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Artisanal Knowledge and Craftsmanship

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Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences

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Introduction: The Politics of Artisanal Knowledge

A clear definition of artisanal knowledge is difficult to present, as it is a contested field during the early modern period. Today artisanal knowledge is often referred to with the term “craft,” but as Glenn Adamson (2013) has rightfully argued, this originates in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, when craftsmanship was considered the “other” of “modernity.” Following Adamson (2013: xiii), craft emerged as “a coherent idea” and as a “defined terrain” only in opposition to industrialization: “Craft was not a static backdrop against which industry emerged (…), the two were created alongside one another, each defined against the other through constant juxtaposition.” Consequently, the concept of craft and craftsmanship cannot be used as an analytic lens to look at the preindustrial period unproblematically. The challenge is rather to understand the conceptualization of craftsmanship, or artisanal knowledge, prior to the...

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  1. Centre for Urban History/Urban Studies Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Bert De Munck

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  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Dana Jalobeanu

  2. Dept. of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University Dept. Philosophy & Moral Sci, Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium

    Charles T. Wolfe

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  1. Wissenschaftsgeschichte/History of Science, Technische Universitaet Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Cesare Pastorino

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De Munck, B. (2020). Artisanal Knowledge and Craftsmanship. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_237-2

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    Artisanal Knowledge and Craftsmanship
    Published:
    05 September 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_237-2

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    Artisanal Knowledge and Craftsmanship
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    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_237-1

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