Book ID: CBB389454231

Early Greek Philosophies of Nature (2020)

unapi

Gregory, Andrew (Author)


Bloomsbury Academic


Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 256
Language: English

This book examines the philosophies of nature of the early Greek thinkers and argues that a significant and thoroughgoing shift is required in our understanding of them. In contrast with the natural world of the earliest Greek literature, often the result of arbitrary divine causation, in the work of early Ionian philosophers we see the idea of a cosmos: ordered worlds where there is complete regularity. How was this order generated and maintained and what underpinned those regularities? What analogies or models were used for the order of the cosmos? What did they think about causation and explanatory structure? How did they frame natural laws?Andrew Gregory draws on recent work on mechanistic philosophy and its history, on the historiography of the relation of science to art, religion and magic, and on the fragments and doxography of the early Greek thinkers to argue that there has been a tendency to overestimate the extent to which these early Greek philosophies of nature can be described as 'mechanistic'. We have underestimated how far they were committed to other modes of explanation and ontologies, and we have underestimated, underappreciated and indeed underexplored how plausible and good these philosophies would have been in context.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Clifford Cunningham (2021) Review of "Early Greek Philosophies of Nature". Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (pp. 237-239). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB389454231/

Similar Citations

Book Kullmann, Wolfgang; (2010)
Naturgesetz in der Vorstellung der Antike, besonders der Stoa: Eine Begriffsuntersuchung (/isis/citation/CBB001220039/)

Book Gregory, Andrew; (2007)
Ancient Greek Cosmogony (/isis/citation/CBB001036036/)

Article Ian Hensley; (2021)
The Physics of Stoic Cosmogony (/isis/citation/CBB349696930/)

Article Michele Alessandrelli; (2020)
Ita relinqui nihil praeter ignem. Gli Stoici antichi tra cosmogonia e conflagrazione (/isis/citation/CBB466933097/)

Chapter Runia, David T.; (2003)
Plato's Timaeus, First Principle(s), and Creation in Philo and Early Christian Thought (/isis/citation/CBB000410980/)

Article Jelinek, Elizabeth; (2011)
Pre-Cosmic Necessity in Plato's Timaeus (/isis/citation/CBB001250015/)

Article Andrew, Gregory; (2014)
Parmenides, Cosmology and Sufficient Reason (/isis/citation/CBB001321033/)

Book Jean De Groot; (2014)
Aristotle's Empiricism: Experience and Mechanics in the 4th Century B.C. (/isis/citation/CBB831868874/)

Chapter Berryman, Sylvia; (2011)
The Evidence for Strato in Hero of Alexandria's Pneumatics (/isis/citation/CBB001210237/)

Chapter Lahoux, Daryn; (2011)
Natural Knowledge in the Classical World (/isis/citation/CBB001231978/)

Article Distelzweig, Peter M.; (2013)
The Intersection of the Mathematical and Natural Sciences: The Subordinate Sciences in Aristotle (/isis/citation/CBB001212322/)

Thesis Macfarlane, Patrick; (2007)
A Philosophical Commentary on Aristotle's “De Spiritu” (/isis/citation/CBB001561332/)

Thesis Galsworthy, Carrie; (2010)
Language and Intent in Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle (/isis/citation/CBB001560877/)

Essay Review Peramatzis, Michail; (2013)
Science and Metaphysics in Aristotle's Philosophy [Review Essay Number 1500197] (/isis/citation/CBB001500203/)

Chapter Hellman, Oliver; (2006)
Peripatetis Biology and the Epitome of Aristophanes of Byzantium (/isis/citation/CBB001210256/)

Book Leunissen, Mariska; (2010)
Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle's Science of Nature (/isis/citation/CBB001220104/)

Article Lennox, James G.; (2011)
Aristotle on Norms of Inquiry (/isis/citation/CBB001023577/)

Article Thaler, Naly; (2011)
Traces of Good in Plotinus's Philosophy of Nature: Ennead VI.7.1--14 (/isis/citation/CBB001035128/)

Book Berti, Enrico; (2008)
Dialectique, Physique et Métaphysique: Études sur Aristote (/isis/citation/CBB001036037/)

Authors & Contributors
Gregory, Andrew
Hensley, Ian
Li Causi, Pietro
Alessandrelli, Michele
Peramatzis, Michail
Groot, J. De
Concepts
Natural philosophy
Philosophy
Cosmogony
Physics
Stoicism
Cosmology
Time Periods
Ancient
3rd century, B.C.
4th century, B.C.
Places
Greece
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment