The Natural History Section from a 9th Century "Book of Useful Knowledge"

Oriens ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 355
Author(s):  
B. Lewin ◽  
Ibn Qutaiba ◽  
L. Kopf ◽  
F. S. Bodenheimer
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Useful Knowledge

“The Sagacity of the Indians”: William Dampier’s Surprising Respect for Indigenous Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 543-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Irving-Stonebraker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Objects Of Knowledge ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
Historical Moment

Abstract English privateer and amateur ethnographer William Dampier’s work abounds with admiring descriptions of the knowledge and skills of the indigenous societies he encountered on his global voyages. These positive descriptions of indigenous culture make a surprising juxtaposition against the tenor of ethnography little more than a century later, when biological theories of race grounded disparaging attitudes toward indigenous cultures. This article explores the conditions of possibility of a historical moment during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Anglophone world, in which it was possible to acknowledge some of the merits of indigenous knowledge. I argue that it was the framework of Baconian natural history, with its focus on useful knowledge, and its methodological emphasis on empirical data rather than theorizing, which made it possible for Dampier to treat indigenous societies not only as the objects of knowledge, but more importantly, as sources of knowledge.

scholarly journals The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America /

1904 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. Hornaday ◽  
Beard ◽  
Keller ◽  
Rungius ◽  
Sanborn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Useful Knowledge

Robert Plot: Britain's 'genial father of county natural histories'

1985 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-177 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Small Area ◽  
Great Benefit ◽  
Regional Study ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Natural Histories ◽  
John Leland

Robert Plot (1640—1696) has deservedly been called the ‘genial father of County Natural Histories in Britain’ for his work in this Field. Like his friend John Aubrey, Plot was interested in promoting useful knowledge, emphasizing how his own work would contribute ‘to the great benefit of Trade, and advantage of the People’. Also like the famous Aubrey he was interested in the supernatural and therefore he included accounts of occult phenomena in his natural histories. His Natural History of Oxfordshire, published after a lengthy period when natural history was still experiencing some difficulty in firmly superseding the chorographic element in the field of regional study, was chiefly responsible for popularizing regional natural history. It was deliberately intended by its author to supplement the ‘Civil and Geographicall Historys’ which up to that time still managed to exert an influence on the field as a whole. These ‘Civil and Geographicall Historys’ were generally called ‘chorographies’ by most of Plot’s fellow virtuosi, a name originally derived from the Classical Greek art of chorography whose purpose, according to Ptolemy, was to treat the geography and history of a relatively small area of the Earth’s surface. This genre was practiced by W illiam Camden, John Leland and other sixteenth and early seventeenth-century men, who adapted it to their own particular purposes. Plot, however, was one of the first ‘regional writers’ to discard many of the methods and interests of the chorographers, preferring rather to scientifically investigate the natural history.

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