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Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) only began receiving sustained attention by historians of philosophy in recent decades, but she is being rapidly integrated into the early modern philosophical canon. This essay explores one dimension of teaching Cavendish that presents difficulties for introductory philosophy students: her criticisms of experimental philosophy. Section one explains how I integrate Cavendish into the narrative of my course, identifying both historical and thematic strategies for including her in introductory philosophy courses. Section two describes methods for teaching Cavendish's natural philosophy and identifies a pedagogical challenge to presenting her criticisms of experimental philosophy. In their first exposure to Cavendish, students may conclude that her writings are antiscientific. Section three explains how I addressed this pedagogical challenge by restructuring my course narrative around Cavendish's early poetry and recent debates concerning scientific realism. Ultimately, teaching Cavendish through the lens of scientific anti-realism makes it easier to integrate her writings into introductory philosophy courses while giving students tools for contextualizing her natural philosophy among historical and present-day scientific practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of Sensitive Witnesses by Kristin M. Girten by Peter West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the tension that existed between empiricism and the metaphysical underpinnings of Aristotelian natural philosophy in Spain during the sixteenth century. This tension was most apparent in the range of science practitioners described in this essay as "Doers" and "Thinkers." Using the figures of cosmographer Andrés García de Céspedes, architect Juan de Herrera, and theologians Benito Arias Montano and Francisco Suárez, this essay explains how they engaged with the limitations, but also the strengths of pre-Galilean natural philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the unity of Newton's worldview has a three-century-long history. Newton himself claimed that the creation of the «Principia» was motivated by theological considerations, and he believed that the figure of God the Almighty, acting in the world, was necessary for a correct doctrine of nature. However, his legacy was perceived in a different light; for example, J.-B. Biot believed that Newton's occupation with theology was the result of a decline in his mental powers. However, Biot did not have access to Sir Isaac's private theological manuscripts. 20th-century researchers gained access to them, and the trend changed, giving rise to the thesis that theology is an integral element of Newton’s thought, unifying it at the paradigmatical, conceptual, and methodological levels. However, this thesis has not been fully proven, as researchers have not fully understood the soteriological significance of theology—and, as a consequence, that Christian theology speaks not simply of God but of His relationship with man. If Newton’s thought is unified, and this unity is provided by theology, then it must be based on a certain understanding of the relationship between God and man. This raises the question of Newton's anthropology and the role it plays in his theology and natural philosophy. The reconstruction of Newton's anthropology shows that one of the cornerstones of his thought is the functional-relational understanding of the Image of God in man. Being understood in this way, the image implies the impossibility of any interiority in cognition and its limitation to the sphere of the phenomenal. Attempts to move along the interior path turn out to be idolatry for Newton, stemming from the uncontrolled ability of the imagination, which forces man to retreat from the divine will; one such retreat is the philosophical hypotheses arising from the same ability. A correctly constructed natural philosophy, according to Newton, turns out to be a form of religion since it has soteriological significance, clarifying the paths of salvation for mankind.

The article provides a review of the monograph Poetry in the digital age. In the artistic world of Valery Dudarev by M. A. Dudareva, D. A. Aripova and V. V. Nikitina (Moscow; St. Petersburg: Centre of Humanitarian Initiatives, 2024. – 116 p.). The researchers analyzed V. Dudarev’s poetics in cultural and philological aspects with an emphasis on the apophatic (transcendental, thanatological) properties of the organization of poetic texts. The book consists of an introduction, three collectively authored chapters, Natural Philosophy of Valery Dudarev, Dialogues with the Other, and Reverse Perspective, and a conclusion. Together they present an existing and eye-opening read on Russian poetry, with some poems analyzed through various lenses in several chapters of the book. The ontological and hermeneutic approach provided a deep insight into the worldview, and particularly the poetics of V. Dudarev. To answer the questions stated in the introduction, the authors developed a system of terms interdisciplinary in nature in order to describe the poetics both from rational and intuitive perspectives. Valery Dudarev is a great Russian poet, and his works reflect and preserve the Russian cultural code. One of the major topics and sources of inspiration for the poet was Russian countryside, represented through villages, gardens, country roads, wells, chapels, etc. In the first chapter, the authors of the monograph show their readers the semantic reserves of V. Dudarev’s natural philosophy, manifested in the inseparability of the natural and the sacred. Concepts such as earth, sky, water, fire, air, wood, and Motherland are the basis of Dudarev’s poems. Through the presence in the natural world, V. Dudarev’s lyrical hero establishes semantic connections at deep level and forms new types of interdependence between the phenomenal (contemplative) and the noumenal (cognizable). The second chapter reveals that the features of Valery Dudarev’s dialogical self are determined through an existential reading of plot and figurative-linguistic connections with Pushkin, Lermontov, Mandelstam, Samoilov and many other poets. As a result, the apophatic reserve of Russian poetry was shown on significant empirical material. In the third chapter, the apophatic reserve of the analog poetry of the pre-digital era was presented using the example of vast empirical material. The authors of the monograph draw attention to the risks associated with digital poetry, in which a metaphysical view of the world is lost. On reading Poetry in the Digital Age, one not only gets to know Valery Dudarev as a poet and thinker, but also develops curiosity to learn more about his works and Russian poetry in general.

The present paper addresses the way in which local conditions – geographical, biological or astrological – were believed to influence the general constitution of human nature from the viewpoint of natural philosophy. What were the material conditions that constituted the diversity between peoples and individuals? The focus of this paper is on the relation between climatic zones and the complexion of their inhabitants. This relation and the ensuing natural determinism are present in Albert the Great's De natura loci. While not being as specific as Albert in laying out the ethnographic specifics, Thomas Aquinas shared the general framework set out by his teacher that astrological and geographical conditions greatly affect the complexion of the inhabitants. In his unedited commentary on Aristotle's Parva naturalia , John Buridan sticks to the general Aristotelian paradigm, to which Albert and Thomas also adhered, but considers in greater detail the way climatic conditions affect the individual human complexion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'climate' has evolved from its original meaning as an astronomical and geographical reality to a contemporary vision in which it appears as an entity that can be changed and affected by human beings. Long before arriving at the current state of affairs, the thirteenth-century notion of clima was closely related to the influence exerted by the heavens and the supra-terrestrial realm on terrestrial bodies that underwent generation and corruption. It is in this particular sense that we may speak of climate determinism: involving the formative and non-accidental action upon natural beings by climatic or regional conditions that were determined from above. This paper explores Albert the Great's account of climatic determinism by relating the astronomical notion of clima with a pair of notions belonging to natural philosophy: locus and locatum. For this purpose, it will rely on the theory of natural places that Albert developed in De natura loci and in his other works of natural philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, critical theorists such as Amy Allen and Robert Nichols have aimed to "decolonize critical theory," by which they mean to make the tradition of critical theory less hostile to, and more compatible with, the ideas and movements of Indigenous peoples. In this article, however, I argue these efforts have failed to consider the relationship of two key elements of critical theory with Indigenous thought: that all normativity is generated immanently to historically and socially located struggle, and that normativity is negatively defined. These two elements, I argue, are not fully endorsed in the work of many Indigenous thinkers. By drawing on the work of a diverse group of contemporary Indigenous scholars, I show, first, that nature is generally a relevant normative category in Indigenous thinking in a way that is irreducible to historical location. Second, I argue that for many Native scholars, right action is not simply a matter of resisting colonialism. While resistance features heavily, of course, I suggest that Indigenous thinking often includes a substantive positive vision of living well that has not—as of yet—been considered by critical theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his first work, Kant discusses the possibility that more than one universe exists. Starting from the principle that substances have an essential force to act outside of themselves and that they are linked only in the exercise of this force, Kant concludes that the total set of substances linked to each other forms a universe. Nevertheless, it is perfectly possible that a substance exists with-out being linked to the substances of a certain universe, not being part of it, and that it is linked to other, alien substances, forming a separate universe with these. But the possibility of multiple universes requires that there be spaces of different natures or dimensionalities, so that such universes remain disconnected and are actually different universes and not distant parts of the same universe. This is because the nature of space depends on the kind of force with which the substances interact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives the results of a successful search to uncover new biographical details about Margaret Bryan, the English author of several textbooks intended to educate young women: A compendious system of astronomy (editions in 1797, 1799 and 1805), Lectures on natural philosophy (1806) and Astronomical and geographical class book for schools (1815). Among the hitherto unknown information collected from contemporary wills, parish records, civil records and newspapers in England are the names of her parents and other family members, the year and place of her baptism, the year and place of her marriage, the names of her husband and two daughters and a possible year and place of her death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Distinctio divisionis terrae et paradisi deliciarum (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 2687, ff. 12v–16v) is an anonymous treatise on the place of the earthly Paradise. An unknown author asks whether the earthly Paradise could be located in the land of the Antipodes and rejects this hypothesis. This article demonstrates two points. First, it attributes the Distinctio to the Franciscan friar Gerard Odonis (d. 1349). In fact, this text is a distinction of his commentary on the Sentences (book II, d. 20, qq. 1–2). Second, the article argues that Odonis's opinion on the location of Paradise is quite unusual, since he reverses the Aristotelian order of elementary spheres. Odonis places the earthly Paradise so high on a mountain that it is necessary to deny the existence of the sphere of fire. While explaining how the Flood did not inundate Paradise, he asserts that water is naturally lower than earth. The article provides the first critical edition of the Distinctio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the notion of the “sphere of action” (sphaera activitatis) as developed by a group of seventeenth-century Jesuit intellectuals: Hurtado, Arriaga, Oviedo, and Compton. The problem inherited from fourteenth-century natural philosophers was to describe natural action which is spatially limited and decreases with distance at a regular rate. To capture natural patterns, scholastic philosophers introduced various forms of regularity or “uniformity,” the relevant type for the present context being “uniform difformity.” While the scholastic tradition also defined more sophisticated forms of regularity, these were not part of the discussion in the analyzed corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most influential and controversial schools of 20th century Thomism—especially in North America—is the "River Forest School" or "River Forest Thomism". And one of the most influential and controversial theses associated with that school is the thesis that metaphysics cannot be established as a distinct and autonomous science unless one has already proven the existence of a positively immaterial being. The purpose of this paper is to show that River Forest Thomism cannot and should not be reduced to that controversial thesis. As such, rejection of the thesis cannot and should not constitute a rejection of the school. Indeed, as soon as we understand what River Forest Thomism was really about, it will become clear that all Thomists should be River Forest Thomists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twentieth-century historians of science emphasised the apparent connection between puritanism and experimental natural philosophy in mid-seventeenth-century England, but revisionist scholarship exposed the incorrect religious taxonomies undergirding this thesis. As both a staunch puritan and a well-connected figure in scientific networks, Ralph Austen provides an opportunity to re-examine the thesis. A horticulturalist, cider manufacturer and lay theologian based in Oxford from 1646 until his death in 1676, Austen was a friend and collaborator of Samuel Hartlib and Robert Boyle. He was also a pious puritan, steeped in Reformed divinity, and friends with premier Interregnum puritans, including John Owen. Austen's life and career demonstrate that Baconian aims to reform learning could happily go hand-in-hand with, and be inspired by, puritan ideals, though they hampered his reputation in post-Restoration natural-philosophical circles. At the same time, via Austen we learn that puritan theologians responded positively to Baconian ideas, something hitherto underrepresented in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swiss natural philosopher, physician, and radical reformer Theophrastus of Hohenheim (1493–1541), known as Paracelsus, endeavoured to reconcile his various perspectives in his extensive biblical exegeses. Symbolizing this effort were the two lights of nature and the Holy Spirit, which, on one hand, explored worldly and mortal aspects of nature and, on the other hand, led to eternal life. In response to the prevailing dispute between Luther and Zwingli over the interpretation of the Eucharist, Paracelsus developed his own viewpoint, introducing the concept of the new human with a renewed corporeal body. His comprehensive interpretations of the Gospel of Matthew not only addressed theology but also engaged with the perspectives of a natural philosopher, physician, and advocate of natural magic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historian Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) is most often treated by historians of philosophy as part of the story of political philosophy in the Islamic world. While this is perfectly legitimate, it may be misleading when it comes to the question of the method he proposes for the historian. This paper argues that that method is in fact based on a different branch of (Aristotelian) science: natural philosophy. After rendering this proposition initially plausible by noting frequent references to "nature" in the Muqaddima , the paper discusses a number of parallels between natural philosophy and history as Ibn Khaldūn conceives it. Ultimately it is suggested that this method is legitimated insofar as history is for Ibn Khaldūn a study of human nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While popularly known for his works of literature and poetry, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe viewed his lesser-known scientific pieces as his most enduring achievement. I will argue that Goethe's unique scientific methodology is informed by a metaphysical commitment to a form of Platonism and that Goethe provides an intriguing alternative paradigm that unifies science, philosophy, theology, and ethics. I begin by demonstrating how Goethe's concept of the Urphänomen offers a Platonic conception of natural beings. I then briefly outline how this alternative scientific approach ultimately derives from his Platonic commitments. Next, I demonstrate the ethical and spiritual implications of Goethean science, establishing that Goethe's approach bridges the divide between our scientific endeavors and spiritual formation. There is, then, a continued relevance for Goethe in conversations regarding ecological ethics and our perception of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the notion of the “sphere of action” (sphaera activitatis) as developed by a group of seventeenth-century Jesuit intellectuals: Hurtado, Arriaga, Oviedo, and Compton. The problem inherited from fourteenth-century natural philosophers was to describe natural action which is spatially limited and decreases with distance at a regular rate. To capture natural patterns, scholastic philosophers introduced various forms of regularity or “uniformity,” the relevant type for the present context being “uniform difformity.” While the scholastic tradition also defined more sophisticated forms of regularity, these were not part of the discussion in the analyzed corpus.

The Catena aurea entium of Henry of Herford is part of the work of re-elaboration of Aristotle’s natural-philosophical corpus, which characterised the European intellectual environment in the Late Middle Ages. In the central books of his encyclopaedia, Henry comments on the works of natural philosophy of Albert the Great, placing himself in continuity with the cultural project started by Albert in Cologne. The present article aims to compare the 5th book of the Catena aurea entium, which consists of a comment per modum quaestionis on the Meteora of Albert the Great, with some meteorological quaestiones composed between the 13th and 15th centuries. This analysis will lead me to grasp the philosophical orientations and interpretation of Henry and also his reception of Albert the Great’s meteorology. In the 5th book, Henry introduces an extensive medical section taken from the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata, in which he applies the Galenic medical principles to meteorology. Besides, in the quaestio 105 (V 1 105), he interprets Albert through the theological-poetic explanation of ancient origins on the sacrality of the number three and an excerpt from the Liber proverbiorum.

Spelled in several different ways, the word 'doubt', usually in the plural 'doubts' (dubbi, dubitazioni) appears on the frontispiece of several works printed in Venice and elsewhere in Italy in the sixteenth century. Building on different traditions, ranging from the pseudo‐Aristotelian Problemata to Medieval didactic literature, these texts, normally in the vernacular, address questions that the average reader may have on a variety of topics: from thermal baths to indulgences, from natural philosophy to duel. While usually the term 'doubt' means 'question', things can be sometimes less straightforward, especially when it comes to religious texts or works penned by unorthodox writers, as in the case of Ortensio Lando's Quattro libri di dubbi. This article will explore paratextual elements of works addressing doubts focusing on a variety of topics such as readership, definitions of doubt and its function, the role of these works in the dissemination of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at analyzing episodes of cannibalism which are featured in medieval chronicles of military encounters between Christians and Muslims from the eleventh to the early thirteenth century. My intention is to show that cannibalism had a twofold connotation which transcended the mere notion of taboo. On the one hand, anthropophagy represented an emergency solution to which crusaders resorted for the mere sake of survival. Rather than emphasizing the breaking of the taboo, however, European chronicles employed reports of cannibalism to dehumanize their Muslim enemies. On the other hand, anthropophagy was also associated with magical and medical practice. Primary sources suggest that both Christian and Muslims hoarded dead soldiers’ organs and body parts in order to obtain either moral (e.g., bravery) or physical (e.g., health, strength) benefits. Such practices are compared with remedies which are found in the Latin grimoire known as Picatrix, translated from the Arabic at the court of Alfonso X the Wise. By contextualizing historical sources within the anthropological debate on cannibalism, this contribution is meant to suggest that anthropophagic practices were considerably nuanced in the High and Late Middle Ages, well beyond the traditional Eurocentric binary interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the links between religion and experiences of nature requires language, and at the same time it moves beyond linguistic forms of communication. After a brief review of the linguistic paradigm in the study of religion, the question of linguistic understandings of nature is addressed from two perspectives. First, linguistic approaches attempt to include experiences of nature in our knowledge about the natural world and the human place within it; these perspectives usually extend linguistic knowledge to poetic expressions. Second, approaches that problematize the focus on linguistic communication altogether favor non-linguistic or semiotic interpretations of human communication with the more-than-human world. Making use of biosemiotics and other interdisciplinary research, an argument is made for radical entanglement and a scholarly strategy to coordinate the languages of life and to blend the different worlds and perspectives that we find on the planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712) devoted more than 10 years of his life to developing a science of plants and vegetation, a project in which observation (often at the microscopic level) and experimentation played a prominent role. Grew started by composing a natural history of plants that was concerned with their anatomical structure and functioning, but, as I suggest, he also aimed to use observations and experiments to develop an experimental science that investigated the causes and principles of vegetation. Apart from studying the structure of plants, Grew also treated them as instruments in which different chemical operations took place (such as filtration, digestion, fermentation, and the separation of particles of matter). At a methodological level, the science of plants and vegetation is a project based on experimental comparisons, variations, and extensions that, in some cases, led Grew to revise his explicative hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most famous passages in Galileo's Il Saggiatore is his declaration that "philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze". He opposed this book of nature with what he claimed was his opponent Orazio Grassi's understanding of philosophy -- "a book of fiction, productions in which the least important thing is whether what is written there is true". This paper seeks to situate this passage within the larger debate between Galileo and Grassi about the relationship between poetry and natural philosophy over the course of their publications regarding the comet controversy of 1618. During their back and forth, Galileo had claimed that "nature takes no delight in poetry", which Grassi had turned on him by alleging that he was too serious if he could not appreciate a poetic flourish in a learned debate such as theirs. This was a major insult given how central poetry and letters were to any early modern discourse. This paper argues that Galileo's "grand book" responded to this insult by both doubling down on his poetry-nature claim and illustrating that he was more familiar with poetry than Grassi. He accomplished both by referring to debates about epic poetry in late sixteenth-century Italy. This connection sheds new light on a passage that seemingly repudiates poetry, as well as contributing to scholarship that has sought to reevaluate the mathematician's engagement with the rich world of early modern Italian poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Posterior Analytics 1.13, Aristotle introduced a distinction between two kinds of demonstrations: of the fact (quia), and of the reasoned fact (propter quid). Both demonstrations take a syllogistic form, in which the middle term links either two facts (in the case of quia demonstrations) or a proximate cause and a fact (in the case of propter quid demonstrations). While Aristotle stated that all the terms of one demonstration must be taken from within the same subject matter, he admitted some exceptions in which the fact and the reasoned fact are instantiated by terms from different sciences, as when mathematics provides the reason and another science the empirical fact. This was the methodological foundation of the “mixed sciences”, a subject of varying interpretations in the thirteenth century. Roger Bacon (C. 1220–1292), adhering to Robert Grosseteste’s (C. 1168–1563) commentary on Posterior Analytics, presented a unique interpretation of this exception. He replaced propositional demonstrations with geometrical considerations and diagrams, thus producing geometrical arguments for theorems in natural philosophy. I focus on Bacon’s propter quid arguments, as applied in three case studies: (1) the heat caused by a body moving to its natural place; (2) the motion of the scale; (3) and the contraction of water. Based on an analysis of these demonstrations, I argue that Bacon’s interpretation of propter quid demonstration reflects his application of a scientific methodology that imbues geometrical objects with causal power over material bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the problem of the thesis of dependence between political philosophy and natural philosophy in Hobbes's thought, presenting some arguments that show the difficulty of conceiving political theses as being derived solely from the fundamental premises of the movement. The text begins by addressing the problem of the relationship between natural philosophy and civil philosophy in order to indicate elements to support the questioning of the thesis of unity between the parts of philosophy. Next, we analyze the concepts of law, obligation and authority in order to show that Hobbes' political philosophy incorporates other elements that are not derived from physics, but, in this specific case, from the legal tradition. Finally, we will show a specifically negative sense of the influence of natural philosophy on politics, namely, the fight against demands for political power by the clergy that will be structured around the interdiction of the possibility of the doctrines of essences separated from scholasticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]