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22Bacon’s Metaphysical MethodEpistemology and Philosophy of Science 58 (3): 22-37. 2021.In this paper, I would like to examine the method that Bacon proposes in Novum organum II.1-20 and illustrates with the example of the procedure for discovering the form of heat. One might think of a scientific method as a general schema for research into nature, one that can, in principle, be used independently of the particular conception of the natural world which one adopts, and independently of the particular scientific domain with which one is concerned. Indeed, Bacon himself suggested tha…Read more
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29Margaret Cavendish among the BaconiansJournal of Early Modern Studies 9 (2): 53-84. 2020.Margaret Cavendish is a very difficult thinker to place in context. Given her stern critique of the “experimental philosophy” in the Observations on the Experimental Philosophy, one might be tempted to place Cavendish among the opponents of Francis Bacon and his experimental thought. But, I argue, her relation to Baconianism is much more subtle than that would suggest. I begin with an overview of Cavendish’s philosophical program, focusing mainly on her later natural philosophical thought in Ph…Read more
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37After Certainty: A History of Our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions by Robert PasnauPhilosophical Review 129 (4): 656-660. 2020.
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17Leibniz 's Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study by Catherine Wilson and Leibniz and Arnauld: A Commentaryon their Correspondence by Robert C. Sleigh, Jr (review)Journal of Philosophy 89 (3): 151-165. 1992.
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11Galileo, Newton and all that: if it wasn’t a scientific revolution, what was it?Circumscribere: International Journal for the History of Science 7 9-18. 2009.This essay is an exploration of how to conceptualize the so-called scientific revolution. A central figure in this discussion is Thomas Kuhn, whose Structure of Scientific Revolutions has shaped much recent discussion of scientific change in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It is argued that the simple model of a revolution—an old orthodoxy, followed by a period of instability until it is replaced by a new orthodoxy—does not actually represent how change happened in scientific tho…Read more
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10Philosophical Essays (edited book)Hackett. 1695.Features Leibniz's writings including letters, published papers, and fragments on a variety of philosophical, religious, mathematical, and scientific questions.
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Leibniz, Theology and the Mechanical PhilosophyIn Vlad Alexandrescu (ed.), Branching Off: The Early Moderns in Quest for the Unity of Knowledge, Zeta Books. 2009.
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Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume Viii (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2018.Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy presents selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant.
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84G. W. Leibniz Philosophical Essays (edited book)Hackett. 1989.Although Leibniz's writing forms an enormous corpus, no single work stands as a canonical expression of his whole philosophy. In addition, the wide range of Leibniz's work--letters, published papers, and fragments on a variety of philosophical, religious, mathematical, and scientific questions over a fifty-year period--heightens the challenge of preparing an edition of his writings in English translation from the French and Latin.
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10Early Modern Cartesianisms: Dutch and French Constructions by Tad M. SchmaltzJournal of the History of Philosophy 55 (4): 732-734. 2017.It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Descartes on his contemporaries and following generations. While still alive he had followers and detractors, and after his death, numerous books and pamphlets, with his name prominently featured in their titles, adopted and developed his ideas, twisted them to fit into a wide variety of intellectual agendas, or argued passionately against them. While he may not deserve the title of father of modern philosophy, in many circles he was considered th…Read more
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13Leibniz On Form and MatterEarly Science and Medicine 2 (3): 326-351. 1997.This paper discusses the Aristotelian notions of matter and form as they are treated in the philosophy of Leibniz. The discussion is divided into three parts, corresponding to three periods in Leibniz's development. In the earliest period, as exemplified in a 1669 letter to his former mentor Jakob Thomasius, Leibniz argues that matter and form can be given straightforward interpretations in terms of size and shape, basic categories in the new mechanical philosophy. In Leibniz's middle years, on …Read more
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12Philosophers of substanceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 27 (3): 421-427. 1996.
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21Fact, Fiction and Error in Bacon and the Royal SocietyRivista di Storia Della Filosofia 71 (4): 563-578. 2016.
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10Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637-1650 by Theo Verbeek (review)Isis 84 576-577. 1993.
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New doctrines of body and its powers, place, and spaceIn Daniel Garber & Michael Ayers (eds.), The Cambridge history of seventeenth-century philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 553-623. 1998.
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1RationalismIn Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 2--771. 1995.
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60Does History Have a Future? Some Reflections on Bennett and Doing Philosophy HistoricallyIn Stewart Duncan & Antonia LoLordo (eds.), Debates in Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses, Routledge. pp. 347. 2012.
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25O que Mersenne aprendeu na ItáliaDiscurso 31 89-114. 2000.Estudos sobre Marin Mersenne enfatizam freqüentemente o serviço prestado por ele à ciência européia, por ajudar na circulação das idéias, tanto pela correspondência como por suas publicações. Mas o próprio Mersenne foi uma figura importante na Revolução Científica com seu próprio programa intelectual. O propósito do artigo é discutir o papel que o contato epistolar com a Itália exerceu no seu próprio desenvolvimento intelectual. Quero discutir também que a transmissão da ciência italiana para a …Read more
Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America
Areas of Interest
General Philosophy of Science |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |