Our project features an interdisciplinary team of philosophers and historians of science working together and following what is essentially an integrated HPS approach.
Dana Jalobeanu, philosopher and historian of science, associate professor in the Department of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bucharest, will work on the reception of Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum in the second part of the seventeenth century and on the English reception of Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s Magia naturalis. Her investigation will focus on the ways in which recipes and technologies recorded by Della Porta have been enacted and recorded in the works of English naturalists and philosophers, such as Hugh Platt and Francis Bacon.
Oana Matei is researcher at IRH-ICUB, University of Bucharest, and lecturer in political sciences at the Vasile Goldis Western University of Arad. In the past years, as part of several research projects, she worked on the reception of Baconianism in the mid-seventeenth century England. Her research covers various aspects of the early modern methodology of experimentation, particularly in the field of experiments with plants and their contribution to the rise of modern science. In the “Recipes, Technologies, Experiments: Enactment and the Emergence of Modern Science” Oana Matei works on defining the concepts of enactment and technology, illustrating them through different case studies particularly dealing with the vegetal world.
Alexandru Liciu is a second year PhD student at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, writing a thesis on Robert Hooke’s use of practical mathematics. Liciu’s interest for the persona of Hooke derived from his earlier work on Francis Bacon and the 17th century experimental philosophy. In the “Recipes, Technologies, Experiments” research project, Liciu will investigate the way in which enactment and technologies play a role in Hooke’s building of a science of rarefaction and condensation, and more generally in the discussion on the scientia of condensation in the context of the Royal Society.
Costel Cristian is a second year MA student at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest. He wrote an undergraduate dissertation on Thomas Kuhn’s notion of incommensurability, and whether it could be useful in understanding Robert Boyle’s experimental philosophy. He is interested more broadly in methodological debates, especially those stemming from the history of ideas approach. In this project, Costel is a research assistant (referent de specialitate), taking part in the organizing of conferences (both online and in person) and of other events. He prepares his MA dissertation on the issue of seminal principles in the early modern philosophy.
Anita Drella is an architect with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and a 1st year MA student at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest. Anita’s main interests lie at the intersection between phenomenology and the history of science, and how they might be integrated. Thus, for the ‘Recipes, Technologies, Experiment’ research project, she aims to inquire into the categories of lived experience for various early modern experimentalists, accounting not only for those with a theoretical eye, but for the ‘lower-knowledge’ craftspeople and hands-on knowledge producers as well. Anita is a research assistant (referent de specialitate) responsible for the design of the posters and websites as well as with taking part in the organizing of conferences (both online and in person) and of other events.
Dana Jalobeanu 