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Thomas Browne and the Mystery of Number
Gilman 479 Marked by the ‘mathematization’ of scientific knowledge, seventeenth-century European intellectual culture is also punctuated by profound skepticism about the stability, reliability, or calculability of numbers. Focusing on the natural philosopher and lay theologian Thomas Browne, who fluctuates puzzlingly between fascination and contempt for arithmology and numerology, this lecture will explore the seventeenth century’s […]