The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy is out of print and has been replaced by a new 2nd edition (released in November 2022). Click here for more information about the new 2nd edition.
The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy is out of print and has been replaced by a new 2nd Edition (November 2022). Click here for more information about the new 2nd edition.
A supplementary text for courses in the history of modern philosophy, helping to link developments in modern science and modern philosophy.
Reviews:
"Students will find it approachable and accessible, and they will have at their fingertips a good deal of material for discussion of theories of matter and method in seventeenth-century science.” —Catherine Wilson, in Canadian Philosophical Review
Contents:
Introduction.
I. ARISTOTLE. Physics: bk. II, ch. 1-311. bk. IV, ch. 8. bk. VII, ch. 1, 2, 5. Posterior Analytics: bk. I, ch. 1, 2. bk. I, ch. 13.
II. COPERNICUS. The Commentariolus (1512). On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), Dedication.
III. BACON. The New Organon (1620): Aphorisms 31-46, Aphorisms 95-96.
IV. GALILEO. The Assayer (1623). Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632): Second Day, pp. 1-10,Second Day, pp. 51-55 (relativity of perception), Second Day, pp. 138-40, 164-66. Discourses Concerning the Two New Sciences (1638): Third Day, pp. 202-8.
V. DESCARTES. Discourse on Method (1637): pt. II, VI. Principles of Philosophy (1644): Letter from the Author, pt. I, pt. II, pt. IV.
VI. BOYLE. The Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy (1674).
VII. HUYGENS. Treatise on Light (1678): Preface, ch. I.
VIII. NEWTON. Principia (1687): Preface to First Edition, Scholium, Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, General Scholium. Opticks (1704): Query 31.
Chronology. Bibliography.
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