The impact of money on the development of fourteenth-century scientific thought (original) (raw)

A new and intense interest in the possibilities of measurement and quantrfication developed within fourteenth-century natural philosophy. This habit of quantification, known as the science of calculationes, extended from descriptions of physical reality into every realm of medieval thought. Historians of science have primarily sought to explain this development by searching for antecedents from within the philosophic tradition. This paper looks outside the culture of the book to investigate the influence of the social and economic milieux on the thought of the calculators. The quantification of qualities that characterized the science of calculationes was foundfirst in the expanding market place, before it appeared in higher philosophic thought. Aristotle's definition of money as an instrument of measurement and relation was understood and developed by fourteenth-century natural philosophers. The everyday use of money as an instrument or tool affects the consciousness of its users. The technological form of the instrument of money-an expandable, divisible continuum used to facilitate relation and exchange-can be seen reflected in the conceptual measuring instrument of