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Article ID: CBB971251721

Shadows of the Thrown Spear: Girolamo Cardano on Anxiety, Dreams, and the Divine in Nature (2023)

Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 28
Issue: 1
Pages: 95-119
Publication date: 2023
Language: English

DOI: 10.1163/15733823-20230066

URI: https://brill.com/view/journals/esm/28/1/article-p95_5.xml

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Dreams Forecasting; prediction Astrology Anxiety Risk management 16th century Cardano, Girolamo

Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), a preeminent natural philosopher, physician and astrologer of the sixteenth century, is known for the great diversity of his intellectual pursuits and writings. Across much of his work, we find an overriding concern with the dangers of human life, how those dangers might be foreseen, and how their effects can be mitigated. This essay begins by considering the epistemic significance of anxiety as it is described in his autobiography, the De propria vita. When Cardano had devoted so much effort to working out method and sense in medicine and astrology, why do episodes of foreknowledge in the autobiography seem so haphazard and disorienting? I use this question to examine Cardano’s views on the possibilities and limits of human foreknowledge, paying special attention to his treatise on dreams, the Somniorum Synesiorum libri quatuor, and his commentary on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.

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Associated with

Article Steven Vanden Broecke; Jonathan Regier (2023) Special Issue Introduction: Individuality, Self-Care, and Self-Preservation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Science. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 1-7). unapi

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