Main entry:

Long, Pamela O., author.

Title & Author:

Openness, secrecy, authorship : technical arts and the culture of knowledge from antiquity to the Renaissance / Pamela O. Long.

Edition:

Johns Hopkins Paperbacks edition

Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
©2001.

Description:

xii, 364 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Notes:
Originally published in 2001.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-350) and index.
Introduction : categories and key words : local meaning in long-term history -- 1. Open authorship within ancient traditions of Techne and Praxis -- 2. Secrecy and esoteric knowledge in Late Antiquity -- 3. Handing down craft knowledge -- 4. Authorship on the mechanical arts in the Last Scribal Age -- 5. Secrecy and the esoteric traditions of the Renaissance -- 6. Openness and authorship I : mining, metallurgy, and the military arts -- 7. Openness and authorship II : painting, architecture, and other arts -- Epilogue : values of transmission and the new sciences.

Summary:

"Using classical Greek as well as medieval and Renaissance European examples, Long traces the definitions, limitations, and traditions of intellectual and scientific creation and attribution. She examines these attitudes as they pertain to the technical and the practical. Although Long's study follows a chronological development, this is not merely a general work. Long is able to examine events and sources within their historical context and locale. By looking at Aristotelian ideas of praxis, techne, and episteme, she explains the tension between craft and ideas, authors and producers. She discusses, with solid research and clear prose, the rise, wane, and resurgence of priority in the crediting and lionizing of authors. Long illuminates the creation and re-creation of ideals like "trade secrets", "plagiarism," "mechanical arts," and "scribal culture." Her historical study complicates prevailing assumptions while inviting a closer look at issues that define so much of our society and thought to this day. She argues that "a useful working definition of authorship permits a gradation of meaning between the poles of authority and originality," and she guides us the through the term's nuances with clarity rarely matched in a historical study."--BOOK JACKET.

ISBN:

0801880610 (pbk.)
9780801880612 (pbk.)

Subject:

Technology and civilization History To 1500.
Communication of technical information Europe History To 1500.
Technical writing Europe History To 1500.
Intellectual property Europe History To 1500.
Learning and scholarship Europe History To 1500.
Renaissance.
Technologie et civilisation Histoire Jusqu'à 1500.
Information technique Europe Histoire Jusqu'à 1500.
Rédaction technique Europe Histoire Jusqu'à 1500.
Propriété intellectuelle Europe Histoire Jusqu'à 1500.
Savoir et érudition Europe Histoire Jusqu'à 1500.
Communication of technical information.
Intellectual property.
Learning and scholarship.
Technical writing.
Technology and civilization.
Fachliteratur
Geistiges Eigentum
Handwerk
Europe.

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 249419
Call No.: BIB 179004
Status: Available