Natural Philosophy Research Articles

Teaching women's work and thought in undergraduate history of science courses

AbstractAs a rich field of scholarship now demonstrates, from at least the early modern period, women have consistently contributed to natural philosophy, science, and medicine in Europe and the Anglo‐American world. Their participation in these fields, like men's, has been shaped by gendered social and cultural expectations. It has risen and fallen on cyclical waves of effort to exclude them or minimize their contributions. In historical accounts, until recently, women's roles have been neglected or forgotten. Even today, in both scholarly and popular histories, women in science are often presented as surprising rediscoveries. Women are persistently perceived as newcomers in the sciences. Unless women's contributions are consistently integrated into mainstream narratives in the history of science, women could easily become invisible again. To counter this possibility, I first examine the structural factors shaping women's participation in the sciences and their historical visibility from the early modern period through the 19th century. I then suggest ways to include women in undergraduate surveys in the history of European and Anglo‐American science that encourage students to engage with women's ideas and with women as complex, multi‐valent historical actors. I show how we can situate women's contributions in a narrative that invites students to examine the history of science as a history of ideas, people, and practices and to explore history as a resource for understanding the role of scientific knowledge and authority in the present. Though my own examples are limited to the history of science in Europe and the Anglo‐American world from the early modern period, I argue that a similar thematic approach could be explored and implemented in other historical contexts, given appropriate secondary and primary sources.

Advertising doubt in early modern Italy: Doubt and ignorance in early modern paratexts

AbstractSpelled 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.

Jugement de séparation et sujet de la métaphysique

With this second dialogue, Salviati wants to remove Simplicio’s difficulties on the actual distinction of essence and being as well as on the notion of the act of being (actus essendi). Feeling that he had skipped stages in their first dialogue, he suggests going back to the determination of the exact subject of metaphysics according to Thomas Aquinas. He will progress in two steps: the transition from «first perceived being» to «common being» or «being as being» by a judgment of separation, and then the definition of the subject of metaphysics as «being negatively or neutrally immaterial». With this conclusion, Salviati intends to lead Simplicio to understand the autonomy of the principles of metaphysics towards philosophy of nature. Simplicio remains curious but dubious. Is not the negatively immaterial being a simple dialectical notion that Salviati would take for a metaphysical one? Is the independence of metaphysics from physics therefore also ensured? And consequently, is there actually a difference between the first perceived being and the common being, subject of metaphysics? What is, actually, the subject of metaphysics?

Hint Altkıtası Ve Orta Asya'da İslam Felsefesi: 21. Yüzyılda Yayınlanan Literatürün Analizi

Islamic philosophy as a branch of knowledge emerged following the triumph of Greek philosophy. A large number of studies focused on various aspects of Islamic philosophy throughout the world. The present study aims to analyze the articles published in the SCOPUS-indexed journals on different issues of Islamic philosophy in the 21st century from central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Using bibliometric R-package and Microsoft Excel, the analysis focused on the summary of the data, productivity over the years, analysis of the sources and the areas of study. The number of publications has increased over the years on this topic. However, a significant amount of research has been conducted in Iran and Turkey. Eventually, the contributing sources are also mainly from these two countries. Among the topics covered are related to ‘Islamism’, ‘Islam’, ‘History’, ‘Religion’ and ‘Philosophy’. Future research can be conducted on the contributions of various Islamic philosophers in metaphysics, epistemology, natural philosophy and social philosophy. Based on the current study's findings, future researchers on Islamic philosophy can determine their areas of interest.

Hegel's Philosophy of Sound

Abstract This essay offers an introduction to Hegel's philosophy of sound as elaborated in the 1830 Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline. The first section begins with essential context for interpreting the a priori status of nature and sound in Hegel's Philosophy of Nature. Next, I develop a general account of the Aristotelian character of Hegel's ‘Physics’, and a commentary on the categories of specific gravity and cohesion leading up to sound (and heat) in the ‘Physics of Particular Individuality’. The second section provides an exegetical portrait of Hegel's metaphysics of sound. I first reconstruct Hegel's ontology of sound from the subsection on ‘Sound’ (Der Klang), and then outline his theory of auditory perception. The third section compares Hegel's philosophy of sound to leading views in contemporary philosophy of sound. I argue that Hegel offers a hylomorphic version of a located event theory of sound, which I suggest is more phenomenologically adequate than the modern acoustic view, and more metaphysically consistent than other distal event theories of sound.

„Człowiek gór” — od epickiej deskrypcji do ekspresji samoświadomości

The term ‘man of the mountains’ appears in various cultural discourses basically in two contexts, referring either to the situation of people born in the mountains, living near the mountains, and whose their daily lives are connected to the mountains, or to people fascinated by the mountains, for whom mountain peaks and their own attitude towards them are the subject of verbalised reflection, often of a philosophical, axiological, and aesthetic nature. In the first case, one simply is a man of the mountains (permanently, due to the circumstances), while in the second case, one becomes such person, more or less consciously striving to achieve this status. The first situation is exemplified by literary works and various descriptions of journeys in which a highlander is treated as an integral, natural component of the landscape being described (such an image can be found in Stanisław Witkiewicz’s most famous work, Na przełęczy [On the Mountain Pass]). The second and chronologically later situation, on the other hand, is exemplified by specific testimonies of representatives of the mountaineering community. They function in the form of own literary works (written by, among others, Reinhold Messner, Jernej (Nejc) Zaplotnik, Denis Urubko, Jerzy Kukuczka, and Marek Raganowicz) or in the form of interviews with famous climbers, which are very popular among readers interested in mountain-related issues (an interesting example of this is the book Rozmowy o Evereście [Talking about Everest], in which Jacek Żakowski interviews Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy). These books include various themes and reflections, often of a personal nature. The authors often do not limit themselves to presenting their own achievements in the field of extreme Alpine and Himalayan mountaineering but also highlight the specific process of inner growth of the climber, their discovery of mountain secrets, their own place in the world, and their knowledge of themselves and their abilities and limitations. These reflections also often reveal the symbolic meanings of mountain climbing, which may turn out to be a metaphor for human existence.

Philosophy and Religion in the Political Thought of Alfarabi

Philosophy and religion were the two important sources of knowledge for medieval Arab Muslim polymaths. Owing to the difference between the nature of philosophy and religion, the interplay between philosophy and religion often takes the form of conflict in medieval Muslim thought as exemplified by the Al-Ghazali versus Averroes (Ibn Rusd) polemic. Unlike the Al-Ghazali versus Averroes (Ibn Rushd) polemic, the interplay between philosophy and religion in the political philosophy of Abu Nasr Alfarabi takes the form of harmonious co-existence. Although, for Alfarabi, religion is an inferior form of knowledge as compared to philosophy, the present article will show that philosophy and religion play equally significant roles in Alfarabi’s virtuous city and that in the absence of either philosophy or religion, the political system proposed by Alfarabi cannot exist.

Apparecchiando la Tavola: l’ordine degli elementi

The periodic table of the chemical elements, published in 1869 by Dmitri Mendeleev, is actually the destination of an exciting journey that lasted over 3000 years, which will be broken down into key steps and briefly discussed herein. To this journey, driven mainly by the innate curiosity of scientists and philosophers to understand the structure and composition of the world around us, the greatest minds of chemistry and natural philosophy, from Empedocles, to Priestley, to Lavoisier, to Davy, have contributed with essential individual pieces that combined into the solution of such a majestic jigsaw puzzle by Mendeleev. Although the periodic table is a milestone of chemistry and one of the greatest triumphs of scientific knowledge, it is continuously evolving and it is still nowadays one of the most useful and versatile tools for the understanding and rationalizing a broad range of chemical and physical phenomena.

Relation among Theology, Natural Philosophy and New Science in Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671)

This essay tries to analyse the way in which the Jesuit priest Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) and his ideas were evaluated by traditional and modern Historiographies, from seventeenth to twentieth century, in secular and ecclesiastic ambiances in Italy, having in mind the possibility of historical forgetfulness of the contribution this Jesuit offered to modern science in his century. For this, the use of Contextual, Historiographical and Epistemological approaches aims to understand more deeply the man Riccioly, his ideas in the debates of his time, from his Cosmology, Jesuit Mystic, Education according to the contemporary Ratio Studiorum and Position in Jesuit Order. In fact, he established an interchange of speech among Theologians, Philosophers and Mathematicians, relating Scholastic Theology, Natural Philosophy and New Science, elaborating a solid scientific knowledge, which didn’t contradict the Holy Scriptures.

Kant and the Balance of Moral Forces

In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant draws an analogy between the physical forces of repulsion and attraction and the moral forces of respect and love. I argue that we should interpret this passage as endorsing a moral version of the balancing argument from his natural philosophy. There, Kant argues that purely repulsive and attractive bodies respectively face problems of total dispersion and collapse. I argue that purely respectful and loving humans respectively face analogous problems of total moral dispersion and collapse. I conclude by drawing some significant implications of this moral balancing argument for contemporary theorizing about moral interactions, relationships, and communities.

THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND EARLY MODERN NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS: A PRELIMINARY SURVEY

AbstractNoting that the doctrine of the general resurrection attracted renewed attention after the Reformation, and after the atomist revival led to the displacement of traditional hylomorphism by alternative matter theories, this article surveys the ways in which the resurrection was discussed by leading natural philosophers in seventeenth‐century England. These include discussion of how bodily resurrection might be possible, what resurrected bodies will be like; as well as the nature of living conditions after the resurrection. It is indicated that the resurrection seems to have played a much less prominent place in the writings of natural philosophers than the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and other issues of natural theology. Reasons for this lack of prominence are tentatively offered, chiefly focusing on its unsuitability for combatting the perceived atheism of the time. It is hoped that this preliminary survey might inspire others to extend the survey, especially to cover Continental philosophers.

The Precursors of Scientific Models in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Greek World: A Comparative Study

This research traces and examines specific examples of the precursors of scientific models that were applied in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the ancient Greek world. The main purpose of the study is to compare the way that these different civilizations used models but also the purposes of their utilization in pre-Hellenic and ancient Greek science. A core question that arose is: Can we trace the roots of the utilization of what we nowadays call ‘‘scientific models’’ in ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Greek scientific activity? Another important question is how the application of models differs in the scientific activity of these civilizations. Based on an extensive review of historical books, papers, and web sources I inferred that ancient Egyptians and Babylonians utilized tools that nowadays we call mathematical and analogue or material models and the ancient Greeks utilized theoretical, fiction, and analogue models. Moreover, while the basic function of these tools seems to remain stable throughout the centuries, the core difference is detected in the purpose of their utilization in these civilizations and is related to the orientation of their scientific activity. Specifically, the scientific activity of Egyptians and Babylonians mainly aimed at solving practical problems related to spatial planning, architecture, and agriculture as well as issues related to religion while ancient Greek ‘‘episteme,’’ according to Plato, or ‘‘natural philosophy,’’ according to Aristotle, sought the acquisition of knowledge about the natural world, the understanding, description, and explanation of natural phenomena.

Literary Distinctions Of Musharraf Alam Zauqi Novels

Musharraf Alam Zauqi is renowned novelist, short story writer, dramatist, columnist and poet. His novels earned a great fame for him, this is due to the unique themes and literary treatment of these creations. In his very much acclaimed novels he has described the philosophy of human nature. His novels predominantly narrated the heritage and culture of variegated societies. He masterfully highlighted the abruptly changing norms of society. Musharraf Alam Zauqi also opted blunt style to bring forth the ills of life. Some of his novels brought out feminist themes, the aspiration of self recognition and freedom of speech. The skillful narration style of his writings make him distinct novelist. This research article is an effort to highlight the novelistic distinctions of Musharraf Alam Zauqi.

Schopenhauer and the Nature of Philosophy by Jonathan Head (review)

Schopenhauer and the Nature of Philosophy by Jonathan Head (review)

The Mechanical Representation of Knowledge

This article revisits aspects of Thermodynamics’ history by applying the Cartesian conception of a machine to Sadi Carnot’s work. By defining mechanically geometric curves, Descartes placed mechanical science at the centre of geometry and natural philosophy. With this, the autonomous machine - a product of this science - starts to correspond to an operational definition with the power to understand and generate new ideas in addition to a general explanation model. After nearly two centuries, Carnot presented a reversible thermal machine theory - mechanically inspired and defined operationally as an ideal model - and represented it analogically. That addressed the problem of maximizing the production of motive power. Although still limited in its ability to solve problems, it inaugurated a progressive sequence of representations with an ever-widening phenomenological reach. As suggested in this article, classical thermodynamics’ emergence and development correspond to a Cartesian style theorization.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in Our Times: How al-Ghazali is Interpreted and Transmitted in the Contemporary Turkish Context

Whether Abu Hamid al-Ghazali contributed to the decline of rationalist and scientific tradition in the Muslim world is a grand debate in Islamic studies. However, the literature on this question ventures only to construct a historical debate. Though al-Ghazali died in 1111, his opinions still influence Muslims today. So this research, rather than contribute to that historical debate, studies how al-Ghazali is interpreted in contemporary Turkey, and what this inter­pretation reveals about approaches to natural law, knowledge and philosophy (essentially, the study of conceptual lucidity and the valid procedures of reaso­ning). These three disciplines are chosen because al-Ghazali is accused of contributing to the decline of the scientific tradition in the Islamic world beca­use of his criticism of philosophy, his occasionalist view of causality, and his incorporation of inner knowledge into Sunnism. The research aims to answer ques­tions like: ‘Are al-Ghazali’s works referenced today to justify a hostile stance on philosophy?’ To achieve this goal, the research studies how al-Ghazali is interpreted by two Islamic social movements in Turkey: Işıkçılar and Erenköy. Studying these cases, the paper concludes that how al-Ghazali is interpreted and transmitted in Turkey contributes to (i) a highly sceptical stance on natural law, (ii) a deep suspicion of rational knowledge and the consequent belief in inner knowledge, and (iii) a highly critical stance on philosophy.

Formless Matter in Gersonides’ Cosmology

Abstract Gersonides has at times been viewed as an essentially orthodox Aristotelian in his metaphysical views. This designation, however, has been challenged on a number of grounds. This paper examines the way in which Gersonides revises the traditional conception of hylomorphism by positing that matter can exist without form. Motivated by a desire to reconcile Aristotelian natural philosophy with the Ptolemaic astronomical model, formless matter is seen as a necessary entity to posit in order for his cosmological model to be coherent. By allowing for this exception case, Gersonides turns hylomorphism from a metaphysical principle to a general, though not universal, principle of physics that can must be revised if other observational and philosophical commitments are to be maintained, which speaks to a distinct attitude toward Aristotelian metaphysics than is otherwise assumed to be the case for Gersonides and his contemporaries.

Bruno Latour and Peculiar Structure of the First Scientific Revolution

Bruno Latour’s distinctive historiographic standpoint on the origins of scientific revolutions and the multifarious accounts of their reconstructions are elicited. It is contended that, in spite of their highly iconoclastic character, Latour’s views can be welcomed for their innovative approach to the inquiries of social facets of science. In particular, they can elucidate the foundations of the lucid mature theory change model proffered in our preceding writings. Correspondingly, the Copernican Revolution is envisaged in the wayward context of intense interaction and interpenetration of Aristotelean and Ptolemaic sophisticated research practices. Eventually, the Aristotle – Ptolemy pagan cosmology could not help but be exposed to repeated cogent attacks during the Middle Ages since it apparently confronted the renowned principles of monotheism, not admitting the impervious demarcation line between the celestial and mundane realms. All the opposite worlds should have one and the same Creator. Commencing with the unification, Copernicus, in effect, paved the way for the descent of mathematics from Heaven to Earth and the spread of natural philosophy from Earth to Heaven.

THE ROLE OF CYBER NOTARY IN THE FIELD OF DIGITAL INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN INDONESIA

In Indonesia, a notary refers to a public official appointed by the Government to perform some of the Government’s functions in the field of civil law. In the context of Cyber ​​Notary, the task of a public notary official is more to execute administrative processes combined with security technology by affixing a stamp/seal to a document/agreement file as a form of administration or registration of documents. This research is normative legal research. In this study, the legal materials which had been collected were analyzed in several stages, such as description, systematization and explanation. Philosophical nature of cyber notary in providing legal services to the community is based on the fundamentality of the theory of legal certainty which brings justice and legal certainty to the community into reality, especially through deeds made. The concept of cyber notary is to support Indonesia in the field of international trade based on UNCITRAL. Implementation of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce in the application of electronic signatures in Indonesia has admittedly been regulated, such as in Article 11 paragraph 1 of the Electronic Information and Transaction Law and Article 59 paragraph 3 of Government Regulation No. 71 of 2019.

Old English terminological word-complexes in natural philosophic worldview (exemplified by terms of astronomy)

The research focuses on the study of terminological word-complexes in Old English. Following a complex multidisciplinary approach, it addresses the linguistic evidence from the viewpoint of terminology, phraseology and linguoculturology. The article analyzes the role of terminological word- complexes from the Anglo-Saxon Manual of Astronomy in the semiotic segment of natural philosophy in the Pre-Norman linguistic community of England. The research is conducted mainly within the framework of linguocultural approach. The 27 terminological word-complexes under analysis belong to the sphere of theoretical and observational astronomy and are taken from the text of the 10th century Anglo-Saxon Manual of Astronomy. The system of methods includes analysis of dictionary definitions, componential analysis, phraseological identification, contextual analysis, etc. The research proceeds from the assumption that Old English astronomic terms subsume culturally significant information on the Early Medieval prescientific worldview. Most terms are substantive phrases denoting heavenly bodies and their characteristics, peculiarities of the Universe’s physical structure, and events of the astronomic calendar. A number of inherent characteristics, such as recurrence of use and metaphoric transformation of the components’ semantics allow for treating the terminological word-complexes as phraseological entities. The entirety of word-complexes falls into two groups of word-combinations of idiomatic and phraseomatiс type. The research consecutively puts to scrutiny the terminological word-complexes verbalizing the concepts ‘heavenly body’, ‘outer space’, and ‘orbital rotation’. Attention is paid to the volume and character of culturally significant information conveyed by the astronomical terms in context and demonstrating the natural philosophical interpretation of the physical world structure as different from the modern scientific views. A conclusion is made that further research of phraseologically bound terminological word-complexes pertaining to various spheres of knowledge is needed to reconstruct the complete picture of natural philosophic worldview for the benefit of phraseology, terminology, linguoculturology and history of English.