Zázraky, historie a biomedicína

• Authors: Karel Černý

Title variants

EN

MIRACLES, HISTORY AND BIO-MEDICINE

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The essay analyses three main methodological approaches towards healing miracles in the Middle Ages and Early Modern time. It stems from a division suggested by Anne-Marie Korte in her project on a gender nature of miracles and comments on the sceptical, apologetic and hermeneutic starting points. The sceptical and apologetic approaches have traditionally been employed for a long time; they evolved into the current form during the so-called scientific revolution between 16th and 17th century. Both of them seemingly represent an “objective standpoint”: the first one as a rational scientific analysis and second one from a religion perspective. The paper, however, demonstrates that both these historical models of “miracles” are largely insufficient and cannot be used in modern research. The remaining alternative, which A.-M. Korte calls the “hermeneutic approach”, differs from the previous two. It does not define a principle of miracle, but it describes a miraculous event through words and meanings as they were voiced by persons directly affected by it. The essay enumerates several thematic spheres (gender, the problem of memory, social authority and interpretation), which, according to the author, are particularly promising for future research.

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Folia historica Bohemica
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 7-19

Contributors

author

Karel Černý

• Ústav dějin lékařství, 1. Lékařská fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, Kateřinská 32, 120 00 Praha 2, Czech Republic