| Physical description |
viii, 194 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-191) and index. |
| Contents |
The 17th century crossroads of the mathematization of nature. Preliminaries. The role ascribed to mathematics. Anti-Hermeticist trends. Hermeticist ways of mathematization -- Galileo and the demonstrative ideal of science -- The rise and fall of crucial experiments. The birth of crucial experiment: the Baconian idea. The process of knowledge turning conjectural: the pluralization of causal explanations. The vanishing of apodicticity. The reduction of the types of causes and motions. The great shift in mentality: new rules of faith. Crucial experiments in Newton's methodology: the first downfall -- The method of analysis-synthesis and the structure of causal explanation in Newton -- The triumphal march of a paradigm (A case study of the popularization of Newtonian science). Algarotti, ambassador of the Newtonian Empire -- The role of metaphor and analogy in the birth of the principle of least action of Maupertuis (1698-1759). |
|
On the role accorded to the public by philosophers of science -- Loci of first publications of the papers contained in the volume. |
| Summary |
Seven papers describe the change and development of scientific research methods during the infancy of modern science in the 16th to 18th century. These include crucial experimentation, analysis and synthesis, and analogy and metaphor. Feher, (philosophy, Technical U. of Budapest) elaborates Kuhn's model of paradigm shift to illustrate the methodological consequences. Six of the papers were published in journals during the 1980s. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR |
| Subject |
Science -- Methodology -- History -- Case studies.
|
| ISBN |
9630567288 |
|
