Description
Book SynopsisUnderstanding the emergence of a scientific culture - one in which cognitive values generally are modelled on, or subordinated to, scientific ones - is one of the foremost historical and philosophical problems with which we are now confronted. The significance of the emergence of such scientific values lies above all in their ability to provide the criteria by which we come to appraise cognitive enquiry, and which shape our understanding of what it can achieve. The period between the 1680s and the middle of the eighteenth century is a very distinctive one in this development. It is then that we witness the emergence of the idea that scientific values form a model for all cognitive claims. It is also at this time that science explicitly goes beyond technical expertise and begins to articulate a world-view designed to displace others, whether humanist or Christian. But what occurred took place in a peculiar and overdetermined fashion, and the outcome in the mid-eighteenth century was not
Trade ReviewIt is impressively scholarly, interesting, and will no doubt take its place as an important contribution to the field of intellectual history. * Kurt Smith, MIND *
makes a welcome contribution to the history of science * James A.T. Lancaster, British Journal for the History of Science *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; PART I ; 1. The Construction of a New World Picture ; 2. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy ; PART II ; 3. The Metaphysical Unity of Natural Philosophy ; 4. From Experimental Philosophy to Empiricism ; 5. Explaining the Phenomena ; PART III ; 6. Natural Philosophy and the Republic of Letters ; 7. The Realm of Reason ; PART IV ; 8. The Fortunes of a Unified Model of Natural Philosophy ; 9. Material Activity ; 10. Living and Dead Matter ; PART V ; 11. The Realm of Sensibility ; 12. Historical Understanding and the Human Condition ; Conclusion ; Bibliography of Works Cited ; Index
