Botsford Comstock in the Nature Study Movement

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores the work of Anna Botsford Comstock, a popularizer of science and writer for the Nature Study movement at Cornell University in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Comstock published many works on Nature Study, one of which, the Handbook of Nature Study, was originally published in 1911 and still is in print today. Through her work in the Nature Study movement, Comstock had the ability to influence a large audience of readers. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the social philosophy that runs throughout Comstock’s Nature Study writing, particularly her work on insects. Through this research, I find that Comstock depicted natural systems, specifically insect societies, in terms of the human social construct of socialism. She not only described insect societies in terms of a socialist organization but promoted their use as models from which human societies might learn and emulate. Along with identifying her social philosophy, this research connects common threads that run throughout Comstock’s socialist insect societies with other aspects of her socialization, placing her writing within a cultural framework. In particular, her Quaker upbringing and other social movements of her time, including the social gospel movement and progressive education are explored. Other aspects of her social context and further areas of research in the Nature Study movement and on women and science are suggested.

Natalie Peck
Supervisor: Connie Van Fleet

How Do Women Fare in the History of Science?: A Citation Analysis on Gender and Publication in the Discipline

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this thesis is to explore gender and publication in the history of science through a citation analysis of Isis, a mainstream journal in the discipline. Source articles from 1985-1999 are included in the study. Citations to the source articles were gathered from Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Subject categories for citing entities were also determined from the source publications lists in each respective index and OCLC WorldCat. The results of this research indicate that 34% of the articles published in Isis were by female authors and the proportion of women authors publishing in the journal increased by 20% when the editor of the journal was female. Compared to the proportion of women authors in the journal, women were under-represented by 13% in terms of the percentage of citations to their research. Of citations generated by women, 27% were to women and 73% were to men; of citations generated by men, 18% were to women and 82% were to men. Of all citations to women, 34% were attributable to female citing authors and 64% were attributable to male citing authors. Of all citations to men, 24% were attributable to women and 76% were attributable to men. The majority of citing entities (66%-67%) fell within the History and Philosophy of Science category, indicating that approximately one-third of the research is utilized in areas outside of the discipline. When compared across subject categories, women's research appears to be used slightly more outside of the History and Philosophy of Science. In the conclusion, other factors are explored that may explain these results.

Melissa Rickman
Supervisor: Judith Overmier

The Historical Context of Gerard's Herball and Johnson's Gerard: A Comparison

INTRODUCTION

Books are subject to the communities which made and used them, and to their practical conventions - the social and cultural 'statutes' which governed the world of printing. Problematic cases ...help us see this, for one of the most important statutes was that the conventions themselves be invisible. Controversy brought them to light(2).

The cultural context of the printed book during the 200 years following the invention of the printing press was very different from modern conceptions. While this may be an obvious statement, it is an important one to make. The purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, it will investigate several issues involved in the life of one English author, John Gerard, and his writings, specifically his Herball (1597). Second, it will examine the cultural milieu of the next three decades and the production of the revised Herball (1633), a second edition of the same book. It will also attempt to go beyond the common negative interpretations of Gerard's writings to see how they began(3). A timeline of major events mentioned within this work has been provided in Appendix A. The point of departure for this thesis comes from physical evidence of one copy of each edition provided in Appendix B in the form of two descriptive bibliographies.

At the turn of the seventeenth century, ideas of copyright and authorship did not exist or had different implications than they do today. Books were "peculiarly mutable objects" and there might be textual changes from one printing to the next in a single edition that had nothing to do with the author's wishes. An example of this is Gerard's Herball. Gerard's Herball and the revised Herball were two editions of the same volume but there were many differences between them: the content, illustrations, intended audience, political motivations and political backdrop. The question of causation of these differences must have an historical answer. A dialogue between the author and the readers was influenced by pirated copies and cultural changes, trade politics and new sovereigns, and the death of patrons and colleagues. These are some of the factors that affected the production of both editions of the Herball and the subject of this thesis.

Kathleen Tierney
Supervisor: Kenneth L. Taylor

Ocean Currents as Agents of Geological Changes: Buffon to Lamarck, 1749-1802

ABSTRACT

In the second half of the eighteenth century in France natural philosophers frequently discussed the idea that ocean currents had shaped the surface of the Earth. This paper investigates beliefs of ocean currents as agents of geological change in francophone writings during the second half of the eighteenth century, between 1749, when Buffon's Histoire Naturelle began to appear, and 1802, when Lamarck published Hydrogéologie. In this period natural philosophers enthusiastically discussed and debated the causes and effects of waves, currents, and tides. They argued the degree to which the ocean had acted as a dynamic causal agent of change. This thesis not only analyzes the developing ideas of ocean currents, but it also further enables historians to comprehend the dynamic intellectual system of the eighteenth century. My study shows that Buffon searched for regularities in nature, and that this was an important part of his argument for ocean currents as agents of geological change, and indeed a significant factor in the development of geological thought in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Later natural philosophers continued the search for regularities in their attempt to understand nature's geological processes.

1. Currently entered in the University of Oklahoma's library catalog as: Erasmus Reinhold, Demonstratio halonis/transcriptus ab Erasmo Reinholt (Wittenberg: n.p.,1550). Several features of the current catalog entry are problematic, including the date. I will refer to this work as Demonstratio halonis for convenience.

2. Adrian Johns, "Natural history as print culture", In Cultures of natural history, by N. Jardine, J. A. Secord, and E. C. Spary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 121.

3. This condemning view of John Gerard was prevalent in botanical history and history of the book until the second half of the 20`b century. Perhaps this was a product of Whig history that viewed as valuable only those things from the past that met with their modern standards or signaled an approach to them. While this is outside the scope of this thesis, it is an underlying causal factor that exacerbated the negative view taken of John Gerard at the time of the second edition.

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