Paradigms of Order in the Seventeenth Century: Intelligibility as Visibility

Stefano Fiori ()
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Stefano Fiori: University of Torino

Chapter Chapter 6 in Machines, Bodies and Invisible Hands, 2021, pp 111-134 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Smith’s concept of order and the notion of organization developed in the life sciences of his time differed from those philosophical and scientific conceptions that in the seventeenth century interpreted the intelligibility of natural and social phenomena in terms of visibility. These conceptions shared the idea that understanding complex phenomena depended on their visibility. The idea of intelligibility as visibility—examined in this chapter—was not a naïve conception. This idea emerged not as the immediate result of human observational capacities but as an effect of practical and theoretical approaches that could provide access to natural and social events. Technical, experimental and mathematical tools served this purpose. The more phenomena were correctly represented, the more they could be explained. Several metaphors provided arguments that strengthened this perspective.

Keywords: Scientific Revolution; Book of nature; Art; Petty; Cantillon; Quesnay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-85206-1_6

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-85206-1_6

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