Pleasure, Imagination, Fear and Joy: Applied Themes in Nicole Oresme’s de Configurationibus

Abstract

The present work explores the idea that concepts present in Nicole Oresme’s work, and rooted in the medieval revival of Corpus Aristotelicum, are reflected throughout active areas of research today. Nicole Oresme’s volume, titled Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum, approximately written between 1351 and 1355, showcases early mathematical applications that would presently be classified as works in computational biology and applied mathematics. Oresme uses his “doctrine of configurations” to investigate various real-world phenomena, alluding to several examples that align with recent developments in applied mathematics. In our paper, we investigate Oresme’s sources, motivations, examples and models, and their correspondences with recent works in the field of mathematical modeling. We focus on two classes of applications: (1) modeling pleasure and imagination, and (2) modeling subjective perceptions such as fear, hope, sorrow, and joy.

Keywords

• mathematical modeling
• applied mathematics
• Nicole Oresme
• 14th century