Website Search
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
Catalog Search
Books
René Descartes's Natural Philosophy and Particular Bodies
- Author / Creator
- Available as
- Online
Details
- Format
- Books
- Language
- English
- Publication
-
- 1st ed
- Cham : Springer International Publishing AG, 2024
- ©2023
- Physical Details
-
- 1 online resource (219 pages)
- ISBNs
- 9783031486630, 3031486633, 9783031486623
- Intro -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1.1 A Tension in Descartes´s Program: The Case of Particular or Individual Bodies -- 1.2 The Gaps in Descartes´s Study of Nature -- 1.3 and in Its Scholarship -- 1.4 The Aim of This Book: Descartes´s History of Nature and Its Open Questions -- 1.5 The Matter of This Book -- Chapter 2: Method -- 2.1 The End of History and a New Scientia -- 2.1.1 Against History -- 2.1.2 Descartes´s Scientia and His Method -- 2.2 A Method of Experiments: The Regulae and the Correspondence of the Early 1630s -- 2.2.1 Experiments and Method in Descartes´s Epistemology -- 2.2.2 Reason and Experience in the Correspondence with Beeckman: A Battle for Scientia -- 2.2.3 Mersenne and Descartes: Lists of Qualities, Useful Experiments, and Natural History -- 2.3 Observations in a System: Knowledge of Particular Bodies from the Discours to the Principia -- 2.3.1 Method and Necessary Experiments -- 2.3.2 A Priori and A Posteriori: Method and Experiment in the 1638 Correspondence -- 2.3.3 A History of Natural Particulars in the Principia -- 2.4 Conclusion -- Chapter 3: Nature -- 3.1 A Theoretical Model: The World Imagined -- 3.2 Constructing Nature: A Mechanical World -- 3.2.1 Rules of Nature and Elements in Le Monde -- 3.2.2 The Mechanization of Material Objects: The Principia, Part 2 -- 3.3 Describing Natural Particulars: The Visible World -- 3.3.1 Observation in Le Monde -- 3.3.2 Les Météores and the Rainbow -- 3.3.3 A History of Natural Phenomena: Observed Nature in the Principia -- 3.4 Conclusion -- Chapter 4: Metals -- 4.1 The Rejection of Alchemy -- 4.2 Between Wonder and Observations: The Bologna Stone and Other Curious Cases -- 4.3 The Qualities of Particular Bodies and Salt in the 1630s -- 4.3.1 The Qualities of Bodies in Le Monde
- 4.3.2 Salt in Descartes´s Philosophy -- 4.4 A Philosophy of Natural Bodies: The Generation of Mercury, Salt, Oily Natures, Minerals, and Metals -- 4.4.1 A Short History of Minerals -- 4.4.2 The Earth as a Chymical Laboratory -- 4.5 The Magnet -- 4.5.1 Magnetism Before the Principia -- 4.5.2 Screw-Shaped Particles in Descartes -- 4.5.3 The Magnet in the Principia -- 4.6 Conclusion -- Chapter 5: Plants -- 5.1 Classifying Plants -- 5.1.1 Plants and Animals: Mechanical Analogies and the Vegetative Power -- 5.1.2 A Mechanical Gradation Between Plants and Animals -- 5.2 Descartes and the Dutch: Corpuscles, Catalogs, Observations, and Botanical Gardens -- 5.2.1 Isaac Beeckman -- 5.2.2 Huygens and Brosterhuysen -- 5.2.3 Circulating Seeds and Catalogs -- 5.2.4 Henricus Reneri -- 5.3 The Mechanical Physiology of Plants -- 5.3.1 Plant Generation -- 5.3.2 Plant Nutrition and Growth -- 5.3.3 Grafting, Cultivating, and the Flavors of Plants -- 5.4 Conclusion -- Chapter 6: Animals -- 6.1 Automata and Animal Bodies -- 6.2 History of Animals: Movements, Instincts, Spirits, and Animal Life -- 6.3 A Mechanical Scale of Animals: Brutes, Dogs, Cows, Fish, Birds, and Oysters -- 6.4 The Mechanical Life of Animals -- 6.5 Conclusion -- Chapter 7: Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Primary Sources: René Descartes -- Primary Sources: Others -- Literature -- Index