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Author: Annelise Maier
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512809411
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Translated into English for the first time, the writings of the twentieth-century scholar Annelise Maier on late medieval natural philosophy are here made accessible to a broader audience. The seven selections represent both Maier's earlier and later works. Her perceptions as a trained philosopher, coupled with her familiarity with the full range of primary source material, result in these rare insights into the historical importance of medieval science.
Author: Annelise Maier
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512809411
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Translated into English for the first time, the writings of the twentieth-century scholar Annelise Maier on late medieval natural philosophy are here made accessible to a broader audience. The seven selections represent both Maier's earlier and later works. Her perceptions as a trained philosopher, coupled with her familiarity with the full range of primary source material, result in these rare insights into the historical importance of medieval science.
Author: Michael Friedman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674500358
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396
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Book Description
Kant sought throughout his life to provide a philosophy adequate to the sciences of his time--especially Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics. In this new book, Michael Friedman argues that Kant's continuing efforts to find a metaphysics that could provide a foundation for the sciences is of the utmost importance in understanding the development of his philosophical thought from its earliest beginnings in the thesis of 1747, through the Critique of Pure Reason, to his last unpublished writings in the Opus postumum. Previous commentators on Kant have typically minimized these efforts because the sciences in question have since been outmoded. Friedman argues that, on the contrary, Kant's philosophy is shaped by extraordinarily deep insight into the foundations of the exact sciences as he found them, and that this represents one of the greatest strengths of his philosophy. Friedman examines Kant's engagement with geometry, arithmetic and algebra, the foundations of mechanics, and the law of gravitation in Part One. He then devotes Part Two to the Opus postumum, showing how Kant's need to come to terms with developments in the physics of heat and in chemistry formed a primary motive for his projected Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics. Kant and the Exact Sciences is a book of high scholarly achievement, argued with impressive power. It represents a great advance in our understanding of Kant's philosophy of science.
Author: David C. Lindberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226482049
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 506
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Book Description
When it was first published in 1992, The Beginnings of Western Science was lauded as the first successful attempt ever to present a unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. Chronicling the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from pre-Socratic Greek philosophy to late-Medieval scholasticism, David C. Lindberg surveyed all the most important themes in the history of science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. In addition, he offered an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. The Beginnings of Western Science was, and remains, a landmark in the history of science, shaping the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development. It reemerges here in a second edition that includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science has been thoroughly retooled to reveal the magnitude and sophistication of medieval Muslim scientific achievement. And the book now reflects a sharper awareness of the importance of Mesopotamian science for the development of Greek astronomy. In all, the second edition of The Beginnings of Western Science captures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers.
Author: Matthew Boyd Goldie
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501734059
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Scribes of Space posits that the conception of space—the everyday physical areas we perceive and through which we move—underwent critical transformations between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Matthew Boyd Goldie examines how natural philosophers, theologians, poets, and other thinkers in late medieval Britain altered the ideas about geographical space they inherited from the ancient world. In tracing the causes and nature of these developments, and how geographical space was consequently understood, Goldie focuses on the intersection of medieval science, theology, and literature, deftly bringing a wide range of writings—scientific works by Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan, the Merton School of Oxford Calculators, and Thomas Bradwardine; spiritual, poetic, and travel writings by John Lydgate, Robert Henryson, Margery Kempe, the Mandeville author, and Geoffrey Chaucer—into conversation. This pairing of physics and literature uncovers how the understanding of spatial boundaries, locality, elevation, motion, and proximity shifted across time, signaling the emergence of a new spatial imagination during this era.
Author: James Hannam
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1596981555
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482
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Book Description
Maybe the Dark Ages Weren’t So Dark Afterall… Here are some facts you probably didn’t learn in school: People in the Middle Ages did not think the world was flat—in fact, medieval scholars could prove it wasn’t The Inquisition never executed anyone because of their scientific ideas or discoveries (actually, the Church was the chief sponsor of scientific research and several popes were celebrated for their knowledge of the subject) It was medieval scientific discoveries, methods, and principles that made possible western civilization’s “Scientific Revolution” If you were taught that the Middle Ages were a time of intellectual stagnation, superstition, and ignorance, you were taught a myth that has been utterly refuted by modern scholarship. As a physicist and historian of science James Hannam shows in his brilliant new book, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, without the scholarship of the “barbaric” Middle Ages, modern science simply would not exist. The Middle Ages were a time of one intellectual triumph after another. As Dr. Hannam writes, “The people of medieval Europe invented spectacles, the mechanical clock, the windmill, and the blast furnace by themselves. Lenses and cameras, almost all kinds of machinery, and the industrial revolution itself all owe their origins to the forgotten inventors of the Middle Ages.” In The Genesis of Science you will discover Why the scientific accomplishments of the Middle Ages far surpassed those of the classical world How medieval craftsmen and scientists not only made discoveries of their own, but seized upon Eastern inventions—printing, gunpowder, and the compass—and improved them beyond the dreams of their originators How Galileo’s notorious trial before the Inquisition was about politics, not science Why the theology of the Catholic Church, far from being an impediment, led directly to the development of modern science Provocative, engaging, and a terrific read, James Hannam’s Genesis of Science will change the way you think about our past—and our future.
Author: James Hannam
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848311583
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 551
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Book Description
This is a powerful and a thrilling narrative history revealing the roots of modern science in the medieval world. The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In "God's Philosophers", James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero. "God's Philosophers" is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, "God's Philosophers" brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Author: Meagan S. Allen
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031128982
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302
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Book Description
This book examines the Franciscan alchemist Roger Bacon’s (1220-1292) interest in the role of alchemy in medicine, and how this interest connected with the thirteenth-century milieu in which he was writing. Though twelfth-century Latin alchemy had largely been concerned with transmuting base metals into noble ones, Bacon believed that the natural principles taught in alchemy would be better used in medicine. In an age where many physicians were theorizing about ways to prevent the effects of aging, Bacon held that combining alchemy and humoral medicine would allow one to extend their life by decades, even centuries. By examining Bacon’s alchemical, medical, and mathematical works, this book argues that Bacon combined a number of sources to create a unique plan for prolonging human life. His understanding of disease and aging was ultimately Galenic in nature, and his understanding of how pharmaceuticals work can be traced back to his mathematical theories, especially that of the multiplication of species. The book provides a new system for organizing Bacon’s alchemically-produced medicines, and explains what Bacon saw as the difference between each, and how they could have different physiological effects. Bacon is situated within the thirteenth-century contexts in which he was writing – that of the university-educated and newly professionalized medical practitioners, who were invested in finding ways to extend human life; and the Franciscan order, with their understanding of the innate goodness of the physical body, the resurrection, and corporeal union with God. Filling a major lacuna in scholarship on the history of medieval medical writings, this book provides vital reading for historians of medicine, pre- and early modern European science, and medieval philosophy and religion.
Author: James Franklin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421418800
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
The Science of Conjecture provides a history of rational methods of dealing with uncertainty and explores the coming to consciousness of the human understanding of risk.
Author: David Albertson
Publisher: Oxford Studies in Historical T
ISBN: 0199989737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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Book Description
The writings of theologians Thierry of Chartres (d. 1157) and Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) represent a lost history of momentous encounters between Christianity and Pythagorean ideas before the Renaissance. Their robust Christian Neopythagoreanism reconceived the Trinity and the Incarnation within the framework of Greek number theory, challenging our contemporary assumptions about the relation of religion and modern science. David Albertson surveys the slow formation of theologies of the divine One from the Old Academy through ancient Neoplatonism into the Middle Ages. Against this backdrop, Thierry of Chartres's writings stand out as the first authentic retrieval of Neopythagoreanism within western Christianity. By reading Boethius and Augustine against the grain, Thierry reactivated a suppressed potential in ancient Christian traditions that harmonized the divine Word with notions of divine Number. Despite achieving fame during his lifetime, Thierry's ideas remained well outside the medieval mainstream. Three centuries later Nicholas of Cusa rediscovered anonymous fragments of Thierry and his medieval readers, and drew on them liberally in his early works. Yet tensions among this collection of sources forced Cusanus to reconcile their competing understandings of Word and Number. Over several decades Nicholas eventually learned how to articulate traditional Christian doctrines within a fully mathematized cosmology-anticipating the situation of modern Christian thought after the seventeenth century. Mathematical Theologies skillfully guides readers through the newest scholarship on Pythagoreanism, the school of Chartres, and Cusanus, while revising some of the categories that have separated those fields in the past.
Author: Andrew Younan
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813236126
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
"What is "A Law of Nature"? It's a question that's vexed philosophers and scientists ever since Descartes first coined the term. Fr. Andrew Younan explores it in this insightful book. After carefully reviewing the positions of Humeans and Anti-Humeans, he employs the philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas to argue for an essentialist understanding. His study leads him back to the beginnings of modern science and then forward to quantum mechanics. The philosophical account of how the laws of nature arise from observed regularities in the world is followed by a theological discussion of the nature and action of the Lawgiver."--from the foreword by Michael J. Dodds, OP To borrow a phrase from Galileo: What does it mean that the story of the creation is "written in the language of mathematics?" This book is an attempt to understand the natural world, its consistency, and the ontology of what we call laws of nature, with a special focus on their mathematical expression. It does this by arguing in favor of the Essentialist interpretation over that of the Humean and Anti-Humean accounts. It re-examines and critiques Descartes' notion of laws of nature following from God's activity in the world as mover of extended bodies, as well as Hume's arguments against causality and induction. It then presents an Aristotelian-Thomistic account of laws of nature based on mathematical abstraction, necessity, and teleology, finally offering a definition for laws of nature within this framework.
