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The foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (1996)

Edward Grant    

A listing of the book's contents:

 

Preface                                                                              

        1. THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE FIRST SIX CENTURIES OF CHRISTIANITY

Christianity and pagan learning

Hexaemeral literature: Christian commentaries on the creation account in Genesis

Christianity and Greco-Roman culture

The State of science and natural philosophy during the first six centuries of Christianity

The seven liberal arts

        2. THE NEW BEGINNING: THE AGE OF TRANSLATION IN THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

Education and learning in the twelfth century 

Latin translations from Arabic and Greek

The translation of the works of Aristotle

The dissemination and assimilation of Aristotle's natural philosophy

    The contributions of Greek commentators

    The contributions of Islamic commentators

    Pseudo-Aristotelian works

Reception of the translations

        3. THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY

Students and masters

Teaching in the arts faculty

The curriculum of the arts faculty

    Logic

    The quadrivium

    The three philosophies

The higher faculties of theology and medicine

The social and intellectual role of the university

The manuscript culture of the Middle Ages

        4. WHAT THE MIDDLE AGES INHERITED FROM ARISTOTLE

The terrestrial region: Realm of incessant change

    Motion in Aristotle's physics

        Natural motion of sublunar bodies

        Violent, or unnatural, motion

The celestial region: Incorruptible and changeless

        5. THE RECEPTION AND IMPACT OF ARISTOTELIAN LEARNING AND THE REACTION OF THE CHURCH AND ITS THEOLOGIANS

The condemnation of 1277

    The eternity of the world

    The doctrine of the double truth

    Limitations on God's absolute power

Two senses of the hypothetical in medieval natural philosophy

Two theologian-natural philosophers

        6. WHAT THE MIDDLE AGES DID WITH ITS ARISTOTELIAN LEGACY

The terrestrial region

    The causes of motion

        Internal resistance and natural motion in a vacuum

        Violent motion in a vacuum and impetus theory

    The kinematics of motion

        Motion as the quantification of a quality: The intension and remission of forms

The celestial region

    The three-orb compromise

    The number of total orbs

    Celestial incorruptibility and change

    The causes of celestial motion

        External movers

        Internal movers

        Internal and external movers combined

    Does the earth have a daily axial rotation?

The world as a whole, and what may lie beyond

    Is the world created or eternal?

    On the possible existence of other worlds

    Does space or void exist beyond our world?

        7. MEDIEVAL NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, ARISTOTELIANS, AND ARISTOTELIANISM

The question of literature of the late Middle Ages

Natural philosophy in other literary modes

The cosmos as subject matter of natural philosophy

    The big picture

    The operational details

What is natural philosophy?

The questions in natural philosophy

The techniques and methodologies of natural philosophy

    Abstract methodology

    Methodologies that were actually used

The role of mathematics in natural philosophy

The use of natural philosophy in other disciplines

    Theology

    Medicine

    Music

Characteristic features of medieval natural philosophy

Aristotelians and Aristotelianism

        8. HOW THE FOUNDATIONS OF EARLY MODERN SCIENCE WERE LAID IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The contextual pre-conditions that made the Scientific revolution possible 

    The translations 

    The universities

    The theologian-natural philosophers

        Religion and natural philosophy in medieval Islam

        A comparison of natural philosophy in Islam and the Christian West

        The other Christianity: Science and natural philosophy in the Byzantine Empire

The substantive pre-conditions that made the Scientific Revolution possible

    The exact sciences

    Natural philosophy: the mother of all sciences

    Medieval natural philosophy and the language of science

    Medieval natural philosophy and the problems of science

    Freedom of inquiry and the autonomy of reason

On the relationship between medieval and early modern science

On the relationship between early and late medieval science

Greco-Arabic-Latin science: A triumph of three civilizations. 

Notes

Bibliography

Index 

 

ARTWORK: (none)

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