ABOUT THIS BOOK

A beautifully illustrated argument that reveals notebooks as extraordinary paper machines that transformed knowledge on the page and in the mind.

We often think of reason as a fixed entity, as a definitive body of facts that do not change over time. But during the Enlightenment, reason also was seen as a process, as a set of skills enacted on a daily basis. How, why, and where were these skills learned? Concentrating on Scottish students living during the long eighteenth century, this book argues that notebooks were paper machines and that notekeeping was a capability-building exercise that enabled young notekeepers to mobilize everyday handwritten and printed forms of material and visual media in a way that empowered them to judge and enact the enlightened principles they encountered in the classroom. Covering a rich selection of material ranging from simple scribbles to intricate watercolor diagrams, the book reinterprets John Locke’s comparison of the mind to a blank piece of paper, the tabula rasa. Although one of the most recognizable metaphors of the British Enlightenment, scholars seldom consider why it was so successful for those who used it. Each chapter uses one core notekeeping skill to reveal the fascinating world of material culture that enabled students in the arts, sciences, and humanities to transform the tabula rasa metaphor into a dynamic cognitive model. Starting in the home, moving to schools, and ending with universities, the book reconstructs the relationship between media and the mind from the bottom up. It reveals that the cognitive skills required to make and use notebooks were not simply aids to reason; rather, they were part of reason itself.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Matthew Daniel Eddy is professor and chair in the history and philosophy of science at Durham University, UK. He is the author and editor of numerous works on the cultural history of Britain and its former empire.

REVIEWS

“This is a major study of a neglected and important topic, and it will be of interest to an array of scholars in fields as diverse as book history, manuscript culture, history of education, history of childhood, Scottish Enlightenment philosophy, and the Enlightenment broadly understood. Its central argument, that the student notebook should be considered as an artifact in which a variety of knowledge management skills were learned and deployed by its maker, is convincing, novel, and insightful, and the depth and range of scholarship here is remarkable.”

— Michael Brown, University of Aberdeen

“This intriguing, engaging, and wonderfully illustrated book examines the culture of notetaking in the schools and universities of Scotland in the long eighteenth century. This is a genuinely original and interdisciplinary project; with its focus on practice, it’s also a fresh and exciting one.”

— Angus Vine, University of Stirling

“In an age in which artificial intelligence is all the rage, Eddy shows that human learning comes from a long tradition of reading and taking notes. Knowledge is not simply innate but the product of centuries of human practices of reading, notetaking, and interpreting everything from feelings to scientific data to shapes. This book makes one think that computers might need to learn how to doodle to creatively solve problems. Anyone wanting to understand the practices of complex learning and how humans manage data will need to read Eddy’s brilliant, meticulous, and authoritative history of notetaking.”

— Jacob Soll, University of Southern California

“This remarkable book turns the Enlightenment upside down. Based on pioneering research into hundreds of notebooks kept by eighteenth-century children and university students, Eddy brilliantly reveals how virtues of order, clarity, and accuracy were conveyed through practical processes of education. Thinking, he suggests, is a skill constructed over time, and the Age of Reason begins on the blank pages of paper notebooks.”

— James A. Secord, Cambridge University

“This book will change fundamentally how we think about the Scottish Enlightenment. Drawing on a rich archive of notebooks, Eddy reveals a hidden world of experimentation and creativity in the learning process of eighteenth-century students. By refusing to take the fixed word on the page for granted, Eddy makes the familiar strange, showing us how embodied cognition operated with the help of paper machines and learning technologies. The famous image of the mind as a blank slate empowered students to experiment with the basic components of writing and thought. We will never think of Locke’s tabula rasa the same way again!”

— Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, University of Chicago

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tabula Rasa

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