scholarly journals MATHEMATICS, THE "BOOK OF NATURE" AND THEOLOGY - GALILEO GALILEI AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN SCIENCE

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-36
Author(s):  
Ion Cordoneanu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Great Book ◽  
Galileo Galilei ◽  
Book Of Nature ◽  
The World

Starting from the cycle of letters known as The Copernican Letters (1613-1615) and following through to the 1632 Dialogue, I will attempt to outline the context in which Galileo Galilei’s work is constituted as a veritable theory of nature research based on mathematics. Galilei rests on the principles of science to ground his choice for the Copernican model, as well as the separation of natural research from theology, but his concern for a unified philosophy of the natural world is intertwined in his work with the dignity of creation understood as “the great book of the world” by which divinity talks to man in the language of mathematics.

scholarly journals “Book of Nature”: How to Teach Children to Read It?

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3(61)) ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Nowak
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Education ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Mathematical Structure ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Mathematical Education ◽  
Social Competencies ◽  
Book Of Nature ◽  
Elementary Knowledge ◽  
Ethical Optimism

Modern science and technology are founded on the belief in the rationality and mathematical structure of the world. Learning about it, the progress and quality of our lives are related to the popularization of thinking about mathematical education as equipping students with the competencies necessary to read the Galilean “Book of Nature.” The article presents the idea of ​​a mathematical understanding of reality and the leading emotional-volitional and instrumental competencies that should be provided to students of elementary education in order to shape their beliefs about the effectiveness of this way of cognition and support them in acquiring appropriate knowledge and skills. In terms of field-specific and social competencies, it is about: awakening cognitive curiosity, building the attitude of epistemic and ethical optimism, belief in the inevitability and cognitive value of error, developing the ability to cooperate and compete in small groups, and to shape the attitude of researcher reliability. In terms of instrumental competencies, these would be: the ability to model phenomena at the level of substitutes (simulations), knowledge of numbers, decimal positional system and four arithmetic operations, the understanding of measurement and practical knowledge of measures, the ability to problematize phenomena from the natural world, having elementary knowledge of heuristics, a certain level of calculation efficiency and knowledge of basic geometric figures.

Enchantment

2000 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Roger Fellows
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Oscar Wilde ◽  
World View ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
The World ◽  
Picture Of Dorian Gray ◽  
Dorian Gray ◽  
Science Show

Oscar Wilde remarked in The Picture of Dorian Gray that, ‘It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearances.’ Over three centuries of natural science show that, at least as far as the study of the natural world is concerned, Wilde's epigram is itself shallow. Weber used the term ‘disenchantment’ to mean the elimination of magic from the modern scientific world view: the intellectual rationalisation of the world embodied in modern science has made it impossible to believe in magic or an invisible God or gods, without a ‘sacrifice of the intellect’.

scholarly journals “Every Living Beast Being a Word, Every Kind Being a Sentence”: Animals and Religion in Reformation Europe

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 421
Author(s):  
Helen Parish
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Great Book ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Words And Images ◽  
Written Word ◽  
Natural Histories

The ability of animals to convey meaning, either sacred or profane, features prominently in the dialectic of natural knowledge and sacred histories. Animals, particularly those that exhibited irregularities of nature, symbolised and revealed God’s wrath and favour, fulfilling a polemical and pastoral purpose in the communication of God’s anger and assiduous care for humanity. The language of readable nature ran through the ancient natural histories of Pliny and Aristotle, the words and images of the medieval bestiaries, and the natural histories and popular discourses of Reformation Europe. In the history of the natural world, ‘God’s great book in folio’, ideas about connections between the written word and human observation, miracles, wonders and providences, were interleaved with theological and biological taxonomies. In so doing, discussions of irregularities and portents in nature expose the conceptualisation of human relationships with the world, with the past, with the present, and with the divine. This article explores the connections between real and symbolic animals, religious, and the plasticity of God’s creation in the natural histories and polemical literature of the Reformation. It explores the multivalent positioning of particular sea creatures as providential signs of God’s continued presence in the world, natural phenomena, and man-made objects, and the ongoing syncretism between natural history, religion, ancient texts and human observation in the dialectic of this period.

scholarly journals THE PHENOMENON OF NEO-DETERMINISM AND ITS COMPREHENSION IN MODERN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-18
Author(s):  
Ighor Ghudyma
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Causality Principle ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Coin Toss ◽  
The World ◽  
Instability Factor ◽  
Divine Causality

The author's research attention is focused on modern science-historical interpretations of the phenomenon of neo-determinism. The author also turned his attention to attempts at a theological interpretation of such ideas through the provisions of a religious worldview. The main objective of this article is to study an updated understanding of the fundamental principle of science – the principle of causality. In addition, the author studied the features of the manifestation of the causality principle in scientific and humanitarian projections. The author's special attention is also focused on the study of the specifics of reflection in the modern religious consciousness of the ideas of divine causality. In addition, the author focused on certain manifestations of the immanence of divine being. The author was particularly interested in the specific components of religious teaching. These are the positions in which theologians try to imagine the point of concentration of God's efforts when God carries out his will and providence. It is on the question of divine immanence that the efforts of even the most inquiring mind are broken up into obstacles caused by faith itself. The limit of that area into which the mind cannot intervene is an attempt to touch the divine causality. The question of finding access points through which God changes the natural world in acts of wonderworking also remains incomprehensible. The topic of the article, the choice and application of its theoretical and methodological approaches are determined by the very subject of thought and the nature of the tasks posed. The following cognition methods were used in the article: general philosophical, general scientific theoretical methods. The author followed the principle of objectivity, applied causal analysis. The final results of the study of the topic lead the thought to the following proposition. Within the synergetic paradigm, the focus of scientists has shifted to the phenomenon of instability and randomness in the course of the processes of the world. This led to the foundation of a new non-linear way of thinking. It also led to the penetration of the provisions of nonlinear determinism in the main disciplinary practices – science, philosophy and religion. Ontological philosophical ideas about the nature of the original nomology (about the essence of the fundamental laws of the universe) have changed. The traditional views on the uniqueness of connections and relationships in nature are revised. This was favored by the development of nonequilibrium thermodynamics and the introduction into the scientific knowledge of statistical techniques and research operations. In understanding the causality of classical science, as well as in the picture of the world that this science offered, God, who casts lots, was a stranger and superfluous. However, modern science offers a new vision of the world. It is based on the nonlinearity of the development of the world and the pluralism of being. The instability factor arises at the bifurcation nodes of a particular process. As a result of fluctuations, the instability factor makes the forecast for the development of the system similar to the "coin toss". In this case, the vectors of several future options open in front of the object. Theologians carefully study the achievements of modern science. And here the theologians again got the opportunity to talk about God in a new way. God acts in alternating necessity and chance for a fraction of chance. The main goal of God is the instantaneous realization of new divine plans for the world and man.

A Māori Girl Watches, Listens, and Learns – Coming of Age from an Indigenous Viewpoint: Mauri (Merata Mita, 1988)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fox
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Indigenous Woman ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Force ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines Merata Mita’s Mauri, the first fiction feature film in the world to be solely written and directed by an indigenous woman, as an example of “Fourth Cinema” – that is, a form of filmmaking that aims to create, produce, and transmit the stories of indigenous people, and in their own image – showing how Mita presents the coming-of-age story of a Māori girl who grows into an understanding of the spiritual dimension of the relationship of her people to the natural world, and to the ancestors who have preceded them. The discussion demonstrates how the film adopts storytelling procedures that reflect a distinctively Māori view of time and are designed to signify the presence of the mauri (or life force) in the Māori world.

Roshdi Rashed

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 279-295
Author(s):  
Mohammed Aref
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Great Book ◽  
Mathematical Language ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Galileo Galilei ◽  
Elementary Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

This review essay introduces the work of the Egyptian scientific historian and philosopher Roshdi Rashed, a pioneer in the field of the history of Arab sciences. The article is based on the five volumes he originally wrote in French and later translated into Arabic, which were published by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies and which are now widely acclaimed as a unique effort to unveil the achievements of Arab scientists. The essay reviews this major work, which seems, like Plato’s Republic to have “No Entry for Those Who Have No Knowledge of Mathematics” written on its gate. If you force your way in, even with elementary knowledge of computation, a philosophy will unfold before your eyes, described by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei as “written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes—I mean the universe—but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.” The essay is a journey through this labyrinth where the history of world mathematics got lost and was chronicled by Rashed in five volumes translated from the French into Arabic. It took him fifteen years to complete.

Varieties of Understanding

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Normative Considerations ◽  
Shed Light

According to a long historical tradition, understanding comes in different varieties. In particular, it is said that understanding people has a different epistemic profile than understanding the natural world—it calls on different cognitive resources, for instance, and brings to bear distinctive normative considerations. Thus in order to understand people we might need to appreciate, or in some way sympathetically reconstruct, the reasons that led a person to act in a certain way. By comparison, when it comes to understanding natural events, like earthquakes or eclipses, no appreciation of reasons or acts of sympathetic reconstruction is arguably needed—mainly because there are no reasons on the scene to even be appreciated, and no perspectives to be sympathetically pieced together. In this volume some of the world’s leading philosophers, psychologists, and theologians shed light on the various ways in which we understand the world, pushing debates on this issue to new levels of sophistication and insight.

Fundamentality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Healey
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
High Energy Physics ◽  
Physical Property ◽  
Natural World ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Fundamental Physics ◽  
The World ◽  
Energy Physics

The metaphor that fundamental physics is concerned to say what the natural world is like at the deepest level may be cashed out in terms of entities, properties, or laws. The role of quantum field theories in the Standard Model of high-energy physics suggests that fundamental entities, properties, and laws are to be sought in these theories. But the contextual ontology proposed in Chapter 12 would support no unified compositional structure for the world; a quantum state assignment specifies no physical property distribution sufficient even to determine all physical facts; and quantum theory posits no fundamental laws of time evolution, whether deterministic or stochastic. Quantum theory has made a revolutionary contribution to fundamental physics because its principles have permitted tremendous unification of science through the successful application of models constructed in conformity to them: but these models do not say what the world is like at the deepest level.

Beyond Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Language Function ◽  
Natural Signs ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Information ◽  
Natural Ontology

This book weaves together themes from natural ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and information, areas of inquiry that have not recently been treated together. The sprawling topic is Kant’s how is knowledge possible? but viewed from a contemporary naturalist standpoint. The assumption is that we are evolved creatures that use cognition as a guide in dealing with the natural world, and that the natural world is roughly as natural science has tried to describe it. Very unlike Kant, then, we must begin with ontology, with a rough understanding of what the world is like prior to cognition, only later developing theories about the nature of cognition within that world and how it manages to reflect the rest of nature. And in trying to get from ontology to cognition we must traverse another non-Kantian domain: questions about the transmission of information both through natural signs and through purposeful signs including, especially, language. Novelties are the introduction of unitrackers and unicepts whose job is to recognize the same again as manifested through the jargon of experience, a direct reference theory for common nouns and other extensional terms, a naturalist sketch of uniceptual—roughly conceptual— development, a theory of natural information and of language function that shows how properly functioning language carries natural information, a novel description of the semantics/pragmatics distinction, a discussion of perception as translation from natural informational signs, new descriptions of indexicals and demonstratives and of intensional contexts and a new analysis of the reference of incomplete descriptions.

How is science to be carried forward, and its conclusions reported?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Briggs ◽  
Hans Halvorson ◽  
Andrew Steane
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Proof ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Component Part ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Intellectual Activity ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The World

The chapter appraises science as an intellectual activity that is appropriately carried out on its own terms. Consequently, it is not appropriate to introduce references to God as a component part of a mathematical proof, nor of a system of forces in the natural world, nor of a sequence of impersonal processes in the biosphere. This does not mean that it is inappropriate to be thankful to God and to celebrate all these aspects of the world as gifts. They can be employed as opportunities to express appreciation through studying and understanding them better in their own right. Nevertheless, there may be processes, such as those which shape a person’s self-identity, in which it is appropriate to recognize God’s more direct role. Good practice concerning acknowledgements sections in scientific publications such as doctoral theses and journal articles is then discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document