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Ultimately, she shows how a few gifted students of nature changed the way we see ourselves and the universe.
Change in human understanding of the natural world during the early modern period marks one of the most important episodes in intellectual history. This era is often referred to as the scientific revolution, but recent scholarship has challenged traditional accounts. Here, in Reconfiguring the World, Margaret J. Osler treats the development of the sciences in Europe from the early sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries as a complex and multifaceted process.. The worldview embedded in modern science is a relatively recent development. Osler aims to convey a nuanced understanding of how the natural world looked to early modern thinkers such as Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton. She de...
This book challenges the traditional historiography of the Scientific Revolution, probably the single most important unifying concept in the history of science. Usually referring to the period from Copernicus to Newton (roughly 1500 to 1700), the Scientific Revolution is considered to be the central episode in the history of science, the historical moment at which that unique way of looking at the world that we call 'modern science' and its attendant institutions emerged. It has been taken as the terminus a quo of all that followed. Starting with a dialogue between Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and Richard S. Westfall, whose understanding of the Scientific Revolution differed in important ways, the papers in this volume reconsider canonical figures, their areas of study, and the formation of disciplinary boundaries during this seminal period of European intellectual history.
This collection of original essays honors Richard S. Westfall, a highly influential scholar in the history of the physical sciences and their relations with religion. It is divided into three parts: the life, work, and influence of Newton; science and religion; and historiographical and social studies of science.
The difference between Pierre Gassendi's (1592-1655) and René Descartes' (1596-1650) versions of the mechanical philosophy directly reflected the differences in their theological presuppositions. Gassendi described a world utterly contingent on divine will and expressed his conviction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about the natural world. Descartes, on the contrary, described a world in which God had embedded necessary relations, some of which enable us to have a priori knowledge of substantial parts of the natural world. In this book, Professor Osler explores theological conceptions of contingency and necessity in the world and how these ideas influenced the ...
This volume collects the papers presented at a conference on “Science, Pseudo–science and Society,” sponsored by the Calgary Institute for the Humanities and held at the University of Calgary, May 10–12, 1979. More than many such collections, this one preserves some trace of the intellectual excitement which surrounded this gathering of scholars. A primary inspiration for the symposium on “Science, Pseudoscience, and Society” was a growing awareness of the crucial role the study of pseudo–science plays in the areas of contemporary scholarship which are concerned with the nature of science and its relationship to broader social issues. This volume is organized around three major...
This book addresses the question of the influence that Epicureanism and Stoicism exerted on the development of European thought from classical times to the Enlightenment.
Early modern philosophers looked for inspiration to the later ancient thinkers when they rebelled against the dominant Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. The impact of the Hellenistic philosophers (principally the Stoics, Epicureans and Skeptics) on such philosophers as Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza and Locke was profound and is ripe for reassessment. This collection of essays offers precisely that. Leading historians of philosophy explore the connections between Hellenistic and early modern philosophy in ways that take advantage of new scholarly and philosophical advances. The essays display a challenging range of methods and will be an invaluable point of reference for philosophers, historians of ideas and classicists.
Towards the end of his life, Descartes published the first four parts of a projected six-part work, The Principles of Philosophy. This was intended to be the definitive statement of his complete system of philosophy. Gaukroger examines the whole system, and reconstructs the last two parts from Descartes' other writings.
A collection of more than 30 specially commissioned essays, this volume surveys the work of the 17th-century philosopher-scientist commonly regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, while integrating unique essays detailing the context and impact of his work. Covers the full range of historical and philosophical perspectives on the work of Descartes Discusses his seminal contributions to our understanding of skepticism, mind-body dualism, self-knowledge, innate ideas, substance, causality, God, and the nature of animals Explores the philosophical significance of his contributions to mathematics and science Concludes with a section on the impact of Descartes's work on subsequent philosophers