Le séminaire se penche sur les divers types de documents produits dans le contexte de pratiques savantes. L’un des objectifs en est de saisir en quoi la fabrique de formes textuelles et d’inscriptions est partie prenante de l’activité scientifique. Nous cherchons également à comprendre comment nos sources reflètent les pratiques scientifiques et les contextes dans lesquels elles se déploient. Le séminaire vise enfin à comprendre en quoi ces réflexions peuvent permettre de mieux interpréter les sources sur la base desquelles les historiens des sciences mènent leurs recherches. Nous nous intéresserons cette année aux questions suivantes :
- Comment interpréter la variété des documents qui nous transmettent une œuvre ?
- Comment des scientifiques élaborent-ils des formes textuelles au sens large en vue de mener leurs recherches, et comment ces formes textuelles reflètent-elles leur travail intellectuel ?
- Comment interpréter des diagrammes ?
- Comme lire des bibliographies ?
- Quels écrits produits par les acteurs à titre privé les historiens des sciences rencontrent-ils et comment les exploiter ?
- Comment des collectifs de savoir organisent-ils les univers de papier sur lesquels ils appuient leurs activités ?
- Comment appréhender la fluidité de certains textes au travers des adaptations, des traductions, et autres formes de recréation dont ils font l’objet ? Comment, plus généralement, décrire les écrits dérivant d’autres écrits ?
Responsables : l’ensemble du groupe HSHT
Archives | 2021–2022 | 2020-2021 |
2020-2019 | 2019-2018 | 2018-2017 |
2017-2016 | 2016-2015 | 2015-2014 |
2014-2013 | 2013-2012 | 2012-2011 |
2011-2010 | 2010-2009 | 2009-2008 |
2008-2007, p. 38 | 2007-2006, p. 41 | 2006-2005, p. 51 |
2005-2004, p. 22 | 2003-2000, p. 41 | 2000-1996, p. 14 |
PROGRAMME 2023-2024
- Jeudi, 26 octobre 2023, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Rothko 412B bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Bibliographies/Catalogues
Org. Clément Bonvoisin, Marie Lacomme et Edgar Lejeune
Arthur Perret (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, ELICO)
De la critique bibliographique à l’écriture non-linéaire : la bibliographie annotée comme objet épistémologique
Résumé :
C’est une liste de références bibliographiques entrecoupée de remarques plus ou moins longues – parfois simplement descriptives, parfois porteuses de jugement. Mais ce n’est pas la « bibliographie critique » des revues : plus informelle, souvent auto-publiée, parfois étonnante dans sa présentation, c’est une autre forme de bibliographie annotée (ou commentée) que nous présentons ici. À partir de quelques exemples, nous verrons en quoi ce type de document constitue un objet épistémologique, ce qu’il reflète des évolutions du monde universitaire depuis les années 1960 (massification, informatisation), et ce qu’il suggère de l’avenir de la bibliographie.
Giorgio Matteoli
The Long Pre-History of Lalande’s Bibliographie astronomique
Résumé :
When Jérôme de Lalande published his Bibliographie astronomique in 1803, he stood at the apex of his career. As one of the most influent astronomers in Europe, he was well aware of the implicit power wielded by histories and bibliographies of a discipline such as astronomy, especially in an age when the production of such works remained relatively scarce – namely, that of presenting and organizing the past of the discipline by separating the chaff from the wheat to be fed to new generations of increasingly professionalized astronomers. Indeed, as Lalande himself recognizes in the preface to his work, it was the Ministry of Public Instruction who provided the means to carry out his enterprise ; and that is why ‘mere erudition’ and ‘completeness’ were never his objectives, for they would have rendered his book a ‘simple waste of time’. However, Lalande did not start accumulating data from scratch. He could rely on a long lineage of direct predecessor who had been accumulating bibliographical materials in the previous two centuries, within the same State-driven economy of astronomical knowledge. As I will show on the basis of recent archival research, it was Giovanni Domenico Cassini who, at the end of the XVII century, started organizing astronomical materials in his capacity of chief scientific administrator for the Parisian Academy of Sciences. Later, his pupil Joseph-Nicolas Delisle resumed this project from where it was left, putting it on an entirely new footing. He soon started to involve other scholars from all over Europe to help gathering the information he needed ; sometimes, he even commissioned others (like the Wittenberg wolffian scholar Johann Friedrich Weidler) to complete some its parts. Even though Delisle’s work was ultimately left unaccomplished, his pupil Lalande took it up once again and extensively deployed it in compiling his Bibliographie, thereby embedding it in the wider structure of the Ancient Régime’s political epistemology of astronomy.
Valérie Neveu (Université d’Angers)
Les catalogues des imprimés de la bibliothèque de Thou (1617-1679) : du catalogue de collection privée au modèle bibliographique
Résumé :
L’objectif de cette présentation est de montrer, à travers une collection emblématique, comment le travail fait par les gestionnaires de bibliothèques des XVIe et XVIIe s. a construit un nouveau savoir scientifique, qu’on appellera la bibliographie : cette discipline consiste à décrire et classer les livres de toutes sciences, pour l’utilité de la communauté des chercheurs. L’art du catalogage (décrire les unités physiques d’une bibliothèque donnée) et de la bibliographie (décrire des livres, indépendamment de leur localisation) sont souvent entremêlés, comme le montre l’exemple de la bibliothèque de Thou, décrite d’abord par un catalogue d’usage privé, puis à son dernier stade par une publication imprimée qui pourra faire office de bibliographie.
Le premier catalogue de 1617, achevé à la mort du parlementaire, homme politique, poète et historien Jacques-Auguste Ier de Thou, montre un degré de perfection unique pour cette époque, parce que de Thou, au lieu de rédiger un inventaire sommaire de sa bibliothèque à l’instar de ses contemporains, s’est fondé sur la littérature bibliographique déjà étoffée au XVIe s., afin de rédiger des notices exactes et structurées, et de les organiser thématiquement selon une classification des sciences réfléchie. Il s’agit d’un catalogue privé mais qui a pu être connu plus largement du monde savant puisque la bibliothèque était ouverte aux chercheurs. Un 2e catalogue (1645-1648) alphabétique, conforme aux préférences des frères Dupuy alors gestionnaires de la bibliothèque, suppose de vastes connaissances bibliographiques pour pouvoir être utilisé, en mode recherche par auteurs uniquement. Pour réparer cette lacune, l’héritier Jacques-Auguste II de Thou commande à l’astronome Ismaël Boulliau un 2e catalogue thématique, achevé en 1653, selon un plan différent du catalogue de 1617, avec une classification encore plus précise et raffinée. C’est ce catalogue qui sera imprimé en 1679 pour la vente de la bibliothèque, après la faillite et le décès de Jacques-Auguste II. Cet ouvrage perd dès lors sa fonction technique de catalogue de bibliothèque pour devenir un "monument bibliographique" de référence, connu dans toute l’Europe et régulièrement cité par la littérature savante.
Sources :
Catalogues manuscrits localisés à la BnF et dans des bibliothèques étrangères (Bruxelles, New York) : documents en partie numérisés + photos personnelles de VN
Catalogus bibliothecae Thuanae, Paris, 1679
- Jeudi, 9 novembre 2023, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Rothko 412B bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Adaptations/summaries
Org. K. Chemla
Julie Lefebvre (Université Paris Nanterre, MoDyCo UMR 7114)
Book reviews, abstracts, back cover : towards a map of paratextual elements able to be substitutes of the text, the example of Philippe Descola (2021), Les Formes du visible – Une anthropologie de la figuration, Seuil, Paris./Comptes rendus, résumés, quatrième de couverture : cartographie des éléments paratextuels « tenant lieu » du texte, l’exemple de Philippe Descola (2021), Les Formes du visible – Une anthropologie de la figuration, Seuil, Paris.
Résumé :
Les comptes rendus, les résumés et la quatrième de couverture qui accompagnent la publication d’un texte relèvent du « paratexte » tel qu’identifié dans Seuils de G. Genette (Seuil, Paris, 1987). À ce titre, ils constituent une zone de médiation nécessaire entre le texte et ses lecteurs. Dans cet ensemble paratextuel, ils ont cependant un statut spécifique : ils sont en relation avec la totalité du texte dont ils ont pour fonction de donner une représentation. Parce qu’ils mettent ainsi en jeu une relation d’équivalence avec le texte auquel ils se réfèrent, ils « tiennent lieu » de celui-ci selon des modalités diverses que nous présenterons. Nous nous appuierons pour cela sur l’analyse des caractéristiques sémiolinguistiques et discursives de comptes rendus, de résumés et de la quatrième de couverture d’une publication récente en anthropologie, Les Formes du visible – Une anthropologie de la figuration de Philippe Descola (2021, éditions du Seuil, Paris).
Clément Bonvoisin
Building (on) a commentary : Tsien Hsue-shen’s Engineering Cybernetics (1954) as a case study for adaptions in the history of science
Résumé :
In 1954, Tsien Hsue-shen (1911 – 2009), a Chinese-born engineer then living and working in the United States, published a monograph under the title Engineering cybernetics. The goal of the book, as stated by the author in his preface, was to make use of the then-active field of cybernetics to organise engineering practices into a science. An instance of such practices was what engineers usually called relay servomechanisms – roughly speaking, mechanisms switching between two states to regulate the behaviour of a given system. Tsien devoted a chapter of his monograph to such relay servomechanisms. In this talk, I will focus on several sections of this chapter, in which the author commented on a Ph.D dissertation that had been defended in 1952 by American mathematician Donald Bushaw (1926 – 2012). In a nutshell, as a graduate student at Princeton University, Bushaw had investigated the optimal design of certain relay servomechanisms from a mathematical viewpoint. In the course of his research, he derived some results for the optimal design of a specific family of devices – namely, second order linear relay servomechanisms. Although the dissertation had a restricted distribution list, Tsien discussed Bushaw’s results in his book, thus disclosing it to a broader audience. As it happens, as early as 1956, a Russian translation of Tsien’s monograph was edited in the Soviet Union. This translation allowed a group of Moscow-based mathematicians, gathered by Academician Lev Pontryagin (1908 – 1988) to work on related matters, to gain access to Bushaw’s achievements and to make use of it.
In my view, this situation raises a set of questions for the history of science, pertaining to the adaptation of scientific works. How has Tsien adapted Bushaw’s work to his own agenda ? In doing so, how did he transform Bushaw’s work ? In receiving an adapted version of Bushaw’s result, what were Soviet mathematicians able to do ? And, to what extent did this version impact their own work ? Such are the questions that I intend to address in this talk.
Karine Chemla (SPHERE)
Diagrams as discourse
Résumé :
In this talk, I focus on diagrams used to work on equations as evidenced in Chinese sources from the eleventh century on. I examine the part played by these diagrams in the discourse, through their diagrammatic features as well as the textual mentions added to them. My aim is to show that without reading the diagrams as discourse we lose key parts of the knowledge to which the writings testify.
- Jeudi, 7 décembre 2023, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Rothko 412B bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Diagrammatic dimensions of textual elements
Edgar Lejeune (Centre Alexandre Koyré, EHESS)
What is the difference between plotting a graph by hand and generating it automatically ? Epistemological consequences of two approaches of vizualisations in the humanities (France, 1960-1980)
Résumé :
From the early 1960s onwards, two competing models of data analysis were developed in France for the humanities and social sciences. On the one hand, mathematician Jean-Paul Benzécri (1932-2019) and his team worked on a series of computer-assisted mathematical procedures, such as the famous correspondence analyses. On the other hand, cartographer and semiologist Jacques Bertin (1918-2010) developed with his colleagues data analysis methods that relied on the manual manipulation of cardboard files or reorderable matrices made of plastic dominoes.
Behind these different material and epistemological approaches are two opposing visions of how to produce visualizations for data analysis. In Benzécri’s approach, visualizations are automatically generated by computer. In doing so, the structure of the dataset ’appears’ to the researcher in the form of a printer output. The researcher must then decipher a visualization derived from a mathematical procedure. In contrast, the methods developed by Bertin require no mathematical knowledge. Instead, the researcher handles physical artifacts representing the data, with the aim of revealing the structure of the dataset step by step, guided by his visual perception.
How do these two regimes of visualization production affect the epistemology of researchers ? What are the theoretical discourses associated with these two approaches ? And to what extent a comparison between them shed light on the epistemological consequences of automatic generation of scientific visualizations ? We will address these questions on the basis of a few case studies and an extensive theoretical literature produced by Jacques Bertin and his colleagues.
Scott Trigg (SYRTE, Observatoire de Paris)
Manuscript Diagrams as Tools of Reasoning in Islamicate Astronomy
Résumé
The tradition of Islamicate astronomy known as ʿilm al-hayʿa, or “the science of the configuration [of the orbs],” aimed to produce a cosmology based on uniformly-rotating physical orbs, while at the same time preserving the predictive accuracy of models inherited from Ptolemy’s Almagest. Indeed, many works in this tradition identified “doubts,” and unresolved “problems” that arose when considering the Almagest models in terms of physical bodies, and offered innovative solutions. The manuscript sources contain many sophisticated diagrams, but until now little attention has been paid to analyzing the processes through which these diagrams served as tools of reasoning. In this paper I explore the intersection between the materiality of diagrams, their epistemic meanings, and the mental and physical actions required on the part of the viewer in order for a diagram to be “read” correctly. In particular, I argue for the emergence of new types of diagrams that adapted and transformed the “visual vocabulary” and conventions of the existing tradition of mathematical astronomy in order to support a different type of geometric reasoning.
Wang Xiaofei (IHNS, Beijing, & SPHERE)
How the notes from Fourier’s course at the Ecole Polytechnique were produced
Résumé :
The manuscripts Ms. 1852 and Ms.2044 are two individuals’ notes deriving from Joseph Fourier’s course of analysis at the Ecole Polytechnique. Each manuscript contains the notes of the lectures Fourier gave to different classes of students at the school during the year 1796. This talk will focus on the process of the production of these notes. Through an analysis of the textual features of the two manuscripts, it aims to clarify their factual relationship with Fourier’s teaching.
- Jeudi, 11 janvier 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Textual transmissions
Org. K. Chemla
Mau Chuanhui (Ts’ing-hua national university and SPHERE, Professeure invitée)
From practice to writing : the case of wild silk making
Résumé :
China is the cradle of silk industry, and the term “silk” refers to the silk produced by Bombyx mori, named popularly domestic silkworm. There exist several species of insects producing raw silk. In 1999-2000, archeologists discovered in Indus Valley “the first evidence for silk anywhere out of China” (Good 2009), but that silk, commonly called “wild silk,” was produced by the silkworms Antheraea mylitta and Antheraea assamensis.
In Chinese historical documents one can find, since the Antiquity, records about cocoons harvesting in nature. The descriptions found in them correspond to the wild Bombyx and the so-called wild silkworms of Antheraea family. During a very long time, those harvests were considered a good omen, and reports about them were presented to emperors by high ranking officials.
In reality, one can read in the Erya 爾雅, considered the first Chinese dictionary, terms referring to a series of insects which were able to produce silk, including xiangjian 橡繭 (oak cocoon), youchujian 由樗繭 (ailanthus cocoon), etc. But one has to wait till the middle of the 17th century to read the first description of production of wild silk in an essay by Sun Tingquan 孫廷銓 (1613-1674) titled Shancan shuo 山蠶說 (Mau 2018). Before this date, wild silk had already become an important merchandise both for Chinese domestic market and for maritime trade. During the Qing rule, the cultivation of wild silk was paid special attention within the governmental policy for encouraging agriculture and sericulture. In 1744, the first handbook devoted to wild silk culture, titled Shandong yangcan chengfa 山東養蠶成法, was compiled and published following the imperial edict by Qianlong emperor (r. 1735-1795). From then on, several treatises were published.
The present study aims to deal with the “transcription” of knowledge obtained through working experience with wild silk culture. Through a systemic analysis of documents, compared with, and completed by, archeological evidence and field survey, the author tries to understand how practical knowledge was accumulated and transmitted, in particular, how the relevant manuals were written. Compared to the example of the culture of silk produced by Bombyx mori, this study will be helpful for clarifying the processes of its domestication
Carole Hofstetter (SPHERE, ANR Access ERC),
Reading circles of the Introduction to Arithmetic in Byzantium (Part 2)
Résumé :
This presentation is the second part of the paper presented at the ’HSHT’ seminar in 2022-2023 under the title ‘Reading circles of the Introduction to Arithmetic in Byzantium (XIIIth-XIVth c.)’.
The treatise, composed by Nicomachus of Gerasa (1st-2nd c. AD), is known to us from nearly fifty manuscript copies produced in medieval Byzantium.
The frequent use of the text in this period for the study of arithmetic meant that this part of the manuscript tradition was heavily contaminated. By identifying circles of reading and study of the text, the aim is to propose an approach, complementary to that of philology, to account for the relationships between witnesses that are both philologically and chronologically close, where the classic tools of philology do not always provide a reliable answer.
Costantino Moretti (École française d’Extrême-Orient)
Random Notes on Standards, Textual and Formal Variants in Dunhuang Buddhist Manuscripts (Second Part)
Résumé :
The notion of “mistake” and that of “textual variant” share, at times, some ambiguities. By comparing several manuscripts containing the same Chinese Buddhist scripture, for example, it becomes apparent that a number of presumed variants in modern edited texts are in fact simple scribal copying errors. In most cases, these mistakes are produced due to a chain of factors whose combination leads to accidental textual corruption, or due to a misunderstanding of the source-manuscript layout.
In the second part of my talk, I will point out additional considerations regarding variants/alterations that involve a modification of the text layout, i.e. “formal variants”, which can determine a misconstruction of the manuscript that served as the basis for producing a given copy.
- Jeudi, 8 février 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Reorganisations
Org. Arilès Remaki
Erika Luciano , (Dipartimento di Matematica G. Peano, Università di Torino)
The archive(-s) of the Formulario di Matematica : logics and practices of a collective organization and reorganization of sources
Résumé :
The encyclopaedic treatise Formulario di Matematica is usually considered the manifesto of the School of Peano. Published from 1894 to 1908, its five volumes constitute a publication that escapes the common bibliographic classifications : they are not reprints, because the discussion becomes increasingly extensive ; they are not sequels, because the text restarts each time ; and they are not subsequent editions, because sometimes “temporary editorial demands made it necessary to highlight the latest results, without reproducing some fundamental contents, considered classic by that time”.
In its last version, the Formulario included over 5000 propositions written in ideographic language, accompanied with historical annotations and bibliographic references.
The publication of these texts asked Peano and his protégés to do a demanding and continuing work of organization and reorganization of their archives. In this paper, we will analyze the collective activity of classification, ordering, indexing, composition and decomposition of archive materials performed within the School of Peano in relation to the construction of the Formulario di Matematica through the dozen years of its publication.
Célestin Xiaohan Zhou , (The Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Reorganization of Text from Ancient Mathematical Classic : Yang Hui’s (ca. 1261 CE) Mathematical Methods Explaining in Detail The Nine Chapters and Reclassifications
Résumé :
The Nine Chapters on Mathematical Procedures was compiled in the first century CE. Scholars of the third century and seventh century wrote commentaries on this work, both of which were regarded as inseparable parts from the text of The Nine Chapters, because all these layers of texts were handed down as classical mathematical work. In the eleventh century, scholar Jia Xian resumed to make the third layer of commentary on the texts completed before him. According to historical records known to us and extant mathematical works, before the thirteenth century, The Nine Chapters were mainly learned in the official education system and were circulated among literati and scholars with expertise. Yang Hui of the thirteenth century played a key role in the popularization of The Nine Chapters among more general mathematics learners and the populace. In this regard, Yang’s Mathematical Methods Explaining in Detail The Nine Chapters and Reclassifications (1261 CE) are influential during the following several centuries. On the basis of a unique incomplete edition of Yang’s works mentioned above, this talk tries to address the following questions : What are the differences between Yang’s categories and reclassifications of text of The Nine Chapters from those of the former commentaries to this work ? What was Yang’s goal of reclassification and how did Yang achieve his goal of reclassification through reorganization of text ? More concretely, what were his criteria for reclassifications ? Mathematical methods Yang supplemented compose the subcategories that are subordinate to the structure of the original text. How did he arrange the order of mathematical problems and methods in each category and subcategory ? How did Yang use his added analogical problems or modified problems to exemplify the new mathematical methods he introduced in the works ?
Arilès Remaki , (Sphere, ERC Philiumm, Université Paris Cité, CNRS)
Did Leibniz rearrange his own drafts ?
Résumé :
Leibniz’s mathematical drafts are very different from one another. This difference lies not only in the content of the draft, nor even in its function (draft letter, draft work, simple notes, etc.), but in the philological nature of the material. Some documents are completely isolated, without title or date, and with few or no references to other manuscripts. Others, on the other hand, have a very complete heading, in which Leibniz indicates the title, date and possibly the place of the document in a larger series.
The first, natural hypothesis is that these two types of document reflect two different practices in Leibniz’s work. Organised drafts that have a more significant content and isolated drafts that Leibniz kept by mistake, or with little conviction.
A second hypothesis emerges from a close study of the manuscripts. It seems that the headings of many of the texts were added afterwards. Although it is impossible to determine the exact chronology of these operations, the fact that Leibniz reordered his manuscripts a posteriori testifies to a radically different practice, and calls into question the presence of the heading as a criterion of the importance of the content.
The presentation will attempt to show the material traces that support the second hypothesis, and will present the concrete consequences that the discovery of such a practice has for the exegesis of Leibnizian drafts.
- Jeudi, 28 mars 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Erasing/Crossing out
Org. Emmylou Haffner
Emmylou Haffner (ITEM, ENS Ulm)
Que sont les ratures et à quoi servent-elles ?
Résumé :
Les brouillons du mathématicien, qui nous donnent à voir les processus de recherche et d’écriture de leur auteur, contiennent notamment un certain nombre de ratures. Dans cet exposé je propose une première réflexion sur le statut et rôle des différents types de ratures dans les brouillons mathématiques. Je suggérerai qu’il existe plusieurs sortes de ratures – on ne corrige pas que les erreurs – et que celles-ci témoignent de différents actes d’écriture, d’un auteur à l’autre mais aussi chez un même auteur. Je me concentrerai sur des textes allemands et français du 19e et début du 20e siècle.
David Rabouin (SPHERE, CNRS—UPC)
De l’importance et de la difficulté d’éditer les ratures
Résumé :
L’étude des ratures est un élément essentiel pour tenter de reconstituer le cheminement de pensée d’un auteur comme dans son acte même. Il s’agit de ce qu’on pourrait appeler l’approche locale des ratures. Mais il est également possible de trouver dans les ratures des éléments d’une évolution globale, des points où la pensée d’un auteur change pour évoluer vers quelque chose de nouveau. C’est notamment le cas quand on peut repérer des ratures/corrections que l’auteur fait systématiquement. Ce type de ratures n’a pas encore fait, à ma connaissance, l’objet d’une analyse méthodologique approfondie, alors même qu’elle est de très grande importance et pose des problèmes éditoriaux spécifiques. Dans cet exposé, je donnerai trois exemples de cette approche globale dans le cas des manuscrits mathématiques de Leibniz.
Martha Cecilia Bustamante (SPHERE-ITEM)
Ratures et évaluations chez un physicien/Erasure and evaluation in a physicist’s texts
Résumé :
En génétique des textes, explique A. Grésillon, la rature marque graphiquement un changement de point de vue de l’auteur, une réfutation explicite de l’énoncé, un refus de la forme du dire parce que trop compliqué ou encore parce que l’ « auteur-scripteur, devenu « auteur-lecteur », « aimerait mieux autre chose », voire « le contraire ». Dans cet exposé, nous explorons cette notion dans des textes de Jacques Solomon. Nous nous focaliserons sur quelques « avant-textes » sur la mesure en mécanique quantique relativiste. Nous verrons concrètement comment la rature
- Jeudi, 25 avril 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Colors
Org. K. Chemla
Introduction, by Matthieu Husson and Divna Manolova
Divna Manolova ( SYRTE, PSL-Observatoire de Paris, CNRS)
Colour Equates Light, Colour Equates Knowledge
Résumé :
I study the use of polychromy in the corpus of Byzantine manuscripts preserving Cleomedes’ The Heavens (80+ manuscripts) and related texts, that is medieval Greek exegetical texts which tend to accompany the Stoic treatise, especially in codices produced from the thirteenth century onwards. I focus on those diagrams that involve one or more of the luminaries, or the stars more generally, and are concerned with the representation of light or its absence. While some parts of The Heavens explicitly refer readers to a visual representation (diagrammatic or otherwise), more often than not when diagrams are featured on the folio, what prompts their inclusion is less clear. Further, what motivates the use of differently coloured lines is rarely reflected on by the scribes, scholars and draftsmen and therefore it requires an interpretation.
My approach relies on the assumption that (in Byzantine manuscripts) colour, or rather polychromy, equates light. While monochromy in diagrams (using a single-coloured line to draft the image) is sufficient to make a figure visible as opposed to the use of a hard point, the use of multiple colours adds information and complicates further the meaning of the diagram design. In the case of lunisolar diagrams the use of polychromy is less concerned with questions of hue and more with expressing brightness and the presence or absence of light (light is emitted or reflected, it is directional, it is present or absent). Polychromy in diagrams allows for the synchronic operation of multiple layers of meaning related to knowledge about the cosmos acquired through the medium of sight. In terms of expertise and practice, it also indicates access to pigments, knowledge of the preparation of inks and of their application, as well as of graphic and symbolic grammars related but not limited to representations of textures, materiality, and dimensionality. Thus, the use of polychromy points out to the culturally-defined encoding of information and allows us to ask questions concerning its ownership, control, access to and lack thereof, the expertise in, as well as the exchange, communication, and trade of this knowledge.
Matthieu Husson (SYRTE PSL-Observatoire de Paris, CNRS)
The colors of numbers : astronomers and scribes uses of colors in late medieval astronomical tables in Latin Europe
Résumé :
Late medieval astronomical manuscripts produced in Latin Europe regularly make use of inks and pigments of different colors, in their textual part, but also in numerical tables, diagrams and various illustrations. In this communication I want to explore this phenomenon in connection with numerical tables and reflect about the type of historical evidence these uses of colors in numerical tables may offer to the historian of astronomy.
Relying on a corpus mainly taken from the manuscript tradition of John of Lignères Tabule Magne, of which I’m preparing a critical edition with Eleonora Andriani, I’m going to consider three aspects in the sources. First a codicological aspect : how colors present themselves in the document, what can we reconstruct of the production processes of the colored tables ? Second a readability aspect : How colors orient and assist the users in navigating the often complex layout of astronomical tables ? Third, an astronomical aspect : how certain uses of colors can also be embedded with an astronomical and mathematical meaning ? Overall I wish to argue that in the corpus I examine, different agencies intervene each with its own set of conventions and aims in relation to the uses of colors. These visual conventions are in some cases complementary but might also be conflicting with each other resulting in a rather diversified set of situations which uniquely document certain aspects of astronomical cultures.
Florence Bretelle
The social life of Qiu Xi邱熺’s smallpox vaccination book Extracting Smallpox in a Nutshell (Yindou lüe引痘略, 1817) : reprint or recycling ?
Résumé :
Just a few years after the famous publication of Edward Jenner’s research on the protective effects of cow pox inoculation against human smallpox, and after Dr. Alexander Pearson (1780-1874) had introduced vaccination against smallpox in Macau and Canton, Chinese-language texts on the new technique were circulating in Guangdong province. A first text, written in a few pages in 1805, recounts the discovery of the technique in England and explains the method. As the paratext emphasizes, this is a Chinese translation of a text prepared by Alexander Pearson. Some ten years later, in 1817, the Chinese author Qiu Xi邱熺published Extracting Smallpox in a Nutshell (Yindou lüe引痘略). This text, which in turn presented the method of smallpox vaccination, was a huge success, as evidenced by the impressive number of reprints in the 19th century. In this talk, after recalling some general information on the history of smallpox and variolation in China, I’ll look at a number of editions of this text, examining the changes that occur from one edition to the next and what these changes say about the status of this text and, ultimately, about the very status of the technique introduced from Europe in the early 19th century.
- Jeudi, 16 mai 2024, Attention au changement d’horaire. La séance se déroulera de 13h15 à 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Commentaries
Org. K. Chemla
Marie Bizais-Lillig (Lillig (Université de Strasbourg - USIAS - Consortium DISTAM)
Setting standards for commentaries
Résumé :
Exegetical devices vary from one author to another, from one base text to another. They might appear as the complementary material necessary to decipher a specific base text. The purpose served by a commentary is nonetheless sometimes explicit. Such is the case of the enriched commentary on the Chinese anthology entitled Wenxuan 文選 (Selection of Texts), which posits itself in contrast with Li Shan’s 李善 (630-689) recently published commentary. All in all, each commentary sets standards in a more or less clearly expressed way. By the thirteenth century, works such as the Kanzheng jiu Jing san zhuan yange li 刊正九經三傳沿革例 in one roll attributed to Yue Ke 岳 珂 set explicit expectations from exegesis. This text will be at the center of my presentation.
Guillaume Loizelet
Al-Bīrūnī’s " comments " on Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypotheses
Résumé :
Chapter X.6 of al-Qānūn al-Masʿūdī al masudi, written in 1030 by al-Bīrūnī, deals with celestial dimensions. On this occasion, al-Bīrūnī returns to the seminal text on the subject : part I.2 of the Planetary Hypotheses.
I will begin by comparing the argumentative structure of the two texts and the motivations of both authors. I will then turn to a precise study of passages in chapter X.6 in which al-Bīrūnī uses Ptolemy’s text above all as an object in the service of making his own point.
- Jeudi, 13 juin 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Author/Authority
Org. K. Chemla
Stéphane Schmitt (Archives Henri Poincaré, Nancy)
Qu’est-ce qu’une œuvre collective ? Le cas de l’Histoire naturelle des oiseaux (1770-1783)
Résumé :
L’Histoire naturelle des oiseaux (1770-1783) est, en principe, l’ouvrage du naturaliste Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788). Cependant, plusieurs autres personnes participèrent à son élaboration. Sans parler de l’illustration, même si on considère le texte seul, plusieurs personnages ont contribué à sa rédaction. Leur statut est varié, de Guéneau de Montbeillard qui signe ses chapitres (mais pas au début...), à Sonnini de Manoncourt, dont le travail ne peut être que suspecté, en passant par l’abbé Bexon, dont le rôle est officiellement reconnu a posteriori, mais minimisé, comme le révèlent les manuscrits. Cet éventail de situations pose le problème de la composition d’un texte à plusieurs mains, et de la définition d’un auteur et d’une œuvre collective.
Eric Gurevitch (Vanderbilt University)
Contesting the Classics : The Toolkit of Philosophy and the Authority of Medicine
Résumé :
What was philosophy in Sanskrit good for ? This presentation poses this seemingly-simple question to explore the different tasks for which the toolkit of philosophy in Sanskrit was used. Philosophers writing in Sanskrit developed epistemic tools for making sense of texts and assessing the validity of truth claims. And from the medieval through the early modern period, these tools were put to use in questioning the authority of the Sanskrit medical classics. Following an extensive debate between the scholars Saura Vidyādhara and Bhaṭṭa Narahari about the authority of Vāgbhaṭa’s Heart of Medicine (Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayam) – before moving on to discuss different disputes raised in different medical texts and commentaries – this presentation explores the stakes of scholastic disputes over the origins and the practice of medicine.
Organisation du séminaire de l’année prochaine
- Jeudi, 10 octobre 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Translations
- Jeudi, 7 novembre 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Editions : what is removed, what is added
Org/speakers : Arilès
- Jeudi, 5 décembre 2024, 9h30 - 17h30, lieu : Salle Malevitch 483A bâtiment Condorcet Université Paris-Cité, 4 rue Elsa Morante Paris 75013
Lexicography
INFORMATIONS PRATIQUES
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