In this video Doina-Cristina Rusu exposes the content of the second week, which focuses on the scientific method. There will be three main focus points in this week. First, the …
Welcome back to the second week of the course! In the previous week you have learned about how certain terms used by Aristotle and his followers to describe nature were …
In this week, you have looked at the fate of the Aristotelian notions of matter and form. In particular, you have become acquainted with the role of forms in Aristotelian …
As you have seen, Butterfield claims that the seventeenth century saw the demise of Aristotelian natural philosophy. This claim, however, stands in need of some qualification. On the one hand, …
The findings of early microscopists such as Malpighi and Swammerdam were sometimes taken to support the preformationist theories of thinkers such as Malebranche. Here, we look in some more detail …
Many of the scientists and philosophers of the seventeenth century found it hard to see how animals could be generated from the mere sticking together of particles as guided by …