Premodern Nature: Regularity, Exceptions, Manipulations

Premodern science considered nature through Aristotle’s definition of an intrinsic principle, driving species and individuals towards perfection, in a less or more regular manner which allows scientific knowledge. However, sometimes things go wrong—nature incidentally makes mistakes. Can natural errors (like “monsters”) be amended? This panel addresses the tensions between regularity and exceptions, description and manipulation of nature in premodern times. How did premodern thinkers justify the exceptions to the regularity of nature? What were the conditions for their assumption that an exception to that regularity was “unnatural”? How did they think they could achieve a manipulation of nature? By “manipulation” we mean the propelling of natural regulated changes towards a preconceived goal. Which presuppositions enabled them to consider the possibility of such manipulation? What was the metaphysical, epistemological, and theological frame that supported this kind of thinking? Nicholas Aubin explores the relation between nature, art, and medicine in the Muslim tradition as expressed in al-ʿĀmirī’s thought. Marienza Benedetto addresses the birth of monsters in the Jewish tradition, as found in Maimonides medical works. Nicola Polloni examines patterns of regularity and irregularity of nature in Hermann of Carinthia of the Latin-Neoplatonist tradition. The Latin-Aristotelian tradition of the manipulation of nature is investigated by two papers, both focused on Roger Bacon. Yael Kedar speaks about Bacon’s conception of natural legality, and asks whether this new conception fostered ideas of controlling nature, and Jeremiah Hackett investigates the theological aspect of Bacon’s “experimental science”.