INTRODUCTION HOW TO COLLECT AND STORE INFORMATION IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD : FROM LEARNING TO KNOWLEDGE

During the early modern period, discussions about method and encyclopaedism were often intertwined. The studies collected in this section all deal with tensions and rapprochements between the two domains. In this introduction, we address some of the issues underlying the philosophical question of how to reconcile different aims and criteria in the collection and production of knowledge (order and completeness; the matter of information and the form of argumentation). From the point of view of the history of ideas, we can describe this tension between method and encyclopaedia during the early modern period as a shift from learning to knowledge within the overlapping traditions of philosophy and scholarship.