read [[Dan Allosso]] in Actual Books

Sometimes a physical copy of a book gives one information not contained in digital scans. Allosso provides the example of Charles Knowlton's book The Fruits of Philosophy which touched on abortion and was published as a tiny hand-held book which would have made it easy to pass from person to person more discretely for its time period.

The Incoherence of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali marks a dramatic turn in Islamic philosophy away from Aristotle and Plato which had been followed by previous Arab philosophers like Avicenna and al-Farabi.

Who is the father of the method of historical understanding?

Mechanical philosophy and vitalism were popular and co-existed on a non-mutually exclusive spectrum in the seventeenth century.

Mechanical philosophy is a philosophy of nature which arose broadly in the 17th century and sought to explain all natural phenomenon in terms of matter and motion without relying on "action at a distance" or the idea of a cause and effect that occurred without any physical contact or direct motivation.

René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, and Marin Mersenne all held mechanistic viewpoints.

See also: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_philosophy

Link to: - spooky action at a distance (quantum mechanics)

Foucault probably offers the most helpful theoretical approach. His “archaeology of knowledge” suggests a way to study texts as sites that bear the marks of epistemological activity, and it has the advantage of doing justice to the social dimension of thought.

I've not seen any research that relates the Renaissance ideas of the Great Chain of Being moving into this new era of supposed freedom. In some sense I'm seeing the richest elite whites trying to maintain their own place in a larger hierarchy rather than stronger beliefs in equality and hard work.

Via Stanford Encyclopedia - History of Utilitarianism: "Though there are many varieties of the view discussed, utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. There are many ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is that the theory is a form of consequentialism: the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced. What distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope of the relevant consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought to maximize the overall good — that is, consider the good of others as well as one's own good."