Oana Matei

John Beale (c. 1608-1683) was an early fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Georgical Committee. On the subject of fruit tree cultivation and cider making Beale published Herefordshire Orchards (1657), “General Advertisements Concerning Cider,” as part of the collective volume of Pomona (1670), and also made important contributions to the Philosophical Transactions  in the 1660s and 1670s.

In Herefordshire Orchards Beale took some recipes from William Lawson and how he further tested them and tried to stabilize them in such a manner to ensure predictable results and to make a technology of cultivating the best apples for cider in the most suited soil.

William Lawson (1553/4-1635) was an English clergyman and writer on gardening who published only one book: A New Orchard and Garden, or, The Best Way for Planting, Grafting, and to Make Any Ground Good for a Rich Orchard (London: Richard Jackson, 1618). Apparently it was the first published book on gardening in the North of England, and its section The Countrie Housewifes Garden was the first  horticultural work written for women.

Lawson’s observations (as recorded by Beale):

“1. That the best way to plant a• Orchard were to turn the ground with a spade in February, and to se• from February till May, every month• some kernels of the best and sounde• apples, or peares &c. finger deep, as a foot distance: And by removing the rest (as time and occasion should advise) to leave the likeliest plant to reside in the naturall place unremoved. Ch. 7. pag. 17.

2. That the kernels of every apple would bring forth apples of the like kind. Chap. 7. pag. 18.

3. That by the leaves of each spiring plant you might distinguish each kind of fruit, whether delicate or harsh, &c. Ch. 7. pag. 18.

4. That trees thus raised might be preserved or continue for a thousand years, &c. Chap. 14. pag. 47.

5. That apples either grafted, or any time removed, could never be sound, durable, or otherwise perfect.” (HO, 1657, 14-15)

Although after a first reading Beale refuted all of them, he then “resolved to make exact triall with patience.” (HO, 1657, 16) and noted down, systematically, all the results that he obtained.

1. “By diligent enquiry the first Spring I found fourteen severall sorts of these naturall apples, the fruit much differing in tast, shape and colour; some only green and sowrish, some red-straked, some party-coloured, and very pleasant…I now find that the kernells of apples grafted on crab-stocks prove not all crabs, nor (as I guesse) altogether of the kind of that apple, whence the kernell was taken. (HO, 1657, 16-17)
2. Tis sure that kernells of the same apples, in a far differing soyl, do produce a different apple; but (as I said) still with some inclina∣tion to the originall, if it be the kernell of an ungrafted apple. And this may advertise the best season of designing variety; namely, in applica∣tion of choice compost to the very kernel, as Gab. Plat prescribeth Exp. 14. pag. 210. of the Additions to the excellent Legacy. All other stories, of powring liquors into the bark, or bulk of the tree, are effete and idle phansies, for nine dayes wonder. (HO, 1657, 18-19)
3. I find the truth, & that much more might be added to Lawsons rules, of distinguishing the hopeful∣nesse of the fruit by the first leaves of the yearling plant. (HO, 1657, 19)
4. For the incredible durance of apple-trees to a thousand years, I have upon much experience … ‘Tis certainly true (as Gabriel Plat in the foresaid place noteth,) that if a man aime at his present profit, then graffing is his way: but if he aime at the profit of his posterity, then it is best not to graft at all.  … Every aspiring Trunk of some of these naturall apples, is much more lasting than any grafted fruit-tree (HO, 1657, 20-21)
5. In a grafted plant every bow should be lopped, at the very tops, in apples and peares; not in cherries and plums. In a naturall plant, the bowes should not at all be lopped, but some taken off close to the trunk; that the root at first replantation be not engaged to maintain too many suckers. And this must be done with such discretion, that the top-branches be not too close together; for the naturall plant is apt to grow spiry, & thereby failes of fruitfulnesse. Therefore let the reserved branches be divided at a convenient roundnesse. The branches that are cut off, may be set, and will grow, but slowly. If the top prove spiry or the fruit unkind, then the due remedy must be in graffing.

Neither is graffing to be used only as a remedy. For it doth most certainly improve the kind of the fruit: insomuch that a graft of the same fruit doth meliorate the fruit, as is lately much observed by our Welsh neighbours, who do graffe the Gen∣net-moyle upon the same stock, and thereby obtain a larger apple, more juicy, and better for all uses: and some triplicate their graffings (for a curiosity) upon the same account.

And it is noted amongst us, that a pearmain or any other pleasant fruit either for cider, or the table, is much sweeter, if grafted upon the stock of a Gennet-moyle, or Kydoddin, than if grafted on a crab-stock; though much lesse lasting upon the stock of the Gennet-moyle: the Gennet-moyl being also lesse lasting, especially amongst us, where they are generally planted of large setlings, which must needs wound them in their very beginnings, and therefore hinder their duration.

Also graffing doth much precipitate, or at least expedite the reward, especially if the graffe be taken from a branch that hath some yeares constantly born sound fruit plentifully.” (HO, 1657, 23-25)

We can read Beale’s efforts as attempts to enact and test recipes, eliminate what does not work, propose a systematic approach to investigating the different steps in the cider-making procedure, i.e., building a cider-making technology.

Differences in respect to the recipe format:

-the lack of the imperative: “take that, do that….”

-many trials are presented altogether with both their good and bad results

-the stage of generalization is increased

In his trials, Beale was always asking why and how questions, but he has a bottom up oriented approach which starts from experiments that mainly produce fruits and ends up providing experiments of light. The technology of making cider reflects the transition from the knowledge entailed in old treatises as well as modern books of recipes but based essentially on descriptive accounts accompanied by a set of rules and practically-documented instructions, to a procedure stabilized as a result of repeated experimental attempts and that is able to lead to expected, predictable results.

24 month full-time job, research assistant for a PhD student

The ICUB-Humanities, University of Bucharest is opening a full-time position for a research assistant within the framework of the project “Recipes, Technologies, Experiments: Enactment and the Emergence of Modern Science” (PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-0251), PI Dana Jalobeanu. Duration: 24 months.

Job description: The successful candidate will work with Dana Jalobeanu and her team in Bucharest. The purpose of the project is to investigate and understand the ways in which the traditional „recipe-format” was gradually transformed, during the seventeenth century, into ways of recording more similar with the „proper” scientific experiment. The successful candidate is expected to take full part in the online and face-to-face activities of the team, to work on a research theme of his/her own (for details see Recipes, ‘technologies’, experiments: Enactment and the emergence of modern science – Dana Jalobeanu) to help with organizing events and project administration. Working as a part of a small and integrated team of historians and philosophers of science will offer expertise and motivation for a future career in the field.

For more information see here: Research assistant for a PhD student | EURAXESS (europa.eu) and here.

Cu toții am auzit și folosit la un moment dat etichetele de ”raționalist” sau de ”empirist”, uneori părând că avem în minte un mănunchi de proprietăți esențiale și că știm precis ce vrem să zicem, alteori într-un mod mai deflaționist sau provizoriu (în lipsă de altceva mai precis), iar uneori poate chiar ca invectiv adresat dinspre o tabără taberei opuse.

Însă în acest seminar vom analiza o încercare de a găsi termeni care să stea mai bine pentru ceea ce se întâmplă în filosofia modernă timpurie. Peter Anstey consideră că avem de pierdut dacă folosim acești termeni post-kantieni atunci când discutăm despre filosofia naturală a secolelor XVII-XVIII și, în schimb, el ne propune să folosim niște termeni mai apropiați de vocabularul epocii: ”filosofie experimentală” pentru cea ”empiristă”, și ”filosofie speculativă” pentru cea ”raționalistă”.

În lumina a ceea ce am discutat până acum despre principii, inductio, sau teoria științei, probabil definițiile formulate de Anstey par oarecum lesne de înțeles. Filosofia experimentală este credința că observația atentă și experimentul sunt necesare pentru descoperirea principiilor științelor, în timp ce pentru cea speculativă principiile pot fi găsite și altfel decât prin experiment, iar experimentul și observația sunt doar un fel de test ulterior al principiilor obținute prin aceste alte căi (reflecție, de pildă). Uneori acest din urmă fel de a face filosofie naturală este însoțit de formularea de ”ipoteze” (așa cum am văzut în fragmentele din Newton, unde acesta atacă ”ipotezele” speculative carteziene; sau poate cum am văzut și în bucățile din Leibniz, unde Teofil vrea să construiască o metodă de a ”testa” cunoașterea obținută prin ipoteze. De discutat).

Însă pentru a intra în detalii – dar și pentru a supune la test acest cadru –, ne vom opri pe o serie de texte primare: părțile 2, 5 și 6 din Discurs asupra metodei. Dacă în mod tradițional suntem obișnuiți cu un Descartes raționalist sau al îndoielii metodice, în paginile despre care discutăm pare să se contureze un portret diferit și ceva mai complicat. În partea 1, Descartes ne vorbește despre cei 4 pași pe care vrea să-i urmeze în aflarea adevărului, despre modelul matematicienilor de a construi știința, despre prejudecățile pe care trebuie să le eliminăm (mintea prea trufașă, care generealizează prea repede, și cea prea modestă, care nu poate ieși de sub autoritate) și despre cum trebuie să aștepte să se mai maturieze înainte de a porni pe drumul cunoașterii. În mod interesant, aici Descartes ne zice că îi trebuie ceva timp pentru a se debarasa de preconcepțiile adunate de-a lungul vremii, dar și că îi trebuie vreme ”să adune un mare număr de experimente”.

În partea a 5-a vedem un Descartes ”evoluționist”, care ne propune un experiment mental cu rolul de a ne arăta că legile naturii propuse de el ar putea explica mai bine apariția vieții decât povestea biblică a Genezei (în care totul se petrece prin fiat, adică organismele sunt create direct în starea lor perfectă). Apoi ne propune un experiment foarte ”hands on” de disecție a unei inimi de animal (la care cititorul este invitat să ia parte), pentru a ajunge la distincția dintre om și animale. În partea a 6-a, Descartes ne zice că are o propunere contrară ”filosofiei speculative predate în școli”, propunere ce aduce cu sine obținerea de rezultate practice, printr-un proiect de tip baconian de strângere de informație, găsit colaboratori și funding. Cumva în contrast cu ce vom fi văzut în pareta a 2-a, unde Descartes face apologia introspecției și a principiilor certe găsite cu propria minte (prin analogie și cu o armată ce va pierde în repetate rânduri dacă nu are cea mai bună formație de luptă încă de la început), în partea a 6-a Descartes caută asistenți de cercetare. Doar că vrea niște asistenți foarte anume, care să muncească după direcțiile lui (și cu principiile lui) și să nu interfereze prea mult cu ipoteza de cercetare (ba chiar preferă să-i plătească decât să ”piardă vremea” explicându-le curiozitățile ce vor apărea de-a lungul vremii). În acest context, ne vom întreba dacă aici avem de-a face cu un Descartes speculativ sau cu unul experimentalist.

Întrebări

1. Sunt termenii de ”filosofie specualtivă” și ”experimentală” categorii ale actorilor sau categorii istoriografice? Sau poate ambele? Care ar fi avantajul dacă i-am folosi în locul celor de ”raționalism” și ”empirism”?
2. Din ce am văzut până acum și din ce ați mai lucrat, ce exemple de filosofi specualtivi puteți da? Dar de experimentaliști?
3. Are Descartes și o parte experimentală? Oare nu folosește experimentul ca să testeze  sau să ajusteze principiile obținute prin introspecție? (ceea ce, în termenii lui Anstey, l-ar mai apropia de filosofia naturală speculativă).

The main goal of our project is to show that the road from recipes to experiments was long, complex and fascinating; with stops and turns that needs investigating. The starting point of the road was the recipe format and the books of secrets. At the end we can find “experimental reports.” But what is really fascinating is what lies in between. Our investigation focus on the intermediate forms of recordings but also inquires into the process of disambiguation through which tacit knowledge embodied in the recipes was gradually spelled out, tried, tested, reformulated and transformed. We call this process “enactment”.

Definitions

Enactment is a process of progressive disambiguation of tacit knowledge encoded in a recipe. It is a complex process which includes a number of components. There is, first, the reading and the understanding of a recipe, a gradual process, extremely context-dependent. Then, enactment presupposes imagining experimental set-ups, imagining ways to spell out the tacit knowledge embodied in the recipes, imagining ways of “improving” the recipe, devising the trial and assessing the result, changing and adapting the material conditions, introducing new elements, devising material and conceptual instruments to tackle the phenomenon under investigation. Thus, enacting a recipe has a creative component, it exercises both the imagination and the judgment of the reader (and of the experimenter), it tests the expertise of the actor performing it and it is, therefore, highly context-dependent.

In order to enact a recipe, the reader has to recover some of the tacit knowledge embodied in it. In fact, recipes contain several layers of secrets. In some cases the secret unfolds only to those with a special training; in other cases, the secret is revealed in the process of enactment; finally, in other cases it lies in the result. Furthermore, enacting recipes is something which depends on and varies according to the skills, the knowledge and the training of the reader. Nonetheless, it will take the  reader/enactor/experimenter to execute the instructions of the recipe again and again in order to establish causal correlations, eliminate, as much as possible, the sources of error, stabilize the entire process, and ensure the repeatability and predictability of the results.

Our claim is that through enactment, early modern investigators of nature transformed received recipes into two different kinds of products, with different functions in the structures of knowledge. One of these products is what we call “technology.”

We take “technology” to be descriptive for a particular kind of enacting and recording recipes in view of producing new (and sometimes miraculous) objects. This led to experimentation of a particular kind: experimentation directed towards spelling out the tacit knowledge embodied in the recipe, clarifying the desired result, stabilize the procedure of enactment so that the result would be obtained at each trial and – most importantly – find ways of recording that would make the technology transparent to the reader. We intend to investigate several such early modern technologies (of cider making, of distillation, of sounds, etc.). We will show that they are not scientific experiments; in fact, technologies are the very opposite of scientific experiments. By contrast to scientific experimentation, which also began with recipes and enactment, but in the process of enactment several open-ended questions directed the inquiry away from the envisaged result of the recipe (such as “why” and “how”), technologies encapsulate and codify practical knowledge; and sometimes they also produce theoretical knowledge; but it is a particular kind of applied knowledge, knowledge with expected results.

Goals and activities

A key goal of our project is to define and exemplify forms and strategies of enacting recipes in early modern philosophy and the sciences. We intend to investigate a large corpus of texts belonging to different early modern disciplines in an attempt to unveil and clarify the successive steps of enacting recipes in particular experimental contexts (the corpus contains works by Francis Bacon, William Gilbert, Hugh Platt, Thomas Browne, John Barlow, Henry Power, John Evelyn, Kenelm Digby and Robert Boyle). We aim to clarify and classify  forms and strategies of enactment and introduce this subject into the current discussions in both history and philosophy of science and we will do that by bridging the gaps between textual analysis of records, material practices, and reconstructions.