The Emergence of a Scientific Culture : Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685

Introduction 1 PART I 1. Science and Modernity 11 The Enlightenment Interpretation 17 Scientific Autonomy 22 Method and Legitimation 31 PART II 2. Augustinian Synthesis to Aristotelian Amalgam 47 The Augustinian Synthesis 49 The Transition to a Scholastic Culture 59 The Condemnations of Aristotle 70 The Aristotelian Amalgam 77 Competing Conceptions of Metaphysics 80 3. Renaissance Natural Philosophies 87 Platonism as an Alternative to Scholasticism 88 Naturalism and the Scope of Natural Philosophy 101 Late Scholasticism 116 4. The Interpretation of Nature and the Origins of Physico-Theology 129 First Causes 130 Interpretation of Nature 133 Hermeneutics 139 Divine Transcendentalism versus Physico-Theology 149 PART III 5. Reconstructing Natural Philosophy 157 The Problem of Discovery 160 Speculative versus Productive Disciplines 164 Hypotheses and the Physical Standing of Astronomy 169 6. Reconstructing the Natural Philosopher 196 Speculative versus Productive Philosophers 196 Officiis phdosophiae 207 The Natural Philosopher versus the Enthusiast 220 7. The Aims of Enquiry 228 Plato's Cave versus the Elenchos 229 Truth and Objectivity 239 The Goals of Natural Philosophy 245 PART IV 8. Corpuscularianism and the Rise of Mechanism 253 Corpuscularianism and Atomism 257 Gassendi and the Legitimacy of Atomism 262 Beeckman and Thysico-Mathematics' 276 Corpuscularianism and Mechanism: Hobbes 282 Descartes' Princzpia Philosophiae 289 Cartesian Cosmology 304 The Formation of the Earth 317 9. The Scope of Mechanism 323 Primary and Secondary Qualities 323 Biomechanics 337 Natural Philosophy and Medicine 346 10. Experimental Natural Philosophy 352 Natural History and Matter Theory 356 The Focusing of Natural-Historical Enquiry: Gilbert versus Bacon 359 The Air Pump: Hobbes versus Boyle 368 The Production of Colour: Newton versus Descartes 379 Accommodating the Explanans to the Explanandum 397 11. The Quantitative Transformation of Natural Philosophy 400 Hydrostatics versus Kinematics 403 The Quantification of Motion 413 Mechanics as Kinematics 420 Cosmic Disorder 430 Dynamics 440 PART V 12. The Unity of Knowledge 455 Common Causation 457 Politico-Theology and Natural Philosophy 471 Physico-Theology and Natural Philosophy 492 Conclusion 506 Bibliography of Works Cited 510 Index 551