Scholarly Critique in the Early Modern Period

Abstract

Critique in some form has no doubt played a role in intellectual activity since before we have written sources to document it. Exchange is at the heart of intellectual creativity. But the circumstances, media, and norms for successful critique have varied considerably by historical context and within the same context among different kinds of authors, fields and genres of work, and target audiences. In antiquity, for example, authors like Virgil read or recited their work to audiences of friends and family to gather feedback before making a written version on a papyrus roll available for copying and distribution, i.e. publication. In medieval universities the disputation was the centerpiece of the scholastic method. Today (thanks to the polemical representations of the humanists) we mostly associate the term with a sterile pedagogical exercise that perdured into the eighteenth century and an opportunity for professors to display their prowess by arguing against one another on abstruse topics. But at their origins the disputations were “a form of collective research with colleagues about real and much discussed problems for which nobody had a ready answer” —in other words, an opportunity for constructive critique. In each of these contexts critique no doubt took other forms as well, but the evidence we have is often limited. It is especially difficult to reconstruct the conventions of critique in a given context because these have rarely been discussed explicitly, even today—hence the special interest of this unique Forum. Happily I have found a good number of thoughtful recent discussions of the nature and norms of various kinds of critical interactions in early modern Europe. New ideals of moderation in scholarly discussions clashed with new opportunities (afforded by various printed genres in particular) to bring disputes to the attention of a wider public, generating many different patterns of behavior.