Instrumentality : On Technical Objects and Orientations in the Later Middle Ages - J. Allan Mitchell

Instrumentality

On Technical Objects and Orientations in the Later Middle Ages

By: J. Allan Mitchell

Paperback | 1 October 2024

At a Glance

Paperback


$53.40

or 4 interest-free payments of $13.35 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 10 to 15 business days

From medieval to modern, exploring instrumental attitudes toward physical gadgets, diagrams, concepts, methods, and disciplines

Opening up the instrumental condition of the human for critical reflection and renewal, Instrumentality illuminates key moments in the intellectual history of the European Middle Ages. J. Allan Mitchell reveals how, in the predigital past, we can recognize many of the operative technics, analytics, and metaphorics that continue to shape human sense and cognition today.

Exploring the diverse modalities of medieval instruments, Mitchell's case studies encompass techniques as seemingly distinct as time-keeping mechanisms, mathematical diagrams, logical syllogisms, and the literary devices of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower. A cultural and intellectual history, Mitchell's work leads readers from three-dimensional objects (physical mechanisms) to two-dimensional inscriptions (maps and diagrams) and onward to overarching disciplinary norms in the early liberal and mechanical arts. Prying loose the subtle, adaptable, and generative concept of technical objects from limiting contemporary frameworks, he shows how these instruments are indispensable to the past-and the future-of the arts and culture at large.

More in Medieval & Renaissance Philosophy

Letting Go : The Pathway of Surrender - Hawkins David

RRP $24.99

$23.75

Night Vision : Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods - Mariana Alessandri
Bertram's Emporium of Things People Say - Ariel Peckel
The Bright Ages : A New History of Medieval Europe - Matthew Gabriele
Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics : Matter and Memory Today - Yasushi Hirai
Humanistic Narratives - Michel Serres

RRP $130.00

$97.75

25%
OFF
Humanistic Narratives - Michel Serres

RRP $44.99

$44.50

Human, All Too Human : Penguin Classics Ser. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Husserl's Phenomenology : Cultural Memory in the Present - Dan Zahavi
The World As I See It - Albert Einstein

$22.31

RULES TO LIVE BY : The Wisdom of Maimonides - Jeffrey Katz

RRP $44.99

$38.90

14%
OFF
The Wisdom of the Romantics - Michael K Kellogg

RRP $56.99

$52.50