Renaissance Occultism in the Gutenberg Galaxy: Strategies of Resisting to the Literality in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Abstract
The paper is dedicated to the problem of interaction of two processes occurring in early Modern European culture: the esoteric boom connected with the rise and decline of intellectual prestige of magic, alchemy and other branches of occult knowledge and the making of the printing industry. It is argued that there was a deep antagonism between those processes. It arose at least from two sources. The printing industry has a principally exoteric, profaning character. Besides, its avalanche-like growth immediately contributed to “the rise of literal-mindedness” (P. Burke) and the world-view determined by it. Putting a question: how the influential esoteric movements of that period could adapt to the changing cultural and civilization conditions which were going against them, the author makes a first step towards its solution.
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Review
For citations:
Karabykov A. Renaissance Occultism in the Gutenberg Galaxy: Strategies of Resisting to the Literality in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences. 2016;(12):83-97. (In Russ.)
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