My mother, Constance Blackwell, an intellectual historian who has died aged 83, played a key role in fostering deeper understanding of the development of 16th- and 17th-century science and philosophy in Europe. According to Constance, innovation in early modern central European philosophy arose from multidisciplinary commentaries on Aristotelian works covering physics, metaphysics, logic, rhetoric and ethics. After marriage to William Blackwell, a scholar of Russian history, and their divorce in the 1970s, Constance moved to London to pursue academic research. For many years until his death in 1986, Constance lived with Charles Schmitt, historian of philosophy and science at the Warburg Institute. Constance is survived by three children, Anne, Leslie and me, from her marriage, and also supported Charles’s children, John, Leo and Elizabeth, after his death.

Source: The Guardian April 18, 2018 16:30 UTC