The Reformation of Common Learning

Howard Hotson is Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow and Tutor at St Anne's College. This book illustrates the convergence of several of his main areas of interest, including the gradually expanding reform movements of the post-Reformation period, the intellectual geography of the Thirty Years' War, and prospects for rewriting aspects of intellectual history from the bottom up with the assistance of large pools of digitally assembled and analysed data.

The significance of Descartes's reliance on mechanical analogies seems to go unremarked.

• 1: Status quo ante bellum: Reformed Germany as Protestant Europe's Pedagogical Laboratory Part I: The Thirty Years War and the Dutch Golden Age: Post-Ramist method and early 'Cartesianism', 1620-1670 2: Preamble: Philosophy during Leiden's first golden age, 1575-1618 3: Transformation: Ramism, artisanal learning, and the mechanical philosophy, 1618-1639 4: Transplantation: a transfer of pedagogical leadership, 1618-1660 5: Reception and Dissemination: German Reformed roots of 'Dutch Cartesianism', 1640-1670 Part II: The Reformed diaspora and the Hartlib circle: Post-Ramist method and mid-century 'Baconianism', 1630-1670 6: Dissemination: The Reformed diaspora and the Hartlib circle 7: Form and Function: Post-Ramist Roots of Comenian Pansophia 8: Sources and Methods: Post-Ramist Pedagogy and Baconian Natural Philosophy Part III: Post-Ramist encyclopaedism in post-war Europe: Leibniz and the end of an era, 1630-1716 9: Reception: the fortuna of the Encyclopaedia 10: Emendation: the pursuit of a new encyclopaedia, 1630-1716 11: Failure and transformation: the encyclopaedia turned inside out 12: Summary, conclusions, and prospects