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1. BackgroundIn the early modern period, the production and management of knowledge developed into the republic of letters 0f the 17th and 18th centuries, which was increasingly and systematically engaged in publication, and then into the subject specialties of modern scholarship. A central vehicle of universally available knowledge, organized in detail and constantly augmented, was the reviewing system. Like other regional social communities, early modern scholarship (Erudition) was organized to…

1. Terminological history and characteristics The term “intellectual” (from the Latin intellectualis, “of the understanding”) derives from the political public sphere of the late 19th century. Corresponding to the social, cultural, and political self-image (and enemy stereotype) of a growing, academic class, the figure of the intellectual, associated with autonomy and the authority to speak on behalf of the general public, became at the transition to the late modern period the incarnation of the western id…

1. Definition and significanceA table is a two-dimensional grid in which data and knowledge are sorted according to predefined categories and entered into lists – including taxes, flocks, cardinal numbers, and star positions even in early antiquity. Such tables are attested in Mesopotamia since approximately 2500 BCE. They already exhibit the essential merits of tables [12]: they list, arrange, categorize, compare, and quantify things and associate them with places and times aong with relevant attributes. With their aid, things are given their “ad…

1. GeneralIn the 18th century, historia literaria denoted the systematic history of erudition and of scholars, that is, the entirety of scholarly literature and its authors. In the 19th century, the term in use was “literary history,” not to be confused with the new discipline of literary historiography. Historia literaria, as interpretation, categorization, and actualization of the entirety of scholarly literature, laid the groundwork for the planned communication, dissemination, and archiving o…

1. Introduction Academic prizes were important discursive instruments of the Enlightenment. With their association with publicity, authority, and the systematic organization of knowledge (Knowledge, organization of) in the service of public information (Knowledge), they represent (even more than knowledge media such as the periodical and encyclopedia, vital then as now) the most typical hallmark of the Enlightenment public sphere.Taking up the Humanist tradition in which learned societies crowned poets (e.g. the Viennese Collegium poetarum atque …

1. Definition and history of scholarshipThe word “society” is first attested in English in the 1530s, in the sense of companionship and amicable association (Sociability). It derives, via the Old French societé (company), from the Latin  societas (fellowship, association, community). The sense of a formally organized group constituted for some specific purpose dates from the 1540s.Its German equivalent,  Verein (defined by Grimm as “that which is associated through unification,” “das durch Vereinigung verbundene”; from the OHG verb farainen, “to unite”) likewise den…

1. IntroductionAn encyclopedia is as far as possible a complete survey of a branch of knowledge, with content arranged in a certain order of presentation. As a concise form of presenting expert knowledge and the current state of knowledge, it lies between didactics and scholarly theory, and between the popularization and the functionalization of knowledge. As an ongoing attempt at defining individual elements of a whole and so aligning knowledge and the world, it was a guiding principle of early modern knowledge culture.Martin Gierl2. ConceptThe Neolatin composite term  encyclopaed…

1. DefinitionFrom the outset, scholarly media as institutionalized technological mediators of learning (Erudition) – both individually and collectively –  were anything but neutral instruments of knowledge: they were a material embodiment of the contemporary organization of knowledge (Knowledge, organization of). In the early modern period, they marked the evolution of the great process of cultural change from orality to literacy, based increasingly on print. Their nature was the basis for the de…

The development of formative public institutions was a central element in the history of the modern period. Next to the university, the academy as an institution played a fundamental role in the organization of knowledge and culture.  1. Concept In 387 BC, Plato had acquired a house in a cultural complex north-west of Athens, named after the Attic hero Akademos, for his philosophical school, to which the sanctuary with gymnasium, gardens, and cult sites gave its name, Akadḗmeia. Although a structured establishment with scholarch, “elders”, and “disciples”, it had no cu…

1. Concept and originsThe languages of science developed at the beginning of the early modern period at the transition from Latin to the vernacular and from orality to literacy (Literacy and orality) as the primary vehicle for the communication of knowledge. They did so in the course of the emergence of the Republic of Letters, and did so – depending on media formats and the status of particular research interests – partly with the express purpose of spreading knowledge.As specialist languages, the scientific languages of the early modern period permitted communica…

1. General All societies are also knowledge societies. As modern sociologists and ethnologists since Émile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss have argued, it is impossible to imagine sociality without language, rules, a worldview, assignment of characteristics, roles, and organization of facts, along with means of coordinating and maintaining them [19]; [10]. Knowledge therefore guides the action structures within which work, consumption, government, and culture are organized. With agricultural reclamation (of previously unused terrain) and th…

1. The termAs a core element of utopian thought (Utopia) and a reflection of the social and political processes institutionalizing the advance of text-based intellectual culture, the republic of letters was among the central defining concepts of the early modern epoch. The term is the English equivalent of Latin  res publica li(t)teraria (French  république des lettres, German  Gelehrtenrepublik) and denotes the fabric of public academic literacy (Literacy and orality). From the outset, the focus was essentially on the community that produced literatu…

1. Transmission of knowledgeIn the early modern period, compilation – the systematic assembly of knowledge already present – was considered one of the fundamental procedures in the organization of knowledge (Knowledge, organization of) and the production of scholarly texts. The theological and legal commentary literature of the Middle Ages and the early modern era, encyclopedias, the specialized compendia of various disciplines, and above all historiography, from chronicles to volumes of historical illustrations were heavily dependent on it.As an essentially o…

1. Object of cultural studies Parallel to the mechanization of society and its electrical, electronic, and finally digital tools of communication, and in light of 20th-century “big science” and the division of labor increasingly evident in the production of knowledge, the question of the organization of knowledge has emerged as a central theme of cultural studies. In the 1920s, Karl Mannheim sought to pursue the “existentiality” of knowledge and the role of ideology in error using the sociology of knowledge [29]. In the 1930s, Ludwik Fleck interpreted the emergence of sc…

1. System Communication of information is one of the fundamental elements of every society (Society [community]). With their contribution to informing and organizing society, information media were central to the regulation of social life. In the early modern period, the communication of information was revolutionized by printing. The transmission of information became a universally organized system – politically, economically, and scientifically – based increasingly on technological me…

1. ConceptIn the early modern period the methods, institutions, subject fields and discussion procedures of modern science took shape. Their elementary structural categorization and organizational form were the academic disciplines.Related to Greek didaskalía (“teaching,” “instruction,” “initiation”), discipline is derived from Latin discere (“learn”) and shares the same etymological root with its pedagogical counterpart, doctrine (from Lat. docere, “teach”) [4]. The semantic field of Latin disciplina with its poles of “subject,” “knowledge,” “instruction,” …

1. Introduction Utopias imagine the reality of what ought to be in the mirror of that which ought not. As a genre, they are related to the ideal and the plan, but also to the satire. Depending on their audience, their representational form might range from a novel to a project design. Utopias court and strive for realization, and their intellectual horizon extends to institutionalization [21. vol. 2].Early modern utopias developed remarkably quickly and widely into scientific utopias (see below, 2.)., then into social utopias in the 18th century. With indu…

1. DefinitionTheological polemic is one of the most important traditional instruments of Christian church formation and faith development. It served to delineate the boundaries between “true” and “false” Christian doctrine and piety.The term is derived from Greek  pólemos (war, conflict). Theological polemic contested concepts of the world (World view) and of God (God, concepts of) – in the late antique Christian debates with Manichaeism, for example, with its radical dualism of good and evil, and with Arianism, which rejected th…

As a test of knowledge as well as an intellectual, social, and cultural representation of the university, the academic disputation constituted the capstone of the medieval and early modern educational arch. In the early modern period, it became the starting point for the research seminar, the dissertation and Habilitation (Privatdozent), the scholarly article and criticism, and thus the modern university.In the medieval universities, the disputation was the most important type of event, alongside the  lectio or lecture. Knowledge was passed on through reading of a…

1. TerminologyLike the German terms Geschichte (History) and Forschung (Research), the singular noun  Wissenschaft (science), denoting a comprehensive entity, first appeared in the late 18th century; it was followed by Naturwissenschaft (Natural science) and (with similarly narrowed meaning) the English noun  science [10. 10, 30]. Until well into the 17th century, the distinction between Latin  scientia (knowledge about a subject area, acquaintance) and  ars (art, competence, ability) was the primary division of knowledge. In the 18th century, auxili…

1. General survey ​1.1. TerminologyThe early modern period had a surprisingly large number of terms for deliberate efforts to expand the existing store of knowledge. Besides the common Latin terms  explorare (explore), scrutari (plumb), experiri (test), and probare (try out), the 17th-century encyclopedias used Latin  aucupari, ( per) contari, requitare, rogitare, ( in) vestigare, quaerere, inquirere, sciscere, and ( sci) scitari. A person engaged in that effort was a  scrutator, percontator, rimator, ( in) vestigator, or in- or  perquisitor. These terms gave rise to eq…

1. Definition and characteristicsLiteracy denotes all forms of the use of writing, and the production and reading of printed and unprinted texts. Orality includes all forms of spoken communication, which are also characterized by fundamental qualities and potentials.A former paradigm of cultural anthropology held that the knowledge of the past, the secure storage of information and knowledge (see below, 4.), full-fledged bureaucratic government, and individual self-reflection were only possible through the written word. Accordin…

1. Theology and philosophy 1.1. To 1700Between the 14th and 17th centuries, space changed from a finite, articulated construct to an infinite, uniform, and rational construct. In the cosmology of Plato and Aristotle, spherical closure was an expression of the perfection of the cosmos, but ever since Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th century and Giordano Bruno in the 16th century, unlimited or infinite space was considered a perfect image or emanation of the infinity of God [11]. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, space was the passive principle, accommodating forms and m…

1. Definition Periodicals fulfilled important functions in the social communication of early modern society as a growing medium (Media) situated between books and newspapers and in the context of increasing streams of news. Formally, periodicals differed from books in the greater currentness of their news (News, currentness of) and their periodicity; they differed from newspapers in their individual aspirations, expressed in programmatic language. The greater average length o…

1. Definition and background The word statistics derives ultimately from Italian statista (statesman) via the Latin adjective  statisticus. In the 16th century, when the combination of political economy (Economy), the estates of the realm, the tax system, government, and the military gradually turned princely states into feudal-absolutist financial states,  ratio status – a term that initially meant the balance sheet of the state, but later came to mean  raison d’état – became the guiding principle of the body politic. The process of state formation in…