1 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 M. Valleriani (ed.), The Structures of Practical Knowledge, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45671-3_1 The Epistemology of Practical Knowledge Matteo Valleriani Abstract The relation between practical and theoretical knowledge, which is usu- ally perceived as one of the motors of scientific development in the early modern period, is redefined here as the relation between different struc- tures of knowledge, where the qualitative difference between the different structures is specified according to the degree of abstraction and the range of connections between the different fields of knowledge. The investiga- tion begins by identifying practical knowledge and the continuous process of its reorganization into new structures. In this way, the research aims to understand how the transfer of practical activities transitioned to a circula- tion of practical literature and, finally, how codified practical knowledge became part of the theoretical and conceptual structures that were being established during the early modern period. As an introduction to the entire volume, a heuristic diversification of knowledge production mecha- nisms is defined on three levels: (1) the knowledge structure of practical activities; (2) the social structuring of practical knowledge; and (3) the conceptual structures of knowledge. The subsequent chapters are dis- cussed and introduced according to these definitions. Practical knowledge is the knowledge needed to obtain a certain product—for instance, an artistic or mechanical artifact, or specific outputs, such as healing practices or mathematical results—that fol- lows a defined workflow. The workflow can be a construction procedure, a recipe, or even an algo- rithm, which are, from a formal point of view, all equivalent to one another. Most historians of science agree on the fundamental significance of practical knowledge in the early modern period, and according to the general historical understanding, on the fact that practical knowledge represents the background against which the astonishing intensification of scientific M. Valleriani (*) Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany e-mail: valleriani@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de 1