Physics
Posted on 26 June 2011
Aristotle's Physics presents four types of cause: formal, material, final and efficient. Peter looks at all four, and asks whether evolutionary theory undermines final causes in nature.
52 comments
Posted on 3 July 2011
Before Isaac Newton (and Olivia Newton John), there was Aristotle. Peter looks at his Physics, focusing on the notions of actuality and potentiality and how they help to explain such concepts as time and motion.
24 comments
Posted on 10 July 2011
Peter talks to Sir Richard Sorabji about Aristotle's physics, focusing on the definition of time and the eternity of the universe.
35 comments
Posted on 20 November 2011
Peter begins to examine the philosophy of Epicurus, focusing on his empiricist theory of knowledge and his atomic physics.
16 comments
Posted on 11 December 2011
Lucretius’ poem On the Nature of Things sets Epicureanism into verse. Peter takes a look at its treatment of the soul, free will and the swerve and human society.
6 comments
Posted on 8 January 2012
Peter looks at the Stoic idea of god, a providential fire that pervades nature, and considers their idea of a deterministic and eternally recurring cosmos.
22 comments
Posted on 14 October 2012
John Philoponus refutes Aristotle’s and Proclus’ arguments for the eternity of the universe, and develops new ideas in physics.
14 comments
Posted on 2 March 2014
Ḥasdai Crescas shows Aristotelian physics who’s boss, by defending alternative conceptions of time, place and infinity.
24 comments
Posted on 20 April 2014
Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī makes up his own mind about physics and the soul, and along the way inaugurates a new style of doing philosophy.
13 comments
Posted on 8 March 2015
As early medieval science blossoms, Bernard Silvestris and Alan of Lille personify Nature in their philosophical prose-poems.
4 comments
Posted on 31 May 2015
Richard Rufus and anonymous commentators on Aristotle explore the nature of motion, time, infinity and space.
8 comments
Posted on 8 November 2015
Albert the Great earns his nickname “universal doctor” by devoting himself to the whole of nature, from geology and botany to the study of human nature.
2 comments
Posted on 19 March 2017
Ancient Indian cosmology and the Vaiśeṣika defense of the reality of time and space.
0 comments
Posted on 4 June 2017
Bradwardine and other thinkers based at Oxford make breakthroughs in physics by applying mathematics to motion.
2 comments
Posted on 18 June 2017
Ockham, Buridan, Oresme and Francis of Marchia explore cosmology, atomism, and the impetus involved in motion.
10 comments
Posted on 25 June 2017
Nāgārjuna applies his emptiness theory to motion, change, and cognition.
2 comments
Posted on 30 July 2017
Peter speaks to Jack Zupko about John Buridan's secular and parsimonious approach to philosophy.
0 comments
Posted on 7 April 2019
Mathematics and the sciences in Byzantium, focusing on scholars of the Palaiologan period like Blemmydes and Metochites.
9 comments
Posted on 31 January 2021
Was the anti-Aristotelian natural philosophy of Bernardino Telesio and Tommaso Campanella the first modern physical theory?
7 comments
Posted on 14 March 2021
Giordano Bruno’s stunning vision of an infinite universe with infinite worlds, and his own untimely end.
6 comments
Posted on 28 March 2021
Did Galileo’s scientific discoveries grow out of the culture of the Italian Renaissance?
8 comments
Posted on 2 January 2022
An interview with Helen Hattab on the scope and impact of scholastic philosophy among Protestants.
3 comments
Posted on 16 January 2022
Paracelsus adapts the tradition of alchemical science for use in medicine, and in the process overturns the scientific theories of Aristotle and Galen.
5 comments
Posted on 30 January 2022
Schegk, Taurellus, Gorlaeus, and Sennert revive atomism to explain chemical reactions, the composition of bodies, and the generation of organisms.
2 comments
Posted on 24 April 2022
Kepler combines Brahe's observations, Copernicus' astronomy, and Platonist metaphysics.
4 comments
Posted on 23 April 2011
Peter looks at Plato's Timaeus, focusing on the divine craftsman or demiurge, the receptacle, and the geometrical atomism of Plato's elemental theory.
15 comments