The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought: Natural Philosophy and the Poetics of the Ineffable. KevinKilleen. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP , 2023. x + 262 pp. ISBN 13: 9781503635395. $90.00 (cloth).
Year: 2024
Type: book-review
Abstract: REISNER will be struck by several passages of vivid detail: the precise accounts of how Petty's "Down" survey was implemented in Ireland, or of the hectic weekly production of a successful newsbook are among many examples.Illuminating judgments abound, such as the marvelous summing up of the L'Estrange matriarch: "her husband and sons all had talents, but none had the unremitting application to dairy yields and crop rotation, sheep prices and wool weight with which Alice slowly rebuilt the family's fortune" (179).Finally in its basic premise that the period matters, and in its biographical methodology Anna Keay's book makes a significant contribution.It does not take the Restoration for granted and presents the period as one "of destruction and disharmony" but also of "tremendous intellectual and imaginative creativity" (357).The years had a long-term impact-in heavy taxation and a powerful state, religious division and a lively news culture, coffee houses, consumption, scientific enterprise, and colonial expansion.Individuals are complex, and individual lives do not fit conventional chronological boundaries or disciplinary divisions.Hence, the use of biography as a lens makes for an engaging and nuanced work.
Source: Milton Quarterly
DOI: 10.1111/milt.12493
Author: Noam Reisner
Institution: Tel Aviv University
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,760
OpenAlex ID: W4403145847