Open AccessEternity and Print
Author(s) -
Bennett Gilbert
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
contributions to the history of concepts
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.163
H-Index - 10
ISSN - 1807-9326
DOI - 10.3167/choc.2020.150101
Subject(s) - eternity , period (music) , epistemology , literature , intellectual history , perception , philosophy , aesthetics , history , sociology , art , economic history
The methods of intellectual history have not yet been applied to studying the invention of technology for printing texts and images ca. 1375–ca. 1450. One of the several conceptual developments in this period reflecting the possibility of mechanical replication is a view of the relationship of eternity to durational time based on Gregory of Nyssa’s philosophy of time and William of Ockham’s. The article considers how changes in these ideas helped enable the conceptual possibilities of the dissemination of ideas. It describes a direct connection of human perceptual knowledge to divine knowledge that enhanced the authority of printed production to transfer and reproduce the true and the good.