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Volume I : Studies in the Philosophy of Abu'l- Barakāt al-Baghdādī, deals with various aspects of the philosophy of Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdadi. Some of Avicenna's physical and psychological doctrines are also discussed.

This book is the second of a three-volume set introducing the history of scientific thought (including social and human science) and covers the Latin Middle Ages, the Renaissance period, and the 17th century. Combining general descriptions with extensive excerpts from original sources in English translation, it concentrates on ways of thinking and actual argumentation and not just on results and mistakes; questions of validity are primarily dealt with in the perspective of the time of the writing, not on that of the 21st century. The work is of great interest to historians of science and culture, students as well as seasoned workers – but also for amateurs willing to invest the necessary serious efforts.

This book contributes to a worldwide history of textual criticism and critical editions of ancient scientific texts. It first looks at ancient editorial practices, and at their impact on modern editions. Contributions analyze how, through time, the perception of what a text was may have changed, and influenced how scholarly texts were made accessible. The second section looks at the historical, political and social contexts within which editions and translations of ancient scientific texts were produced. Finally, the last two parts examine the specificities of editions and translations that bore on scholarly documents. Not only is there a focus on how the elements specific to scientific texts—such as diagrams and numbers—were treated, but case studies analyzing the specific work carried out to edit mathematical and astronomical texts of the past are also offered to the reader. The scholarship displayed in this work lays the foundation for further studies on the history of critical editions and raises questions to those who make scholarly translations and critical editions today.

R. Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides, 1288-1344) is one of the greatest and most original figures of Medieval Jewish thought. He wrote numerous works in philosophy, science and biblical exegesis. Some of his scientific works, most notably his highly innovative Astronomy, were translated from Hebrew into Latin and could thus reach non-Jewish scholars.The twelve studies collected in this bilingual volume (English and French in equal parts) offer for the first time a comprehensive overview and assessment of Gersonides'work in astronomy, mathematics, logic, natural science, and psychology.Gersonides'contributions are analyzed within the context of contemporary philosophy and science in Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin. New light is also shed on the reception of Gersonides'work within European science.The volume includes a very extensive bibliography of writings by and about Gersonides.From the contents:Part I: Gersonides'Astronomy: Bernard R. Goldstein, José Luis Mancha, José Chabas, Henri Hugonnard-Roche, Guy Beaujouan.Part II: Gersonides'Work in Mathematics: Tony Lévy, Karine Chemla, Serge Pahaut.Part III: Gersonides'Science in Its Relations to His Philosophy and Theology: Herbert A. Davidson, Tzvi Y. Langermann, Charles H. Manekin, Amos Funkenstein, Gad Freudenthal.

“As Zadeh concludes, reformers and modernists have closed the rich and varied archive revealed in Wonders and Rarities…In this beautifully written and engaging text, Zadeh takes his readers back to the world of surprise and enchantment that preceded this closure.”—Malise Ruthven, Financial Times“The wonders and curiosities of the Islamic imagination await discovery by a new generation of readers in this superb and very enjoyable book by Travis Zadeh.”—Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe astonishing biography of one of the world's most influential books.During the thirteenth century, the Persian naturalist and judge Zakariyyāʾ Qazwīnī authored what became one of the most influential works of natural history in the world: Wonders and Rarities. Exploring the dazzling movements of the stars above, the strange minutiae of the minerals beneath the earth, and everything in between, Qazwīnī offered a captivating account of the cosmos. With fine paintings and leading science, Wonders and Rarities inspired generations as it traveled through madrasas and courts, unveiling the magical powers of nature. Yet after circulating for centuries, first in Arabic and Persian, then in Turkish and Urdu, Qazwīnī's compendium eventually came to stand as a strange, if beautiful, emblem of medieval ignorance.Restoring Qazwīnī to his place as a herald of the rare and astonishing, Travis Zadeh dramatically revises the place of wonder in the history of Islamic philosophy, science, and literature. From the Mongol conquests to the rise of European imperialism and Islamic reform, Zadeh shows, wonder provided an enduring way to conceive of the world—at once constituting an affective reaction, an aesthetic stance, a performance of piety, and a cognitive state. Yet through the course of colonial modernity, Qazwīnī's universe of marvels helped advance the notion that Muslims lived in a timeless world of superstition and enchantment, unaware of the western hemisphere or the earth's rotation around the sun.Recovering Qazwīnī's ideas and his reception, Zadeh invites us into a forgotten world of thought, where wonder mastered the senses through the power of reason and the pleasure of contemplation.

This volume deals with corpuscular matter theory that was to emerge as the dominant model in the seventeenth century. By retracing atomist and corpuscularian ideas to a variety of mutually independent medieval and Renaissance sources in natural philosophy, medicine, alchemy, mathematics, and theology, this volume shows the debt of early modern matter theory to previous traditions and thereby explains its bewildering heterogeneity.The book assembles nineteen carefully selected contributions by some of the most notable historians of medieval and early modern philosophy and science.All chapters present new research results and will therefore be of interest to historians of philosophy, science, and medicine between 1150 and 1750.

Aristotelian philosophy is generally regarded as incompatible with the mathematical methods and principles that form the basis of modern science. This book offers an entirely new perspective on this presumed incompatibility. It surveys the tradition of the Oxford Calculators from its beginnings in the fourteenth century until Leibniz and the philosophy of the seventeenth century and explores how the Calculators'techniques of quantification expanded the conceptual and methodological limits of Aristotelianism. In the process, it examines a large number of authors, some of them never studied in this context. Exploring the relationship between various late medieval disciplines, the book sheds new light on the problem of continuity vs. discontinuity between scholasticism and modern science. Beyond its historiographical purpose, this book also hopes to be a source of inspiration for present-day philosophers of science.

The Latin Middle Ages were characterised by a vast array of different representations of nature. These conceptualisations of the natural world were developed according to the specific requirements of many different disciplines, with the consequent result of producing a fragmentation of images of nature. Despite this plurality, two main tendencies emerged. On the one hand, the natural world was seen as a reflection of God's perfection, teleologically ordered and structurally harmonious. On the other, it was also considered as a degraded version of the spiritual realm – a world of impeccable ideas, separate substances, and celestial movers. This book focuses on this tension between order and randomness, and idealisation and reality of nature in the Middle Ages. It provides a cutting-edge profile of the doctrinal and semantic richness of the medieval idea of nature, and also illustrates the structural interconnection among learned and scientific disciplines in the medieval period, stressing the fundamental bond linking together science and philosophy, on the one hand, and philosophy and theology, on the other.This book will appeal to scholars and students alike interested in Medieval European History, Theology, Philosophy, and Science.

The Philosophy and Science of Roger Bacon offers new insights and research perspectives on one of the most intriguing characters of the Middle Ages, Roger Bacon. At the intersections between science and philosophy, the volume analyses central aspects of Bacon's reflections on how nature and society can be perfected. The volume dives into the intertwining of Bacon's philosophical stances on nature, substantial change, and hylomorphism with his scientific discussion of music, alchemy, and medicine. The Philosophy and Science of Roger Bacon also investigates Bacon's projects of education reform and his epistemological and theological ground maintaining that humans and God are bound by wisdom, and therefore science. Finally, the volume examines how Bacon's doctrines are related to a wider historical context, particularly in consideration of Peter John Olivi, John Pecham, Peter of Ireland, and Robert Grosseteste. The Philosophy and Science of Roger Bacon is a crucial tool for scholars and students working in the history of philosophy and science and also for a broader audience interested in Roger Bacon and his long-lasting contribution to the history of ideas.

This volume deals with the philosophy and thought of Roger Bacon. It is an effort to bring Roger Bacon studies up to date. Attention is given to a wide range of topics: Bacon's life and works, Bacon's contribution to the trivium (language studies) and the quadrivium (scientific-mathematical studies), his notion of a science, his moral philosophy, Bacon's contribution to medicine, alchemy, astrology, Bacon's positions in physics and metaphysics, an up dated bibliography of Bacon studies and a review of the state of Bacon Manuscripts.The volume situates Roger Bacon in the context of 13th century philosophy and thought, as well as demonstrating his importance for later thinkers.It is expected that it will be a major new contribution to Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

In the first centuries of Islam, Arabic gradually replaced Middle Persian to become the language of the new religion and the administration of Iran. Works in Middle Persian were translated into Arabic and Persian authors also started writing directly in Arabic. From the fifth/eleventh century onward, there arose a need for works in New Persian, either translated from Arabic or composed in New Persian straightaway. The work published in this volume is a product of that period. Not much is known about the life of its author, Shahmardān b. Abi ʼl-Khayr. A resident of Gurgān and Astarābād, he was a scholar who also worked as a secretary and financial officer. In astronomy, he was a student of Abu ʼl-Ḥasan Nasawī (fl. 2nd quart. 5th/11th cent.). Shahmardān's work is an accessible, popularized compilation of the works of others, among them Abū Maʿshar (d. 272/886), Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. late 4th/10th cent.), and Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048).

The unifying theme in this second volume of essays by William A. Wallace to be published in the Variorum series is signaled in the title of the opening paper:'Domingo de Soto and the Iberian roots of Galileo's science'. The seven essays in the first part provide textual studies of Soto's early formulations of the laws of falling bodies, the context in which they were developed in the 16th century, and the ways in which they were transmitted in Spain and Portugal to the early 17th century, mainly by Jesuit scholars. The following essays focus on the young Galileo and his work at Pisa and Padua, leading to his discovery of the law of uniform acceleration in free fall. Textual evidence is presented for an indirect influence of Soto's work on Galileo, mediated by Jesuits who were teaching at Padua in the first decade of the 17th century.

The essays contained in this volume illustrate the work of Fr. James A. Weisheipl, whose writing and teaching have resulted in important additions to our understanding of nature and motion.

Gregor Reisch's The Philosophical pearl (Margarita Philosophica), first published in 1503 and republished 11 times in the sixteenth century, was the first extensive printed text which discussed the disciplines taught at university to achieve widespread dissemination. This distinguishes it from printed editions of individual texts of Aristotle and other authorities. It is presented as a dialogue between master and pupil, covering the seven liberal arts, natural philosophy and moral philosophy, and with illustrations throughout. It has received remarkably little attention in its own right as a work of education which helped shape the world view of sixteenth-century educated men. Its author was a Carthusian monk. This volume presents an edited translation and an extensive introduction, of the four books which deal with natural philosophy - the predecessor of modern science. These books clearly show the extent to which for Reisch the study of nature was still primarily undertaken for Christian ends. Not only was nature studied as God's creation, but the study of the soul (a central part of natural philosophy pursued on Aristotelian lines) and its fate was here completely integrated with the salvation or damnation of the individual Christian, as taught in the Bible and by the church fathers, especially Augustine. Natural philosophy for Reisch was a discipline which was as concerned with God and the Bible as it was with Nature and Aristotle.

Long before the European Enlightenment, scholars and researchers working from Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan to Cordoba in Spain advanced our knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine and philosophy. From Musa al-Khwarizmi who developed algebra in 9th century Baghdad to al-Jazari, a 13th-century Turkish engineer whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft and the reciprocating piston, Ehsan Masood tells the amazing story of one of history's most misunderstood yet rich and fertile periods in science, via the scholars, research, and science of the Islamic empires of the middle ages.

Se trata de un ensayo que aborda las nociones cosmológicas y el estado que guardaba la física desde la caída del Imperio romano hasta el año 1500. El propósito del autor es proporcionar al lector interesado en los principales temas de la historia del desarrollo de las ideas científicas un panorama conciso y comprensivo.

Translated into English for the first time, the writings of the twentieth-century scholar Annelise Maier on late medieval natural philosophy are here made accessible to a broader audience. The seven selections represent both Maier's earlier and later works. Her perceptions as a trained philosopher, coupled with her familiarity with the full range of primary source material, result in these rare insights into the historical importance of medieval science.

Villard's Legacy is in memory of the celebrated iconoclastic historian, Jean Gimpel, and represents a fundamental contribution to the new AVISTA series with Ashgate Publishing. AVISTA was the brainchild of Gimpel, a genius at making the right people meet to advance knowledge through a confluence of ideas drawn equally from the practical and scholarly domains. Sixteen papers and a tribute to Gimpel underscore this confluence of technology, science and art within medieval culture. Appropriately, six papers offer new interpretations on aspects of Villard de Honnecourt's portfolio, which Gimpel rightly recognized and promoted as a unique and precious record of pre-modern technology and culture. This thirteenth-century manuscript is now known to a wider public as the earliest testimony left by a master builder in Gothic Europe. Of particular significance, for the first time in eight centuries, a Compagnon du Devoir, initiated in the same oral tradition as Villard, opens the door to interpreting these remarkable drawings. Three papers address previously ignored aspects in the construction of French and English Gothic churches, from the engineering of aerodynamic spires, to the elastic materials of vault webbing, to the social conventions of formal design. Three other contributors treat essential elements of a broader technological culture, such as the horse harness and the minting of coins, as well as the applicability of medieval technology to the modern world, in particular third world countries, a project pioneered by Gimpel. Four papers conclude the volume by treating the sciences of measure and their cultural expression in medieval Europe, embracing both the concepts of space and time, geometry as a mathematical discipline, and the graphic expression of scientific data. These interdisciplinary studies are comprehensive in chronological and geographic range, extending from the 8th to 15th centuries, from Ireland across Europe.

Images in medieval and early modern treatises on medicine, pharmacy, and natural history often confound our expectations about the functions of medical and scientific illustrations. They do not look very much like the things they purport to portray; and their actual usefulness in everyday medical practice or teaching is not obvious. By looking at works as diverse as herbals, jewellery, surgery manuals, lay health guides, cinquecento paintings, manuscripts of Pliny's Natural History, and Leonardo's notebooks, Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550 addresses fundamental questions about the interplay of art and science from the thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth century: What counts as a medical illustration in the Middle Ages? What are the purposes and audiences of the illustrations in medieval medical, pharmaceutical, and natural history texts? How are images used to clarify, expand, authenticate, and replace these texts? How do images of natural objects, observed phenomena, and theoretical concepts amplify texts and convey complex cultural attitudes? What features lead us to regard some of these images as typically'medieval'while other exactly contemporary images strike us as'Renaissance'or'early modern'in character? Art historians, medical historians, historians of science, and specialists in manuscripts and early printed books will welcome this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary examination of the role of visualization in early scientific inquiry.

The European'dark ages'in the millennium 500 to 1500 CE was a bright age of scientific achievements in China, India and the Middle East. The contributors to this volume address the implications of this seminal era of Asian science for comparative and connective science studies. Although such studies have generally adopted a binary perspective focusing on one or another of the Asian (Chinese, Indian, Islamic) civilizations, this study brings them together into a single volume within a wider Eurasian perspective. Moreover, by drawing together historical, philosophical, and sociological dimensions into one volume it promotes a richer understanding of how Eurasian connections and comparisons in the millennium preceding the modern era can illuminate the birth and growth of modern science. Contributors are Arun Bala, Andrew Brennan, James Robert Brown, George Gheverghese Joseph, Henrik Lagerlund, Norva Y.S. Lo, Roddam Narasimha, Hyunhee Park, Franklin Thomas Perkins, Hans Pols, Kapil Raj, Sundar Sarukkai, Mohd. Hazim Shah, Geir Sigurðsson and Cecilia Wee.

The opposition of science and religion is a recent phenomenon; in the middle ages, and indeed until the middle of the nineteenth century, there was almost no conflict. In the Middle Ages the objective study of nature - the activity we now call science - was largely the province of religious men. This book looks at the origins of western science and the central role played by the Dominican and Franciscan friars. It explains why these two groups devoted so much intellectual effort to the study of physical and biological phenomena, and distinguishes'Natural Philosophy'from'science'as presently understood. Though the friars were recognisably'scientific'in their approach their motives were religious - they wished to understand the mind of God and the beauty of God's nature. Even so, as this study makes clear, the roots of western science lie in the monasteries and refuges of the medieval friars - the direct forebears of the anti-scientific Popes of the age of Copernicus and Galileo.

Sowohl die Prägung unserer Kultur als einer Wissenschaftskultur als auch die Einsicht, dass eine umfassende Weltdeutung einer Vielzahl wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen und unterschiedlicher Methoden bedarf, sind Ergebnisse der mittelalterlichen Auseinandersetzung einer auf Offenbarung beruhenden religiösen Weltsicht mit einer paganen Weltdeutung. Die damit verbundene Herausforderung begegnet dem lateinisch sprachigen christlichen Mittelalter in Gestalt der antiken Philosophie und ihrer arabischen und hebräischen Interpretationen. Albertus Magnus (etwa 1200–1280) hat diese Aus­einandersetzung, die ihren Höhepunkt im 13. Jahrhundert hat, wie kaum ein anderer Denker mit bestimmt. Sein wissenschaftliches Lebenswerk umfasst das ganze Spektrum der Philosophie, der Naturwissenschaft, der systematischen wie der biblischen Theologie. Darin berücksichtigt Albert neben den biblischen und patristischen ebenso aristotelische und neu platonische Quellen, die er mit einem beispiellosen Zugriff, vervollständigt durch eigenständige Schriften, in einem geordneten System der Wissenschaften vereinigt. Dieser Band bietet erstmalig eine umfangreiche Zusammenstellung der einschlägigen wissenschaftstheoretischen Texte Alberts des Großen in einer lateinisch-deutschen Übersetzung.

The Mystical Science of the Soul explores the unexamined influence of medieval discourses of science and spirituality on recogimiento, the unique Spanish genre of recollection mysticism that served as the driving force behind the principal developments in Golden Age mysticism. Building on recent research in medieval optics, physiology, and memory in relation to the devotional practices of the late Middle Ages, Jessica A. Boon probes the implications of an ‘embodied soul'for the intellectual history of Spanish mysticism.Boon proposes a fundamental rereading of the key recogimiento text Subida del Monte Sión (1535/1538), which melds the traditionally distinct spiritual techniques of moral self-examination, Passion meditation, and negative theology into one cognitively adept path towards mystical union. She is also the first English-language scholar to treat the author of this influential work – the Renaissance physician Bernardino de Laredo, a pivotal figure in the transition from medieval to early modern spirituality on the Iberian peninsula and a source for Teresa of Avila's mystical language.

How science in medieval Europe originated in Buddhist AsiaWarriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science. We know that the foundations of science were imported to Western Europe from the Islamic world, but until now the origins of such key elements of Islamic culture have been a mystery.In this provocative book, Christopher I. Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosophers—most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers—and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Da'ud and others. During the same period the institution of the college was also borrowed from the Islamic world. The college was where most of the disputations were held, and became the most important component of medieval Europe's newly formed universities. As Beckwith demonstrates, the Islamic college also originated in Buddhist Central Asia.Using in-depth analysis of ancient Buddhist, Classical Arabic, and Medieval Latin writings, Warriors of the Cloisters transforms our understanding of the origins of medieval scientific culture.

This volume provides a unique primary source on the history and philosophy of mathematics and science from the mediaeval Arab world. The fourth volume of A History of Arabic Sciences and Mathematics is complemented by three preceding volumes which focused on infinitesimal determinations and other chapters of classical mathematics.This book includes five main works of the polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on astronomy, spherical geometry and trigonometry, plane trigonometry and studies of astronomical instruments on hour lines, horizontal sundials and compasses for great circles.In particular, volume four examines: the increasing tendency to mathematize the inherited astronomy from Greek sources, namely Ptolemy's Almagest; the development of celestial kinematics; new research in spherical geometry and trigonometry required by the new kinematical theory; the study on astronomical instruments and its impact on mathematical research. These new historical materials and their mathematical and historical commentaries contribute to rewriting the history of mathematical astronomy and mathematics from the 11th century on. Including extensive commentary from one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject, this fundamental text is essential reading for historians and mathematicians at the most advanced levels of research.

A myth-shattering view of the Islamic world's myriad scientific innovations and the role they played in sparking the European Renaissance. Many of the innovations that we think of as hallmarks of Western science had their roots in the Arab world of the middle ages, a period when much of Western Christendom lay in intellectual darkness. Jim al- Khalili, a leading British-Iraqi physicist, resurrects this lost chapter of history, and given current East-West tensions, his book could not be timelier. With transporting detail, al-Khalili places readers in the hothouses of the Arabic Enlightenment, shows how they led to Europe's cultural awakening, and poses the question: Why did the Islamic world enter its own dark age after such a dazzling flowering?

Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures provides the first comprehensive overview by world-renowned experts of what we know today of medieval Jews'engagement with the sciences. Many medieval Jews, whether living in Islamic or Christian civilizations, joined Maimonides in accepting the rationalist philosophical-scientific tradition and appropriated extensive bodies of scientific knowledge in various disciplines: astronomy, astrology, mathematics, logic, physics, meteorology, biology, psychology, science of language and medicine. The appropriated texts – in the original or in Hebrew translation – were the starting points for Jews'own contributions to medieval science and also informed other literary genres: religious-philosophical works, biblical commentaries and even Halakhic (legal) discussions. This volume's essays will provide readers with background knowledge of medieval scientific thought necessary to properly understand canonical Jewish scientific texts. Its breadth reflects the number and diversity of Jewish cultures in the Middle Ages and the necessity of considering the fortunes of science in each within its specific context.

The Not-So-Dark Dark AgesWhat they forgot to teach you in school:People in the Middle Ages did not think the world was flatThe Inquisition never executed anyone because of their scientific ideologiesIt was medieval scientific discoveries, including various methods, that made possible Western civilization's “Scientific Revolution”As a physicist and historian of science James Hannam debunks myths of the Middle Ages in his brilliant book The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. Without the medieval scholars, there would be no modern science.Discover the Dark Ages and their inventions, research methods, and what conclusions they actually made about the shape of the world.

In this unique insight into the history and philosophy of mathematics and science in the mediaeval Arab world, the eminent scholar Roshdi Rashed illuminates the various historical, textual and epistemic threads that underpinned the history of Arabic mathematical and scientific knowledge up to the seventeenth century. The first of five wide-ranging and comprehensive volumes, this book provides a detailed exploration of Arabic mathematics and sciences in the ninth and tenth centuries.Extensive and detailed analyses and annotations support a number of key Arabic texts, which are translated here into English for the first time. In this volume Rashed focuses on the traditions of celebrated polymaths from the ninth and tenth centuries ‘School of Baghdad'- such as the Banū Mūsā, Thābit ibn Qurra, Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān, Abū Ja´far al-Khāzin, Abū Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustām al-Qūhī - and eleventh-century Andalusian mathematicians like Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Samh, and al-Mu'taman ibn Hūd. The Archimedean-Apollonian traditions of these polymaths are thematically explored to illustrate the historical and epistemological development of ‘infinitesimal mathematics'as it became more clearly articulated in the eleventh-century influential legacy of al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (‘Alhazen'). Contributing to a more informed and balanced understanding of the internal currents of the history of mathematics and the exact sciences in Islam, and of its adaptive interpretation and assimilation in the European context, this fundamental text will appeal to historians of ideas, epistemologists, mathematicians at the most advanced levels of research.

This study analyzes the readership of a work commonly known as a Speculum astronomiae from the time of its production in the mid-thirteenth century to the point when it lapsed from learned discourse to in the late fifteenth century.

During the Golden Age of Islam (seventh through seventeenth centuries A.D.), Muslim philosophers and poets, artists and scientists, princes and laborers created a unique culture that has influenced societies on every continent. This book offers a fully illustrated, highly accessible introduction to an important aspect of that culture—the scientific achievements of medieval Islam. Howard Turner opens with a historical overview of the spread of Islamic civilization from the Arabian peninsula eastward to India and westward across northern Africa into Spain. He describes how a passion for knowledge led the Muslims during their centuries of empire-building to assimilate and expand the scientific knowledge of older cultures, including those of Greece, India, and China. He explores medieval Islamic accomplishments in cosmology, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, medicine, natural sciences, alchemy, and optics. He also indicates the ways in which Muslim scientific achievement influenced the advance of science in the Western world from the Renaissance to the modern era. This survey of historic Muslim scientific achievements offers students and general readers a window into one of the world's great cultures, one which is experiencing a remarkable resurgence as a religious, political, and social force in our own time.

A new and comprehensive edition and translation of a key Anglo-Saxon textDe temporibus anni, a concise handbook of calendar and computus, astronomy and natural science, dates from the late tenth century. It seems to have circulated anonymously, but analysis of its language and content shows it to be by Ælfric, one of the most prolific and widely-studied authors of Anglo-Saxon England. Unlike the earlier works of Bede and Isidore, it is written in the vernacular (despite its Latin title), possibly the earliest such work in a vernacular language in western Europe. This new edition incorporates the fruits of modern research into the scientific and religious background to the work, as well as the findings of recent studies on palaeography and textual criticism. It is also the most comprehensive edition yet produced, including notes, glossary and bibliography, and the first modern English translation (presented en face) for some 140 years. By means of these, and the inclusion of a detailed introduction and commentary, it renders the work more accessible both to those interested in the history of science and to students of Anglo-Saxon language and literature. Dr MARTIN BLAKE works with medieval manuscripts in the Department of Manuscripts and University Archives at Cambridge University Library.

Abu Raihan Biruni (973-1053 CE) was an Iranian scholar whose extraordinary achievements include predicting the existence of landmasses (North and South America) on the opposite side of the Earth and calculating the radius of the Earth five centuries before the European Renaissance. In Brilliant Biruni, Mohammad S. Kamiar presents the life of one of the greatest scholars in the history of the world: the story of a boy who became Biruni. From his boyhood home in the Village of Vasemereed to his final resting place in the city of Ghazna, Afghanistan, Brilliant Biruni: The Story of Abu Rayhan Mohammad Ibn Ahmad documents and describes the life story of this important geographer, prolific author, and groundbreaking scientist who brightened the dark skies of the Middle Ages. Written in accessible language and free of jargon, this biography sheds light on the neglected but influential scholar, giving Biruni the recognition he deserves.

Spike Bucklow sets out to unravel the myths behind the pigments, like dragonsblood, which is said to be a mixture of elephant and dragon blood. Examining both the medieval palette and the often cloak-and-dagger science that created it, he uncovers the secret recipes behind the luxurious colours we are familiar with today. Driven by an overriding passion for art, Spike Bucklow's aim is to restore value to colour.

From Musa al-Khwarizmi who developed algebra in 9th century Baghdad to al-Jazari, a 13th-century Turkish engineer whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft and the reciprocating piston, Science and Islam tells the story of one of history's most misunderstood yet rich and fertile periods in science: the extraordinary Islamic scientific revolution between 700 and 1400 CE.

This is a powerful and a thrilling narrative history revealing the roots of modern science in the medieval world. The adjective'medieval'has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In'God's Philosophers', James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus'prove'that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero.'God's Philosophers'is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history,'God's Philosophers'brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

The studies in this volume present early science in its rich and divergent complexity. Many historians of the Scientific Revolution have used early modern scholasticism to represent pre-seventeenth century science as a whole, but a close look at ancient, medieval, and even early modern scientific writers shows that before the Scientific Revolution - and not only in Europe - there were many and diverse traditions of interpreting the natural world. This book provides a broad range of historical evidence concerning early science, which may be used as a basis for new and more complex historical interpretations.Originally published as Volume XIV, Nos. 1-3 (2009) of Brill's journal Early Science and Medicine.

Ruth Glasner presents an illuminating reappraisal of Averroes'physics. Glasner is the first scholar to base her interpretation on the full range of Averroes'writings, including texts that are extant only in Hebrew manuscripts and have not been hitherto studied. She reveals that Averroes changed his interpretation of the basic notions of physics - the structure of corporeal reality and the definition of motion - more than once. After many hesitations he offers a bold new interpretation of physics which Glasner calls'Aristotelian atomism'. Ideas that are usually ascribed to scholastic scholars, and others that were traced back to Averroes but only in a very general form, are shown not only to have originated with him, but to have been fully developed by him into a comprehensive and systematic physical system. Unlike earlier Greek or Muslim atomistic systems, Averroes'Aristotelian atomism endeavours to be fully scientific, by Aristotelian standards, and still to provide a basis for an indeterministic natural philosophy. Commonly known as'the commentator'and usually considered to be a faithful follower of Aristotle, Averroes is revealed in his commentaries on the Physics to be an original and sophisticated philosopher.

Reduced Price!Now only € 15,00 instead of € 65,00Medieval translators played an important role in the development and evolution of a scientific lexicon. At a time when most scholars deferred to authority, the translations of canonical texts assumed great importance. Moreover, translation occurred at two levels in the Middle Ages. First, Greek or Arabic texts were translated into the learned language, Latin. Second, Latin texts became source-texts themselves, to be translated into the vernaculars as their importance across Europe started to increase. The situation of the respective translators at these two levels was fundamentally different: whereas the former could rely on a long tradition of scientific discourse, the latter had the enormous responsibility of actually developing a scientific vocabulary. The contributions in the present volume investigate both levels, greatly illuminating the emergence of the scientific terminology and concepts that became so fundamental in early modern intellectual discourse. The scientific disciplines covered in the book include, among others, medicine, biology, astronomy, and physics.

From the national bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization—a fascinating look at how medieval thinkers created the origins of modern intellectual movements.“Intoxicating.... Cahill's command of rich historical detail makes medieval cities and their colorful characters come to alive.” —The Los Angeles Times After the long period of decline known as the Dark Ages, medieval Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today, from the entry of women into professions that had long been closed to them to the early investigations into alchemy that would form the basis of experimental science. On visits to the great cities of Europe-monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable Florence of Dante and Giotto-acclaimed historian Thomas Cahill brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation, the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations for the modern world.

Modern mechanics was forged in the seventeenth century from materials inherited from Antiquity and transformed in the period from the Middle Ages through to the sixteenth century. These materials were transmitted through a number of textual traditions and within several disciplines and practices, including ancient and medieval natural philosophy, statics, the theory and design of machines, and mathematics. This volume deals with a variety of moments in the history of mechanics when conflicts arose within one textual tradition, between different traditions, or between textual traditions and the wider world of practice. Its purpose is to show how the accommodations sometimes made in the course of these conflicts ultimately contributed to the emergence of modern mechanics. The first part of the volume is concerned with ancient mechanics and its transformations in the Middle Ages; the second part with the reappropriation of ancient mechanics and especially with the reception of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanica in the Renaissance; and the third and final part, with early-modern mechanics in specific social, national, and institutional contexts.

Notions of nature and art as they have been defined and redefined in Western culture, from the Hippocratic writers and Aristotle of Ancient Greece to nineteenth-century chemistry and twenty-first century biomimetics.Genetically modified food, art in the form of a phosphorescent rabbit implanted with jellyfish DNA, and robots that simulate human emotion would seem to be evidence for the blurring boundary between the natural and the artificial. Yet because the deeply rooted concept of nature functions as a cultural value, a social norm, and a moral authority, we cannot simply dismiss the distinction between art and nature as a nostalgic relic. Disentangling the cultural roots of many current debates about new technologies, the essays in this volume examine notions of nature and art as they have been defined and redefined in Western culture, from the Hippocratic writers'ideas of physis and techne and Aristotle's designation of mimetic arts to nineteenth-century chemistry and twenty-first century biomimetics. These essays—by specialists of different periods and various disciplines—reveal that the division between nature and art has been continually challenged and reassessed in Western thought. In antiquity, for example, mechanical devices were seen as working “against nature”; centuries later, Descartes not only claimed the opposite but argued that nature itself was mechanical. Nature and art, the essays show, are mutually constructed, defining and redefining themselves, partners in a continuous dance over the centuries.ContributorsBernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Horst Bredekamp, John Hedley Brooke, Dennis Des Chene, Alan Gabbey, Anthony Grafton, Roald Hoffmann, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, William R. Newman, Jessica Riskin, Heinrich Von Staden, Francis Wolff, Mark J. Schiefsky

The rise and fall of the Islamic scientific tradition, and the relationship of Islamic science to European science during the Renaissance.The Islamic scientific tradition has been described many times in accounts of Islamic civilization and general histories of science, with most authors tracing its beginnings to the appropriation of ideas from other ancient civilizations—the Greeks in particular. In this thought-provoking and original book, George Saliba argues that, contrary to the generally accepted view, the foundations of Islamic scientific thought were laid well before Greek sources were formally translated into Arabic in the ninth century. Drawing on an account by the tenth-century intellectual historian Ibn al-Naidm that is ignored by most modern scholars, Saliba suggests that early translations from mainly Persian and Greek sources outlining elementary scientific ideas for the use of government departments were the impetus for the development of the Islamic scientific tradition. He argues further that there was an organic relationship between the Islamic scientific thought that developed in the later centuries and the science that came into being in Europe during the Renaissance.Saliba outlines the conventional accounts of Islamic science, then discusses their shortcomings and proposes an alternate narrative. Using astronomy as a template for tracing the progress of science in Islamic civilization, Saliba demonstrates the originality of Islamic scientific thought. He details the innovations (including new mathematical tools) made by the Islamic astronomers from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, and offers evidence that Copernicus could have known of and drawn on their work. Rather than viewing the rise and fall of Islamic science from the often-narrated perspectives of politics and religion, Saliba focuses on the scientific production itself and the complex social, economic, and intellectual conditions that made it possible.

Dieser Band untersucht den Beitrag der Philosophie des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts zur Epistemologie der Naturwissenschaften. Im Zentrum steht die Frage, wie die mittelalterlichen Autoren im Anschluss an die Aristoteles-Rezeption und angesichts des Aufkommens der neuen naturkundlichen Disziplinen das Verhältnis von Erfahrung und Beobachtung einerseits und den strengen Ansprüchen von apriorischem Beweiswissen andererseits bestimmen. Die hier versammelten Untersuchungen bieten einen umfassenden und bisher in der Forschung nicht geleisteten Überblick über die Bedeutung und Reichweite der epistemologischen Debatten im Hinblick auf die Wissenschaften von der Natur in jener Zeit. Dabei eröffnen sich zugleich systematische Perspektiven zu Fragen der Epistemologie der Gegenwart, etwa zum Problem der Induktion, der Subordination und der Anwendung der Wissenschaften.

This collection of essays reflects the wide range of David Pingree's expertise in the scientific texts (above all, concerning astronomy and astrology) of Ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, India, Persia, and the medieval Arabic, Hebrew and Latin traditions. Both theoretical aspects and the practical applications of the exact sciences-in time keeping, prediction of the future, and the operation of magic-are dealt with.The book includes several critical editions and translations of hitherto unknown or understudied texts, and a particular emphasis is on the diffusion of scientific learning from one culture to another, and through time.Above all, the essays show the variety and sophistication of the exact sciences in non-Western societies in pre-modern times.