The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy
Ohad Nachtomy editor Justin E H Smith editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:23rd Jan '14
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The present volume advances a recent historiographical turn towards the intersection of early modern philosophy and the life sciences by bringing together many of its leading scholars to present the contributions of important but often neglected figures, such as Ralph Cudworth, Nehemiah Grew, Francis Glisson, Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Georg Ernst Stahl, Juan Gallego de la Serna, Nicholas Hartsoeker, Henry More, as well as more familiar figures such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Kant. The contributions to this volume are organized in accordance with the particular problems that living beings and living nature posed for early modern philosophy: the problem of life in general, whether it constitutes something ontologically distinct at all, or whether it can ultimately be exhaustively comprehended "in the same manner as the rest "; the problem of the structure of living beings, by which we understand not just bare anatomy but also physiological processes such as irritability, motion, digestion, and so on; the problem of generation, which might be included alongside digestion and other vital processes, were it not for the fact that it presented such an exceptional riddle to philosophers since antiquity, namely, the riddle of coming-into-being out of - apparent or real - non-being; and, finally, the problem of natural order.
These valuable essays will enrich specialists' understanding of the 17th-century dynamics that produced what has become biology. * Choice *
This anthology will be welcomed by philosophers and historians of science. * Jeremy Kirby, The Quarterly Review of Biology *
It merits the attention of anyone interested in the philosophical aspects of early modern science. * Antonio Clerocuzio, British Journal for the History of Science *
ISBN: 9780199987313
Dimensions: 236mm x 163mm x 25mm
Weight: 476g
272 pages