Schemmel, Matthias (Author)
Foundations of Science
Volume: 19
Pages: 11--34
Publication date: 2014
Language: English
The article investigates the role of symbolic means of knowledge representation in concept development using the historical example of medieval diagrams of change employed in early modern work on the motion of fall. The parallel cases of Galileo Galilei, Thomas Harriot, and René Descartes and Isaac Beeckman are discussed. It is argued that the similarities concerning the achievements as well as the shortcomings of their respective work on the motion of fall can to a large extent be attributed to their shared use of means of knowledge representation handed down from antiquity and the Middle Ages. While the interpretation of medieval diagrams was unproblematic in the scholastic context from which they arose, in the early modern context, which was characterized by the confluence of natural philosophy and practical mathematics, it became ambiguous. It was the early modern mathematicians' work within this contradictory framework that brought about a new conceptualization of motion which, in particular, eventually led to an infinitesimal concept of velocity. In this process, the diagrams themselves remained largely unchanged and thus functioned as a catalyst for concept development.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Enrico Giannetto;
(2020)
Galileo, Descartes and Newton's Laws
(/p/isis/citation/CBB952708717/)
Thesis
Van Dyck, Maarten;
(2006)
An Archaeology of Galileo's Science of Motion
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001561492/)
Chapter
Roux, Sophie;
(2006)
Découvrir le principe d'inertie
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001024285/)
Chapter
Ken'ichi Takahashi;
(2015)
On the Need to Rewrite the Formation Process of Galileo's Theory of Motion
(/p/isis/citation/CBB656990481/)
Chapter
Patricia Radelet-de-Grave;
(2015)
La chute des corps, le mouvement des corps célestes et l'unification des mondes
(/p/isis/citation/CBB951522195/)
Article
Schemmel, Matthias;
(2006)
The English Galileo: Thomas Harriot and the Force of Shared Knowledge in Early Modern Mechanics
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000740753/)
Chapter
Schemmel, Matthias;
(2012)
Thomas Harriot as an English Galileo: The Force of Shared Knowledge in Early Modern Mechanics
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001252678/)
Article
Melissa Lo;
(2017)
The Picture Multiple: Figuring, Thinking, and Knowing in Descartes's Essais (1637)
(/p/isis/citation/CBB074990525/)
Article
Graney, Christopher M.;
(2011)
Contra Galileo: Riccioli's “Coriolis-Force” Argument on the Earth's Diurnal Rotation
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001036131/)
Article
Norton, John D.;
Roberts, Bryan W.;
(2012)
Galileo's Refutation of the Speed-Distance Law of Fall Rehabilitated
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001232518/)
Article
Platt, Andrew R.;
(2011)
Divine Activity and Motive Power in Descartes's Physics
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001035113/)
Article
Andrew Janiak;
(2015)
Space and Motion in Nature and Scripture: Galileo, Descartes, Newton
(/p/isis/citation/CBB462811041/)
Book
Iqbal, Muzaffar;
(2012)
New Perspectives on the History of Islamic Science Vol. 3
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001250503/)
Article
Büttner, Jochen;
(2008)
Big Wheel Keep on Turning
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000931288/)
Article
Bowin, John;
(2010)
Aristotle on the Unity of Change: Five Reductio Arguments in Physics viii 8
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001211462/)
Book
Bevilacqua, Fabio;
Fregonese, Lucio;
(2000)
Nuova Voltiana: Studies on Volta and His Times. Volume 2
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000110617/)
Book
Pietro Daniel Omodeo;
Volkhard Wels;
(2019)
Natural Knowledge and Aristotelianism at Early Modern Protestant Universities
(/p/isis/citation/CBB325233371/)
Article
Nugayev, Rinat M.;
(2013)
The Ptolemy-Copernicus Transition: Intertheoretic Context
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001320811/)
Chapter
Pietro Daniel Omodeo;
(2015)
Riflessioni sul moto terrestre nel Rinascimento: tra filosofia naturale, meccanica e cosmologia
(/p/isis/citation/CBB678565435/)
Article
Luigi Guerrini;
(2014)
Pereira and Galileo: Acceleration in Free Fall and Impetus Theory
(/p/isis/citation/CBB609816908/)
Be the first to comment!