Download or read book Descartes System of Natural Philosophy written by Stephen Gaukroger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-03-18 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A History of Natural Philosophy written by Edward Grant and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-29 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes how natural philosophy and exact mathematical sciences joined together to make the Scientific Revolution possible.
Download or read book First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature written by F. W. J. Schelling and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appearing here in English for the first time, this is F. W. J. Schelling's vital document of the attempts of German Idealism and Romanticism to recover a deeper relationship between humanity and nature and to overcome the separation between mind and matter induced by the modern reductivist program. Written in 1799 and building upon his earlier work, First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature provides the most inclusive exposition of Schelling's philosophy of the natural world. He presents a startlingly contemporary model of an expanding and contracting universe; a unified theory of electricity, gravity magnetism, and chemical forces; and, perhaps most importantly, a conception of nature as a living and organic whole.
Download or read book The main Business of natural Philosophy written by Steffen Ducheyne and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this monograph, Steffen Ducheyne provides a historically detailed and systematically rich explication of Newton’s methodology. Throughout the pages of this book, it will be shown that Newton developed a complex natural-philosophical methodology which encompasses procedures to minimize inductive risk during the process of theory formation and which, thereby, surpasses a standard hypothetico-deductive methodological setting. Accordingly, it will be highlighted that the so-called ‘Newtonian Revolution’ was not restricted to the empirical and theoretical dimensions of science, but applied equally to the methodological dimension of science. Furthermore, it will be documented that Newton’s methodology was far from static and that it developed alongside with his scientific work. Attention will be paid not only to the successes of Newton’s innovative methodology, but equally to its tensions and limitations. Based on a thorough study of Newton’s extant manuscripts, this monograph will address and contextualize, inter alia, Newton’s causal realism, his views on action at a distance and space and time, the status of efficient causation in the /Principia/, the different phases of his methodology, his treatment of force and the constituents of the physico-mathematical models in the context of Book I of the /Principia/, the analytic part of the argument for universal gravitation, the meaning and significance of his regulae philosophandi, the methodological differences between his mechanical and optical work, and, finally, the interplay between Newton’s theology and his natural philosophy.
Download or read book A Theory of Natural Philosophy written by Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Greek Natural Philosophy written by John Baird Callicott and published by . This book was released on 2017-12-21 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greek Natural Philosophy presents the primary sources on the Presocratics in a straightforward way in order to tell a coherent story about the astonishing development of natural philosophy in ancient Greece and its relevance today. The book begins with historical influences on the birth of natural philosophy, especially literacy and the ecosystem services provided by the natural environment of ancient Greece. It argues that the individual philosophers' thoughts about the nature of the cosmos, living things, humankind, and human culture were linked by a "diachronic dialectic of ideas." Each philosopher's speculations were subjected to a critique by the next generation who crafted more subtle theories. The dialectical transition is traced from the mythopoeic worldview of Hesiod to the rational worldview of Thales and his Milesian successors, followed by Xenophanes and Heraclitus, then Parmenides and his Eleatic successors, and the qualitative pluralisms of Anaxagoras and Empedocles. An entirely fresh interpretation is provided of the Atomists and later Pythagoreans, whose work culminated in the ideas upon which Galileo, Newton, and the other architects of modern science, continued to build. In the span of only two centuries, the Presocratics developed the basic principles of philosophy and natural science, ecology, mathematical astronomy, the atomic theory of matter, an inertial theory of motion, and the possibility that our solar system is only one of infinitely many scattered throughout infinite time and space. The concluding chapter traces natural philosophy through subsequent centuries until its abandonment in 20th century philosophy, leading to the moribund state of philosophy by the end of that century. The authors show how environmental philosophy represents a return to natural philosophy and a model for the revival of philosophy's vigor and relevance in the 21st century. Greek Natural Philosophy is suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses in ancient Greek philosophy or in environmental philosophy, and will be of interest to scholars in these fields.
Download or read book The Natural Philosophy of Leibniz written by Kathleen Okruhlik and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Transformation of Natural Philosophy written by Sachiko Kusukawa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-03-09 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes that Philip Melanchthon was responsible for transforming traditional university natural philosophy into a specifically Lutheran one. Motivated by desire to check civil disobedience and promote a Lutheran orthodoxy, he created a natural philosophy based on Aristotle, Galen and Plato, incorporating contemporary findings of Copernicus and Vesalius. The fields of astrology, anatomy, botany and mathematics all constituted a natural philosophy in which Melanchthon wished to demonstrate God's Providential design in the physical world. Rather than dichotomizing or synthesizing the two distinct areas of 'science' and 'religion', Kusukawa advocates the need to look at 'Natural philosophy' as a discipline quite different from either 'modern science' or 'religion': a contextual assessment of the implication of the Lutheran Reformation on university education, particularly on natural philosophy.
Download or read book Scientific Cosmology and International Orders written by Bentley B. Allan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific Cosmology and International Orders shows how scientific ideas have transformed international politics since 1550. Allan argues that cosmological concepts arising from Western science made possible the shift from a sixteenth century order premised upon divine providence to the present order centred on economic growth. As states and other international associations used scientific ideas to solve problems, they slowly reconfigured ideas about how the world works, humanity's place in the universe, and the meaning of progress. The book demonstrates the rise of scientific ideas across three cases: natural philosophy in balance of power politics, 1550–1815; geology and Darwinism in British colonial policy and international colonial orders, 1860–1950; and cybernetic-systems thinking and economics in the World Bank and American liberal order, 1945–2015. Together, the cases trace the emergence of economic growth as a central end of states from its origins in colonial doctrines of development and balance of power thinking about improvement.
Download or read book The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form written by Agnes Arber and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1950, this monograph on the morphology of flowering plants explores the relationship between philosophy and botany.
Download or read book Grounds of Natural Philosophy written by Margaret Cavendish and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition aims to make Margaret Cavendish’s most mature philosophical work more accessible to students and scholars of the period. Grounds of Natural Philosophy is important not only because it is Cavendish’s final articulation of her metaphysics but also because it succinctly outlines her fundamental views on “the nature of nature”—or the base substance and mechanics of all natural matter—and vividly demonstrates her probabilistic approach to philosophical enquiry. Moreover, Grounds spends considerable time discussing the human body, including the functions of the mind, a topic of growing interest to both historians of philosophy and literary scholars. This Broadview Edition opens to modern readers a vibrant, unique, and provocative voice of the past that challenges our standard view of seventeenth-century English philosophy.
Download or read book Vital Forces Teleology and Organization written by Andrea Gambarotto and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive account of vitalism and the Romantic philosophy of nature. The author explores the rise of biology as a unified science in Germany by reconstructing the history of the notion of “vital force,” starting from the mid-eighteenth through the early nineteenth century. Further, he argues that Romantic Naturphilosophie played a crucial role in the rise of biology in Germany, especially thanks to its treatment of teleology. In fact, both post-Kantian philosophers and naturalists were guided by teleological principles in defining the object of biological research. The book begins by considering the problem of generation, focusing on the debate over the notion of “formative force.” Readers are invited to engage with the epistemological status of this formative force, i.e. the question of the principle behind organization. The second chapter provides a reconstruction of the physiology of vital forces as it was elaborated in the mid- to late-eighteenth century by the group of physicians and naturalists known as the “Göttingen School.” Readers are shown how these authors developed an understanding of the animal kingdom as a graded series of organisms with increasing functional complexity. Chapter three tracks the development of such framework in Romantic Naturphilosophie. The author introduces the reader to the problem of classification, showing how Romantic philosophers of nature regarded classification as articulated by a unified plan that connects all living forms with one another, relying on the idea of living nature as a universal organism. In the closing chapter, this analysis shows how the three instances of pre-biological discourse on living beings – theory of generation, physiology and natural history – converged to form the consolidated disciplinary matrix of a general biology. The book offers an insightful read for all scholars interested in classical German philosophy, especially those researching the philosophy of nature, as well as the history and philosophy of biology.
Download or read book Plato s Natural Philosophy written by Thomas Kjeller Johansen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-01 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought.
Download or read book Reading Natural Philosophy written by David B. Malament and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, 13 leading philosophers of science focus on the work of Professor Howard Stein, best known for his study of the intimate connection between philosophy and natural science. Also included is a comprehensive bibliography of Howard Stein's writings.
Download or read book Philosophy of Natural Therapeutics written by Henry Lindlahr and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lonely Planets written by David Grinspoon and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PEN Literary Award Winner: “The best, most entertaining examination of the possibility of other life in the universe since [Carl] Sagan’s best work.” —Boulder Daily Camera It’s been decades since Carl Sagan first addressed the general public about the possibility of extraterrestrial life from a scientist’s perspective. We’ve learned a lot in those years, and now planetary scientist David Grinspoon investigates the big questions: How widespread are life and intelligence in the cosmos? Is life on Earth an accident, or in some sense the “purpose” of this universe? And how can we, working from the Earth-centric definition of “life,” even begin to think about the varieties of life-forms on other planets? In accessible, lively prose, and using the topic of extraterrestrial life as a mirror with which to view human beliefs, evolution, history, and aspirations, Grinspoon takes us on a three-part journey—the history of our expanding awareness of other planets and our ideas on alien life dating back to the earliest days of astronomy; the science of cosmic evolution and the evolution of life on Earth, including a critique of the “Rare Earth hypothesis”; and the beliefs that humans hold, addressing the limits of our ability to conceptualize or communicate with intelligent aliens and the scientific and philosophical implications of far-future evolutionary possibilities. Rich in personal and often amusing anecdotes, Lonely Planets explores the shifting boundary between planetary science and natural philosophy, and reveals how the search for extraterrestrial life unites our spiritual and scientific quests for connection with the cosmos. Includes a new foreword about recent Mars discoveries “An outstanding introduction to cosmic evolution.” —San Jose Mercury News “[A] terrific book.” —San Diego Union-Tribune “A personable chat on life, the universe and everything.” —Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy written by Niccolò Guicciardini and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isaac Newton is one of the greatest scientists in history, yet the spectrum of his interests was much broader than that of most contemporary scientists. In fact, Newton would have defined himself not as a scientist, but as a natural philosopher. He was deeply involved in alchemical, religious, and biblical studies, and in the later part of his life he played a prominent role in British politics, economics, and the promotion of scientific research. Newton’s pivotal work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which sets out his laws of universal gravitation and motion, is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science. Niccolò Guicciardini’s enlightening biography offers an accessible introduction both to Newton’s celebrated research in mathematics, optics, mechanics, and astronomy and to how Newton viewed these scientific fields in relation to his quest for the deepest secrets of the universe, matter theory and religion. Guicciardini sets Newton the natural philosopher in the troubled context of the religious and political debates ongoing during Newton’s life, a life spanning the English Civil Wars, the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution, and the Hanoverian succession. Incorporating the latest Newtonian scholarship, this fast-paced biography broadens our perception of both this iconic figure and the great scientific revolution of the early modern period.
