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SUMMARY:The science of wishing: Francis Bacon and the magical optative - V
 era Keller (University of Oregon)
DTSTART:20160428T143000Z
DTEND:20160428T160000Z
UID:TALK65785@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Marta Halina
DESCRIPTION:Bacon's optative\, or a wish for presumedly impossible things 
 in the realm of natural magic\, is not his best remembered legacy. Few sub
 sequent readers (besides Robert Boyle) retained the notion\, and already i
 n the eighteenth century\, Bacon's editor Peter Shaw replaced the strange 
 term 'optative' with a then more familiar Baconian wish\, the _desideratum
 _. Despite their current obscurity\, optatives appear in numerous works th
 roughout Bacon's career and at the very height of his epistemic ambitions.
  Understanding Bacon's cunning use of optatives will help offer a new inte
 rpretation of his significance as a whole – one that does not consist in
  empiricism or experiment\, but in the study of the non-extant and the pur
 suit of the impossible.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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