From Bacon to Galileo, from stagecraft to maths, from martyrology to romance, contributors to this interdisciplinary collection examine the early-modern generation of discovery as an absolute and ostensibly neutral standard of knowledge-production. They further investigate the hermeneutic implications for the epistemological authority that tends, in modernity, still to be based on that standard.
'This collection investigates how the modern concept of "discovery" was made, or invented, during the early modern period. Synthesizing the insights of postmodern philosophical hermeneutics with recent approaches to the history of science, this book raises important and timely questions. Broad in scope and interdisciplinary in approach, it will be of interest to scholars in literary studies, intellectual history, and the history of science.' Ralph Bauer, University of Maryland, USA 'Together, these essays provide a thorough and extensive investigation of the notion of the invention of discovery in the early modern period... Though, as he says, 'interdisciplinarity is a very general custom of postmodern academia', [Fleming's] book underlines why it is important for that term to have meaning, and it will be of interest to scholars of intellectual and scientific history as well as those working in literary studies.' Review of English Studies '... well worth discovering...' Renaissance Quarterly 'The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700, is particularly interesting from the perspective of historical epistemology, as it helps us to understand the meaning of early modern insistence on new, newness, and newly discovered.' ISIS
