Science Influences Philosophy

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-79
Author(s):  
Steven L. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Probabilistic Theory ◽  
New Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Invented Instruments ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
The Mind

The claims of the new natural philosophers that their methodical reasoning and newly invented instruments produced knowledge of reality had a profound effect on contemporary mainstream philosophers. Hobbes allied himself with the rationalist pursuers of certainty but rejected the ability of experimental philosophy to reveal certain truths about nature. Gassendi defended a probabilistic theory of knowledge, while Locke’s theory of knowledge accepted “moral,” or near, certainty as a limit to knowledge of reality. Berkeley reinterpreted the materialistic ontology underlying the new science, arguing the metaphysical character played in it by the concept matter. Hume formulated an openly skeptical theory of knowledge of the world, arguing the metaphysical character of the roles played by causality and induction in the new natural philosophy. Kant responded by creating a philosophy that restored certainty to knowledge, but its object was now experience, not a reality independent of the mind.

Godly Men and Mechanical Philosophers: Souls and Spirits in Restoration Natural Philosophy

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Schaffer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
World Picture ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The World ◽  
Work World ◽  
Natural Philosophers

The ArgumentRecent historiography of the Scientific Revolution has challenged the assumption that the achievements of seventeenth-century natural philosophy can easily be described as the ‘mechanization of the world-picture.’ That assumption licensed a story which took mechanization as self-evidently progressive and so in no need of further historical analysis. The clock-work world was triumphant and inevitably so. However, a close examination of one key group of natural philosophers working in England during the 1670s shows that their program necessarily incorporated souls and spirits, attractions and congruities, within both their ontology and their epistemology. Any natural philosophical strategy which excluded spirits and sympathies from its world was condemned as tending to subversion and irreligion. This examination shows that the term ‘mechanical philosophy’ was a category given its meanings within local contexts and carries no universal sense separate from that accomplished by these natural philosophers. It also shows how the experimental praxis was compelled to treat souls and spirits, to produce them through experimental labor, and then to extend these experimentally developed entities throughout the cosmos, both social and natural. The development of mechanical philosophy cannot be used to explain the cognitive and social structure of this program, nor its success: instead, the historical setting of experimental work shows how a philosophy of matter and spirit was deliberately constructed by the end of the seventeenth century.

scholarly journals Fire in the mind: changing understandings of fire in Western civilization

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1696) ◽  
pp. 20150166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Pyne
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Human History ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

For most of human history, fire has been a pervasive presence in human life, and so also in human thought. This essay examines the ways in which fire has functioned intellectually in Western civilization as mythology, as religion, as natural philosophy and as modern science. The great phase change occurred with the development of industrial combustion; fire faded from quotidian life, which also removed it from the world of informing ideas. Beginning with the discovery of oxygen, fire as an organizing concept fragmented into various subdisciplines of natural science and forestry. The Anthropocene, however, may revive the intellectual role of fire as an informing idea or at least a narrative conceit. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.

On Being Present to the Mind: A Sketch for the History of an Idea

Dialogue ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Yolton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind

I want to discuss a doctrine and a concept in theory of knowledge which has various manifestations from at least the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The concept is that of direct or immediate cognition, the doctrine says that only what is like mind can be directly or immediately present to mind. This doctrine raises the question of how we can know things other than ourselves and our experiences: the concept of direct presence most usually had the consequence of making our knowledge of the world indirect, uncertain, or impossible. The directly present must in some way inform us about the indirectly present.

scholarly journals Evaluating John Theophilus Desaguliers' Newtonianism: the case of waterwheel knowledge in A course of experimental philosophy

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-477
Author(s):  
Andrew M. A. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Mechanics ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Natural Philosophers

John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683–1744) was a French-born English Huguenot who made his name as a public lecturer in London and a demonstrator at the Royal Society, writing a very popular introduction to Isaac Newton's natural philosophy, the two-volume A course of experimental philosophy (1734–1744). This paper looks at the influence of three French natural philosophers, Edme Mariotte (1620–1684), Antoine Parent (1666–1716) and Bernard Forest de Bélidor (1698–1761), on the account of waterwheel functioning in the second volume of that work. The aim of the paper is to show that, although Desaguliers demonstrated a commitment to Newton's work, his own natural philosophical objectives also led him to borrow ideas from natural philosophers outside Newton's direct sphere of influence. To do this I shall give an account of what Desaguliers appropriated from Newton's Principia , how it fitted in with his own project and how he also made use of other natural philosophers' theories in his discussion of fluid mechanics. This will hopefully result in a more nuanced conception of Desaguliers' ‘Newtonianism’ that takes into account the diverse sources and influences in his work.

scholarly journals Philosophia Naturalis Rediviva: Natural Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century

Philosophies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Bruce MacLennan
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
First Century ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
Unconscious Mind

A revitalized practice of natural philosophy can help people to live a better life and promote a flourishing ecosystem. Such a philosophy is natural in two senses. First, it is natural by seeking to understand the whole of nature, including mental phenomena. Thus, a comprehensive natural philosophy should address the phenomena of sentience by embracing first- and second-person methods of investigation. Moreover, to expand our understanding of the world, natural philosophy should embrace a full panoply of explanations, similar to Aristotle’s four causes. Second, such a philosophy is natural by being grounded in human nature, taking full account of human capacities and limitations. Future natural philosophers should also make use of all human capacities, including emotion and intuition, as well as reason and perception, to investigate nature. Finally, since the majority of our brain’s activities are unconscious, natural philosophy should explore the unconscious mind with the aim of deepening our relation with the rest of nature and of enhancing well-being.

scholarly journals Philosophia Naturalis Renovata: Natural Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce MacLennan
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
First Century ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
Unconscious Mind

A revitalized practice of natural philosophy can help people to live a better life and promote a flourishing ecosystem. Such a philosophy is natural in two senses. First, it is natural by seeking to understand the whole of nature, including mental phenomena, In particular, a comprehensive natural philosophy should address the phenomena of sentience by embracing first- and second-person methods of investigation. Moreover, to expand our understanding of the world, natural philosophy should embrace a full panoply of explanations, similar to Aristotle’s four causes. Second, such a philosophy is natural by being grounded in human nature, taking full account of human capacities and limitations. Future natural philosophers should also make use of all human capacities, including emotion and intuition as well as reason and perception, to investigate nature. Finally, since the majority of our brain's activities are unconscious, natural philosophy should explore the unconscious mind with the aim of deepening our relation to the rest of nature and enhancing well-being.

Philosophy and Historiosophy of the Holy Saint Father John of Kronstadt

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 104-116
Author(s):  
Vitaliy Yu. Darenskiy
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Philosophical Doctrine

The article reconstructs the integral philosophical doctrine in the heritage of Saint John of Kronstadt, which includes the doctrine of being, knowledge, man, nature and history (i.e. ontology, epistemology, anthropology, natural philosophy and historiosophy). It is shown that this doctrine is based on the hermeneutics of biblical texts and patristic tradition, and the method of this philosophy is spiritual reflection based on the acquisition of the Holy spirit and the transformation of the mind. The ontology in this philosophy is revealed through the Revelation of the creation of the world, and anthropology- the creation of man, and therefore they have the character of sacred history. Philosophy of nature has the character of the Revelations about Tri-hypostatic God showing His properties in the creation. Tri-hypostasis of the Creator defines the ontology of the human being, carrying His Image. The revelation of the End of the world sets the semantic structure of the historical process and is the paradigm for understanding any specific events.

Locke and Cartesian Philosophy

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Family Resemblances ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Epistemological Debate

This book is a collection of twelve critical essays, by leading French and Anglo-American scholars on Locke’s relation to Descartes and to Cartesian Philosophers, such as Malebranche, Clauberg, Arnauld, and Nicole. The essays, preceded by a substantial introduction, cover a large variety of topics from natural philosophy (cosmology) to religion, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and epistemology. The volume underlines Locke’s complex relationship to Descartes and Cartesianism, where stark opposition and subtle family resemblances are tightly intertwined. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the theory of knowledge has been the main locus for the comparison of the two authors. According to an influential historiographical conception, Descartes and Locke form together the spearhead in the ‘epistemological turn’ of early modern philosophy. In bringing together the contributions to this volume, the editors advocate for a shift of emphasis. A precise comparison of Locke’s and Descartes’s positions should cover not only their theory of knowledge, but also their views on natural philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. Their conflicting claims on issues such as cosmic organization, the qualities and nature of bodies, the substance of the soul, God’s government of the world, are relevant not only in their own right to take the full measure of Locke’s intricate relation to Descartes, but also as they allow a better understanding of the epistemological debate that is still running between their heirs.

Philosophie Und Physik Zwischen Notwendigem Und Hypothetischem Wissen Zur Wissenstheoretischen Bestimmung Der Physik in Der Philosophia Des Wilhelm Von Conches

2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-34
Author(s):  
Andreas Niederberger ◽  
Alexander Fidora
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Validity Claims ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Early Text ◽  
Natural Philosophers

AbstractA number of studies have investigated how the renewed interest in Plato's Timaeus led twelfth-century natural philosophers to take a growing interest in the material aspects of nature. By contrast, the implications of the resulting theories for the development of scientific knowledge have so far received but scant attention. But, as is shown in this paper, William of Conches, one of the most important natural philosophers of that age, not only broadened the material understanding of nature in his early text Philosophia, but also introduced a systematic distinction between the particular validity claims of philosophy and of physics. As we demonstrate, this distinction allowed for the formation of different disciplines, each having its particular methodology and explanatory force. Thus philosophy and physics could consider the same object, viz. the generation of the world, under the different and partly even contradictory perspectives of divine creation and the nature(s) of beings. This article analyzes the range of application of this distinction and its systematic consequences for the study of nature (e.g. the elements) as well as its importance for the elaboration of a theory of knowledge.

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