Atoms, Corpuscles and Minima in the Renaissance

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-52891-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 36, 322 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 679 g

Reihe: Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science

The Renaissance witnessed an upsurge in explanations of natural events in terms of invisibly small particles – atoms, corpuscles, minima, monads and particles. The reasons for this development are as varied as are the entities that were proposed. This volume covers the period from the earliest commentaries on Lucretius’ De rerum natura to the sources of Newton’s alchemical texts. Contributors examine key developments in Renaissance physiology, meteorology, metaphysics, theology, chymistry and historiography, all of which came to assign a greater explanatory weight to minute entities. These contributions show that there was no simple ‘revival of atomism’, but that the Renaissance confronts us with a diverse and conceptually messy process.

Contributors are: Stephen Clucas, Christoph Lüthy, Craig Martin, Elisabeth Moreau, William R. Newman, Elena Nicoli, Sandra Plastina, Kuni Sakamoto, Jole Shackelford, and Leen Spruit.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Lüthy, Christoph

Nicoli, Elena

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Mittelalterliche & Scholastische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Illustrations

Notes on Contributors

1 Atoms, Corpuscles, and Minima in the Renaissance: An Overview

Christoph Lüthy and Elena Nicoli

2 Atomism in Sixteenth-Century Italian Commentaries on Lucretius

Elena Nicoli

3 Galenic Medicine and the Atomist Revival: Elements, Particles, and Minima in Late Renaissance Physiology

Elisabeth Moreau

4 Pores, Parts, and Powers in Sixteenth-Century Commentaries on Meteorologica IV

Craig Martin

5 Atoms, Corpuscles, and Minima in the Renaissance: The Case of Nicolaus Biesius (1516–1573)

Christoph Lüthy

6 Mechanical Arts and Biological Development on the Sixteenth-Century World Stage: The Paracelsian Mechanical Philosophy of Petrus Severinus

Jole Shackelford

7 Democritus in Francesco Patrizi and Giordano Bruno

Leen Spruit

8 Nicholas Hill, an English Atomist

Sandra Plastina

9 Finite God and Infinite Space: Conrad Vorstius and David Gorlaeus

Kuni Sakamoto

10 Atomism, Mechanism, and Chymistry in the Natural Philosophy of Walter Warner

Stephen Clucas

11 Isaac Newton’s Atomist Sources: The Case of Bernhard Varenius

William R. Newman

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Christoph Lüthy, Ph.D. (1995) is Professor of the History of Philosophy and Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen (The Netherlands). His publications concern mainly the history of matter theories and the development and logic of ‘epistemic images’.

Elena Nicoli, Ph.D. (2017) is an Associate Researcher at the Center for the History of Philosophy and Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen (The Netherlands). Her research and publications mainly concern the reception of Lucretius and Epicureanism in the Renaissance.