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  3. History of the Inductive Sciences
  • Cited by 1
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
October 2011
Print publication year:
2010
First published in:
1837
Online ISBN:
9780511734335
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511734335
Subjects:
History of Philosophy, Philosophy: General Interest, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy
Series:
Cambridge Library Collection - Philosophy
Information

Book description

A central figure in Victorian science, William Whewell (1794–1866) held professorships in Mineralogy and Moral Philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, before becoming Master of the college in 1841. His mathematical textbooks, such as A Treatise on Dynamics (1823), were instrumental in bringing French analytical methods into British science. This three-volume history, first published in 1837, is one of Whewell's most famous works. Taking the 'acute, but fruitless, essays of Greek philosophy' as a starting point, it provides a history of the physical sciences that culminates with the mechanics, astronomy, and chemistry of 'modern times'. Volume 1 studies Greek physics and metaphysics, attributing their failure to a method that derived its principles from the common use of language. It surveys the state of the physical sciences in the middle ages, and deals with the rise of 'formal' astronomy - based on observation rather than calculation - as exemplified by Copernicus.

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