History of Knowledge
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Inhoudsopgave
College 1 - The Library 2
College 2 - Classical knowledge in the Arab world 5
College 3 - The Monastery 8
College 4 - The University 13
College 5 - The Republic of Letters 19
College 6 - The Scientific Revolution 22
College 7 - The Museum 26
College 8 - The Disciplines 29
College 9 - The Vrije Universiteit 34
College 10 - Naturalism & Historicism 39
College 11 - The laboratory revolution 41
College 12 - The Digital Turn 46
1
, College 1 - The Library
Problem
● Exclusion
● White male knowledge
History of Knowledge
● Knowledge is often seen as an active act (more than just numbers and facts)
● Result of an active process
● Define, create, pass on, consume, validate
Relevance
● history in general
● influential on the development of art, literature, media, et cetera
- Knowledge has always been presented in a form of art → e.g. universe
- Psychological knowledge has a influence on literature
The Library
● Originated in Classical Antiquity / Hellenistic culture → but there is a pre-history
● Oldest libraries: Sumerians (South-Mesopotamia)
Sumerians
● 4000-3000 BC
● Did quite a lot for the development of our current culture
● Irrigation system → origin of agriculture
- → control of food supplies → possibility of living together in a society
● Urbanization
● Professional trading and bureaucracy
- No cities without administration
● Cuneiform script on clay tablets (3200 BC)
- Out of necessity to control language
● The possibility to note / record language
● Script and knowledge passed across consecutive cultures
● To keep the system working, education was necessary → development of a school
system
- lots of writing → collections
● Important libraries in several cities (Nineve)
Nineve
● Archive of King Ashburbanipal
● baked in the fire → preservation
● 30.000 tablets, of which 5000 literature
- the rest → finances, taxes, etc.
● biggest library before Alexandria
● The tablets were taken out before they could be studies, so we do not know about
the ordering system
Ebla
2
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Inhoudsopgave
College 1 - The Library 2
College 2 - Classical knowledge in the Arab world 5
College 3 - The Monastery 8
College 4 - The University 13
College 5 - The Republic of Letters 19
College 6 - The Scientific Revolution 22
College 7 - The Museum 26
College 8 - The Disciplines 29
College 9 - The Vrije Universiteit 34
College 10 - Naturalism & Historicism 39
College 11 - The laboratory revolution 41
College 12 - The Digital Turn 46
1
, College 1 - The Library
Problem
● Exclusion
● White male knowledge
History of Knowledge
● Knowledge is often seen as an active act (more than just numbers and facts)
● Result of an active process
● Define, create, pass on, consume, validate
Relevance
● history in general
● influential on the development of art, literature, media, et cetera
- Knowledge has always been presented in a form of art → e.g. universe
- Psychological knowledge has a influence on literature
The Library
● Originated in Classical Antiquity / Hellenistic culture → but there is a pre-history
● Oldest libraries: Sumerians (South-Mesopotamia)
Sumerians
● 4000-3000 BC
● Did quite a lot for the development of our current culture
● Irrigation system → origin of agriculture
- → control of food supplies → possibility of living together in a society
● Urbanization
● Professional trading and bureaucracy
- No cities without administration
● Cuneiform script on clay tablets (3200 BC)
- Out of necessity to control language
● The possibility to note / record language
● Script and knowledge passed across consecutive cultures
● To keep the system working, education was necessary → development of a school
system
- lots of writing → collections
● Important libraries in several cities (Nineve)
Nineve
● Archive of King Ashburbanipal
● baked in the fire → preservation
● 30.000 tablets, of which 5000 literature
- the rest → finances, taxes, etc.
● biggest library before Alexandria
● The tablets were taken out before they could be studies, so we do not know about
the ordering system
Ebla
2
