A noteworthy study in the history of ideas, this is the first systematic account of an idea that was born with the concept of science itself in ancient Greece and that has been vital to its evolution ever since. The book traces the development of the concept of form—one of the most important and persistent elements in natural philosophy—from its origins in Plato and Aristotle to the beginnings of the nineteenth century. Norma Emerton depicts the transformation of the form concept as it was transferred from a philosophical to a scientific context, and she explains how it was reinterpreted and used especially in particle theory, chemical doctrine, and crystallography in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Throughout she emphasizes the philosophical, linguistic, and theological context of scientific theories, supporting her argument with evidence from a wide variety of primary sources, some of them little known, and many of them specially translated by the author. In form and style her book treats the history of a "unit-idea " in the grand tradition of A. 0. Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being. ''The story is a fascinating one,'' writes L. Pearce Williams in the Foreword. "This is 'internal' history of science which illustrates well the fact that scientific ideas have lives of their own worth investigating, describing, and analyzing. The result is a history that introduces one of the most important and central concerns of modern science." The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form will be of particular interest to historians and philosophers of science, intellectual historians, and others concerned with the dynamic interaction between philosophy, theology, and science.

The studies in this volume present early science in its rich and divergent complexity. Many historians of the Scientific Revolution have used early modern scholasticism to represent pre-seventeenth century science as a whole, but a close look at ancient, medieval, and even early modern scientific writers shows that before the Scientific Revolution - and not only in Europe - there were many and diverse traditions of interpreting the natural world. This book provides a broad range of historical evidence concerning early science, which may be used as a basis for new and more complex historical interpretations. Originally published as Volume XIV, Nos. 1-3 (2009) of Brill's journal Early Science and Medicine.

Offers an introduction and critical guide to the relationship between scientific thought and religious belief.

This book challenges the traditional historiography of the Scientific Revolution, probably the single most important unifying concept in the history of science. Usually referring to the period from Copernicus to Newton (roughly 1500 to 1700), the Scientific Revolution is considered to be the central episode in the history of science, the historical moment at which that unique way of looking at the world that we call 'modern science' and its attendant institutions emerged. It has been taken as the terminus a quo of all that followed. Starting with a dialogue between Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and Richard S. Westfall, whose understanding of the Scientific Revolution differed in important ways, the papers in this volume reconsider canonical figures, their areas of study, and the formation of disciplinary boundaries during this seminal period of European intellectual history.

With unprecedented current coverage of the profound changes in the nature and practice of science in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, this comprehensive reference work addresses the individuals, ideas, and institutions that defined culture in the age when the modern perception of nature, of the universe, and of our place in it is said to have emerged. Covering the historiography of the period, discussions of the Scientific Revolution's impact on its contemporaneous disciplines, and in-depth analyses of the importance of historical context to major developments in the sciences, The Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution is an indispensible resource for students and researchers in the history and philosophy of science.

The fullest and most complete survey of the development of science in the eighteenth century.

This text contains detailed discussion and analysis of Dun Scotus's accounts of the nature of matter and the structure of material substance. His views on these matters are sophisticated and highly original.

An account of European knowledge of the natural world, c.1500-1700.

According to Larry Chapp, theology is left with two dire options in the aftermath of naturalism's apparent cultural triumph: provide modernity with an intellectually cogent theological vision or perish, along with that same culture, in the wasteland of our nihilism. Chapp's important book is grounds for hope that theology may live to see another day and that the pervasive nihilism may not have the last word. He correctly diagnoses the intellectual and cultural dangers posed by so-called scientific naturalism, lifting the lid on its alleged metaphysical neutrality and exposing this naturalism for what it fundamentally is: a bad theology which doesn't know itself. And more importantly still, he restores theology to its proper cosmological scope. Not only does "creation" become intellectually compelling in Chapp's deft hands, it elicits wonder and praise for its Creator and restores what is human in us. This is a hopeful development indeed and a sign of an indispensible book. - Michael Hanby, on back cover.