A History of Natural Philosophy

Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-0-521-86931-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 376 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 760 g

Natural philosophy encompassed all natural phenomena of the physical world. It sought to discover the physical causes of all natural effects and was little concerned with mathematics. By contrast, the exact mathematical sciences were narrowly confined to various computations that did not involve physical causes, functioning totally independently of natural philosophy. Although this began slowly to change in the late Middle Ages, a much more thoroughgoing union of natural philosophy and mathematics occurred in the seventeenth century and thereby made the Scientific Revolution possible. The title of Isaac Newton's great work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, perfectly reflects the new relationship. Natural philosophy became the 'Great Mother of the Sciences', which by the nineteenth century had nourished the manifold chemical, physical, and biological sciences to maturity, thus enabling them to leave the 'Great Mother' and emerge as the multiplicity of independent sciences we know today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grant, Edward

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Naturphilosophie, Philosophie und Evolution
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Physik Allgemein Geschichte der Physik
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Human- und Sozialwissenschaften
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Wissenschaften: Theorie, Epistemologie, Methodik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Wissenschaftstheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Ancient Egypt to Plato; 2. Aristotle (384-322 BC); 3. Late antiquity; 4. Islam and the eastward shift of Aristotelian natural philosophy; 5. Natural philosophy before the Latin translations; 6. Translations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; 7. Natural philosophy after the translations; 8. The form and content of late medieval natural philosophy; 9. The relations between natural philosophy and theology; 10. The transformation of medieval natural philosophy from the early modern period to the nineteenth century; Conclusion; Notes.

Über Autor(innen)

Grant, Edward
Edward Grant is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author and editor of twelve books, including God and Reason in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts (Cambridge University Press, 1996). He is also the author of approximately ninety articles on the history of science and natural philosophy. He was Vice-President and President of the History of Science Society and was awarded the prestigious George Sarton Medal of that society.