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SUMMARY:Learning to know: the educations of Richard Hakluyt and Thomas Har
 riot - David Harris Sacks (Reed College)
DTSTART:20161107T130000Z
DTEND:20161107T140000Z
UID:TALK67016@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Edwin Rose
DESCRIPTION:Richard Hakluyt (1552?–1616)\, cosmographer and clergyman\, 
 and Thomas Harriot (1560–1621)\, ethnographer\, mathematician\, natural 
 philosopher and polymath\, were explorers and discovers in their era's new
 ly-opened territories of study. Both were consumers of learning and produc
 ers of knowledge and both sought the truth insofar as human reason could g
 rasp it. Both also contributed to the formation of what we know as modern 
 science with its distinctive ethos of debate and proof. This paper focuses
  on their educations and experiences\, mainly in Oxford\, as they began th
 eir careers of inquiry into the 'Book of Nature'. Along with considering t
 he role played by humanist learning in shaping their studies of the natura
 l world\, attention will be given to Oxford's conflicted religious and cul
 tural climate relates and how it relates to their goals\, which Hakluyt de
 fined as 'the certain and full discovery of the world'. For Hakluyt the 'w
 orld' was the earth as divinely created. For Harriot\, who contributed to 
 a diversity of fields\, the 'world' was the universe\, a new usage in the 
 period\, which took in the heavens as well as the earth. Both men shared a
 n eirenical religious outlook\, encouraged by their experiences in Oxford 
 as well as their teachers\, and both came to understand their studies of n
 ature to represent a realm of intellectual peace where doubts could be ove
 rcome\, disagreements could be reconciled\, and it would be possible to kn
 ow the truth with certainty using the senses as well as reason.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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