A Culture of Fact: England, 1550-1720

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Cornell University Press, 2000 - 284 páginas

Barbara J. Shapiro traces the surprising genesis of the "fact," a modern concept that, she convincingly demonstrates, originated not in natural science but in legal discourse. She follows the concept's evolution and diffusion across a variety of disciplines in early modern England, examining how the emerging "culture of fact" shaped the epistemological assumptions of each intellectual enterprise.

Drawing on an astonishing breadth of research, Shapiro probes the fact's changing identity from an alleged human action to a proven natural or human happening. The crucial first step in this transition occurred in the sixteenth century when English common law established a definition of fact which relied on eyewitnesses and testimony. The concept widened to cover natural as well as human events as a result of developments in news reportage and travel writing. Only then, Shapiro discovers, did scientific philosophy adopt the category "fact." With Francis Bacon advocating more stringent criteria, the witness became a vital component in scientific observation and experimentation. Shapiro also recounts how England's preoccupation with the fact influenced historiography, religion, and literature--which saw the creation of a fact-oriented fictional genre, the novel.

 

Contenido

Fact and the Law
8
Fact and History
34
Chorography Description
63
News Marvels Wonders and the Periodical Press
86
The Facts of Nature I
105
The Facts of Nature II
139
Facts of Religion
168
Cultural Elaboration of Fact
189
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Barbara J. Shapiro is Professor of Rhetoric Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. Her books include Beyond Reasonable Doubt and Probable Cause: Historical Perspectives on the Anglo-American Law of Evidence and Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England.

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