The Idea of Nature, 1945
Contents
Introduction
3. The Renaissance view of Nature
(i) Change no longer cyclical but progressive
(ii) Nature no longer mechanical
(iii) Teleology reintroduced
(iv) Substance resolved into functions
(v) Minimum Space and Minimum Time
(a) The Principle of Minimum Time
(b) The Principle of Minimum Space
Part I - Greek Cosmology
I. The Ionians
1. The Ionian science of Nature
(i) Thales
(ii) Anaximander
(iii) Anaximenes
2. Limits of Ionian natural science
3. Meaning of the word ‘nature’
II. The Pythagoreans
1. Pythagoras
2. Plato: The Theory of Forms
(i) Reality and intelligibility of the forms
(ii) Forms conceived first as immanent; later as transcendent
(iii) Was the transcendence of the forms a Platonic conception?
(iv) Participation and imitation
(v) The Parmenides. Immanence and transcendence imply one another
(vi) The influence of Cratylus
(vii) The influence of Parmenides
(viii) Plato’s mature conception of the forms
3. Plato’s Cosmology: the Timaeus
III. Aristotle
1. Meaning of øύσις
2. Nature as self-moving
3. Aristotle’s theory of knowledge
4. Aristotle’s theology
5. Plurality of unmoved movers
6. Matter
Part II - The Renaissance View of Nature
I. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
1. Anti-Aristotelianism
2. Renaissance cosmology: first stage
3. Copernicus
4. Renaissance cosmology: second stage. Giordano Bruno
5. Bacon
6. Gilbert and Kepler
7. Galileo
8. Mind and matter. Materialism
9. Spinoza
10. Newton
11. Leibniz
12. Summary: contrast between Greek and Renaissance cosmology
II. The Eighteenth Century
1. Berkeley
2. Kant
III. Hegel: The Transition to the Modern View of Nature
Part III - The Modern View of Nature
I. The Concept of Life
1. Evolutionary biology
2. Bergson
II. Modern Physics
1. The old theory of matter
2. Its complications and inconsistencies
3. The new theory of matter
4. The finitude of nature
III. Modern Cosmology
1. Alexander
2. Whitehead
3. Conclusion: from Nature to History
| Last Updated: 10/19/22 |