Between History and System. Historical Knowledge in Comenius’ Pansophy

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985955%3A_____%2F24%3A00599328" target="_blank" >RIV/67985955:_____/24:00599328 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.14712/24645370.4575" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.14712/24645370.4575</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14712/24645370.4575" target="_blank" >10.14712/24645370.4575</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Between History and System. Historical Knowledge in Comenius’ Pansophy

Original language description

By analysing Johannes Amos Comenius’ Pansophy, this study shows how Comenius squared his idea of a system with his strong sense of history. It discusses how his systematic and historical approaches interact. The monumental, long-standing project of Pansophia, originating in the 1630s, was supposed to provide a wide range of information and cover all important subjects. Although Comenius studied history from early in his academic career, wrote several history treatises, and considered history the “most beautiful part of knowledge”, he seems to have failednto include it in his ambitious pansophical work. The striking absence of history makes Comenius’ pansophical enterprise significantly different from his earlier encyclopaedic project, Theatrum universitatis rerum, which included several books covering both civil and church history. The lack of such a prominent field of scholarship might be surprising in a book designed to summarise the entire knowledge available at the time. Seeking an explanation for such a remarkable omission, this study argues that excluding history was intentional, based on two significant changes in the author’s intellectual predilections. The first was related to the very concept of history, its nature and function. The second was linked to the issue of early modern knowledge organization. While structuring knowledge, Comenius did not omit history, but he abandoned the concept of disciplines in general. In the deconstructed systematisation, the topics concerning time, history and historicity stepped out of traditional historical genres. They are scattered throughout the book in more or less inconspicuous passages, hidden in many specific, non-narrative manifestations. These changes are to be attributed to the highly discussed questions regarding the optimal knowledge system in seventeenth-century scholarly discourse.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA20-11795S" target="_blank" >GA20-11795S: Historiam videre. Testimony, Experience and the Empirical Evidence in the Early Modern Historiography of the Bohemian Lands</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Dějiny - teorie - kritika

ISSN

1214-7249

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

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Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

22

Pages from-to

9-30

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85203645596