Divine Machines

Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-691-14178-7
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 392 Seiten, Format (B × H): 167 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 693 g

Though it did not yet exist as a discrete field of scientific inquiry, biology was at the heart of many of the most important debates in seventeenth-century philosophy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of G. W. Leibniz. In Divine Machines, Justin Smith offers the first in-depth examination of Leibniz's deep and complex engagement with the empirical life sciences of his day, in areas as diverse as medicine, physiology, taxonomy, generation theory, and paleontology. He shows how these wide-ranging pursuits were not only central to Leibniz's philosophical interests, but often provided the insights that led to some of his best-known philosophical doctrines.Presenting the clearest picture yet of the scope of Leibniz's theoretical interest in the life sciences, Divine Machines takes seriously the philosopher's own repeated claims that the world must be understood in fundamentally biological terms. Here Smith reveals a thinker who was immersed in the sciences of life, and looked to the living world for answers to vexing metaphysical problems. He casts Leibniz's philosophy in an entirely new light, demonstrating how it radically departed from the prevailing models of mechanical philosophy and had an enduring influence on the history and development of the life sciences. Along the way, Smith provides a fascinating glimpse into early modern debates about the nature and origins of organic life, and into how philosophers such as Leibniz engaged with the scientific dilemmas of their era.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, Justin E. H.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: Neuzeit
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Wissenschaftstheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Abbreviations ix

Preface xi

Introduction 1

Part One: First Things

Chapter One: "Que les philosophes medicinassent": Leibniz?s Encounter withMedicine and Its Experimental Context 25

Chapter Two: The "Hydraulico-Pneumatico-Pyrotechnical Machine of Quasi-Perpetual Motion": Leibniz on Animal Economy 59

Part Two: From Animal Economyto Subtle Anatomy

Chapter Three: Organic Bodies, Part I: Nature and Structure 97

Chapter Four: Organic Bodies, Part II: Context and Legacy 137

Part Three: The Origins of Organic Form

Chapter Five:The Divine Preformation of Organic Bodies 165
Chapter Six: Games of Nature, the Emergence of Organic Form, and theProblem of Spontaneity 197

Part Four: Species

Chapter Seven: The Nature and Boundaries of Biological Species 235

Appendixes

1. Directions Pertaining to the Institution of Medicine (1671) 275

2. The Animal Machine (1677) 288

3. The Human Body, Like That of Any Animal, Is a Sort of Machine (1680-86) 290

4. On Writing the New Elements of Medicine (1682-83) 297

5. On Botanical Method (1701) 303

Notes 311

Bibliography 357

Index 375

Über Autor(innen)

Smith, Justin E. H.
Justin E. H. Smith is associate professor of philosophy at Concordia University in Montreal. He is the editor of "The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy".