The Intersection of the Mathematical and Natural Sciences: The Subordinate Sciences in Aristotle

Apeiron ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Distelzweig

Abstract Aristotle is aware of the mathematical treatment of natural phenomena constitutive of Greek astronomy, optics, harmonics, and mechanics. Here I provide an account of Aristotle’s understanding of these ‘subordinate sciences’, drawing on both his methodological discussions and his optical treatment of the rainbow in Meteorology III 5. This account sheds light on the de Caelo, in which Aristotle undertakes a natural investigation of the heavens distinct from, but closely related to, astronomical (thus mathematical) investigations. Although Aristotle insists that such subordinate sciences belong to mathematical and not natural science, he sees them as essential to complete scientific knowledge of the sensible world.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1468795X2093862
Author(s):  
Jordan Fox Besek ◽  
Patrick Trent Greiner ◽  
Brett Clark

Throughout his life, W.E.B. Du Bois actively engaged the scientific racism infecting natural sciences and popular thought. Nevertheless, he also demonstrated a sophisticated and critical engagement with natural science. He recognized that the sciences were socially situated, but also that they addressed real questions and issues. Debate remains, however, regarding exactly how and why Du Bois incorporated such natural scientific knowledge into his own thinking. In this article, we draw on archival research and Du Bois’ own scholarship to investigate his general approach to interdisciplinarity. We address how and why he fused natural scientific knowledge and the influence of physical environs into his social science, intertwining each with his broader intellectual and political aims. This investigation will offer a fuller understanding of the scope and aims of his empirical scholarship. At the same time, it will illuminate a sociological approach to natural science that can still inform scholarship today.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Tingting Liu ◽  
Haibin Sun

The French Enlightenment directly influenced and promoted the Enlightenment in other European countries. During the Enlightenment, the development of natural science and the dissemination of scientific knowledge greatly promoted the emancipation of human minds. D’Alembert is a famous French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and philosopher. As a representative on mission during the French Enlightenment, d’Alembert made important contributions to mechanics, mathematics, and astronomy that greatly promoted the development of natural sciences.


Author(s):  
Duane H. Larson

Were Luther to have lived another two decades, he might have been surprised even so early on to be informed that he positively influenced the rise of natural science. One can readily cite many Luther quotes that would cast him as anti-science; decontextualized quoting readily constructs such caricatures. But the truth of the matter is quite otherwise. Consideration of Luther and Luther’s protégés and their philosophical-historical contexts reveals their positive regard for science. This is explicit in Luther’s immediate heirs like Melanchthon and Andreas Osiander. Though they differed in their opinions about the work of Copernicus, both respected him and the discipline he practiced. Luther’s influence carried beyond his immediate disciples through Johannes Kepler into the 17th century. The Irish-Anglican chemist and theologian Robert Boyle, for example, was significantly influenced by the Reformation principle of God’s sovereignty. In turn, Boyle strongly influenced Isaac Newton. But Lutheran support for the natural sciences had one major qualification. When “freed science” appeared to speculate more on God’s action than describe the visible character of natural phenomena, Luther saw overreaching ambition. Such are the outlines of a historical approach of Luther’s influence on the beginning of the scientific revolution. Other Lutheran theological themes contributed to natural science’s robustness. In addition to a focus on God’s sovereignty—and so the doctrine of justification by grace through faith—these themes include (1) the nature of biblical authority, (2) the “realistic” epistemology of the theology of the cross, and (3) sacramentology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 188 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-146
Author(s):  
Martin Bohatý ◽  
Dalibor Velebil

Adalbert Wraný (*1836, †1902) was a doctor of medicine, with his primary specialization in pediatric pathology, and was also one of the founders of microscopic and chemical diagnostics. He was interested in natural sciences, chemistry, botany, paleontology and above all mineralogy. He wrote two books, one on the development of mineralogical research in Bohemia (1896), and the other on the history of industrial chemistry in Bohemia (1902). Wraný also assembled several natural science collections. During his lifetime, he gave to the National Museum large collections of rocks, a collection of cut precious stones and his library. He donated a collection of fossils to the Geological Institute of the Czech University (now Charles University). He was an inspector of the mineralogical collection of the National Museum. After his death, he bequeathed to the National Museum his collection of minerals and the rest of the gemstone collection. He donated paintings to the Prague City Museum, and other property to the Klar Institute of the Blind in Prague. The National Museum’s collection currently contains 4 325 samples of minerals, as well as 21 meteorites and several hundred cut precious stones from Wraný’s collection.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Раиса Николаевна Афонина ◽  
Татьяна Степановна Малолеткина

В статье рассматриваются психодидактические аспекты освоения студентами-гуманитариями содержания естественнонаучных дисциплин. Специфика обучения естественнонаучным дисциплинам студентов-гуманитариев определяется наличием у данной группы обучающихся особенностей восприятия и переработки информации. Для гуманитариев в большей мере характерно превалирование ассоциативного, образного мышления, эмоционального восприятия информации, отторжение формализованных, доказательных способов рассуждений, доминирование реального восприятия окружающего мира над абстрактным, идеализированным. Современные педагогические методики в основном ориентированы на левополушарное восприятие, именно поэтому правополушарные учащиеся оказываются в невыгодном положении. The article deals with psychodidactic aspects of mastering the content of natural sciences by humanities students. The specificity of teaching the natural science disciplines of humanities students is determined by the presence of features of perception and processing of information in this group of students. For the humanities, the prevalence of associative, figurative thinking, emotional perception of information, the rejection of formalized, evidence-based ways of reasoning, the dominance of the real perception of the world over the abstract, idealized, are more characteristic. Modern pedagogical methods are mainly focused on left hemisphere perception, which is why right hemispheric students find themselves at a disadvantage.


Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8 (106)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Lidia Sofronova

The article presents an analytical review of the recent literature on cognitive history, especially the Russian collective monograph “Cognitive Sciences and Historical Cognition”, published in 2020. It traces the patterns typical for interdisciplinary research not only within the humanitarian disciplines, but also at the “borders” between the humanities and the “natural sciences”. The article highlights the paradoxical and productive nature of the “mutual interventions” of cognitive science and the humanities, which contribute to overcoming “atomism” both within the humanities and at the “frontier” between them and the natural science disciplines.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 32-36
Author(s):  
Svetlana Yu. Anisimova ◽  
Tatyana V. Borisova

The article discusses the role of the disciplinary approach in the study of historical memory. In the modern research field, the methodological status of an interdisciplinary approach is becoming more and more popular. It is connected with the problems of the new ontology formation, where the general foundations between nature and society are investigated. Many sciences use the of interdisciplinary methodology to understand the interaction of the natural sciences and the humanities. Today, the organization of interdisciplinarity is actively criticized, which does not take into account the interconnection between natural sciences and humanities. The absence of this relationship is manifested in the problems of historical memory. Therefore, the idea is being advanced to justify the fundamental status of historical memory, it is necessary to change the organization of scientific knowledge.


1998 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 303-320
Author(s):  
Michael Morris

Naturalism is the dominant philosophy of the age. It might be characterized as the view that the only real facts are facts of natural science, or that only statements of natural science are really true. But perhaps this scientistic formulation underestimates the depth and everydayness of the dominance of naturalism. More informally, we might say that naturalism is the view that the world is a world of natural objects and natural phenomena, that the only properties of these objects are natural properties, and the relations between them are all natural relations – in short, there are only natural facts, natural truths.


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