Search results for ""Author Edward Grant""
The Catholic University of America Press The Nature of Natural Philosophy in the Late Middle Ages
The period from 1200 to 1500 laid the intellectual and institutional foundations for the Scientific Revolution that would occur in the seventeenth century. During this time, the spirit of inquiry motivated natural philosophers more than did substantive content or arguments. Natural philosophers posed hundreds of questions about nature and weighed the pros and cons of each. In the process, they developed a philosophical approach to nature that may be characterized as 'probing and poking around' - they used their imaginations guided by reason. In this volume, distinguished scholar Edward Grant identifies the vital elements that contributed to the creation of a widespread interest in natural philosophy, which has been characterized as the 'Great Mother of the Sciences'. He discusses how natural philosophy emerged in Western Europe in the Middle Ages with Latin translations of Aristotle's treatises on natural philosophy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; with universities devoting arts curriculums to Aristotle's rationalistic natural philosophy; and, with Christian religious authorities coming to accept and even defend that philosophy. Medieval natural philosophers, contrary to a common perception, did not slavishly follow Aristotle. Grant shows that they quite frequently disagreed with Aristotle and proposed their own solutions to many problems he raised. They did this by rejecting many of Aristotle's explanations about real physical phenomena and replacing them with radically different interpretations. The product of many years of extensive research, the essays included in this volume offer a significant contribution to the nature of natural philosophy and its influence on the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. This title uncovers how reason and imagination in the Middle Ages laid the foundations of modern science.
£75.00
Johns Hopkins University Press Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus
Historian Edward Grant illuminates how today's scientific culture originated with the religious thinkers of the Middle Ages. In the early centuries of Christianity, Christians studied science and natural philosophy only to the extent that these subjects proved useful for a better understanding of the Christian faith, not to acquire knowledge for its own sake. However, with the influx of Greco-Arabic science and natural philosophy into Western Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Christian attitude toward science changed dramatically. Despite some tensions in the thirteenth century, the Church and its theologians became favorably disposed toward science and natural philosophy and used them extensively in their theological deliberations.
£33.56
Harvard University Press A Source Book in Medieval Science
Modern scholarship has exposed the intrinsic importance of medieval science and confirmed its role in preserving and transmitting Greek and Arabic achievements. This Source Book offers a rare opportunity to explore more than ten centuries of European scientific thought. In it are approximately 190 selections by about 85 authors, most of them from the Latin West. Nearly half of the selections appear here for the first time in any vernacular translation.The readings, a number of them complete treatises, have been chosen to represent “science” in a medieval rather than a modern sense. Thus, insofar as they are relevant to medieval science, selections have been drawn from works on alchemy, astrology, logic, and theology. Most of the book, however, reflects medieval understanding of, and achievements in, the mathematical, physical, and biological sciences. Critical commentary and annotation accompany the selections. An appendix contains brief biographies of all authors.This book will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars in the history of science.
£169.16
