Science without God? : rethinking the history of scientific naturalism First Edition. Edition Harrison

Science without God? : rethinking the history of scientific naturalism 1st Edition – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780192571540,0192571540,9780192571557, 0192571559

Product details:

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0198834586
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0198834588
• Author:  Peter Harrison, Jon H. Roberts 

Can scientific explanation ever make reference to God or the supernatural? The present consensus is no; indeed, a naturalistic stance is usually taken to be a distinguishing feature of modern science. Some would go further still, maintaining that the success of scientific explanation actually provides compelling evidence that there are no supernatural entities, and that true science, from the very beginning, was opposed to religious thinking. Science without God? Rethinking the History of Scientific Naturalism shows that the history of Western science presents us with a more nuanced picture. Beginning with the naturalists of ancient Greece, and proceeding through the middle ages, the scientific revolution, and into the nineteenth century, the contributors examine past ideas about ‘nature’ and ‘the supernatural’. Ranging over different scientific disciplines and historical periods, they show how past thinkers often relied upon theological ideas and presuppositions in their systematic investigations of the world. In addition to providing material that contributes to a history of ‘nature’ and naturalism, this collection challenges a number of widely held misconceptions about the history of scientific naturalism.

Table of contents:

1. All Things are Full of Gods: Naturalism in the Classical World
2. Naturalist Tendencies in Medieval Science
3. Laws of God or Laws of Nature? Natural Order in the Early Modern Period
4. Between Newton and Newtonianism: Posing the ‘God Question’ in the Eighteenth-Century
5. God and the Uniformity of Nature: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Physics
6. Chemistry with and without God
7. Removing God from Biology
8. Christian Materialism and the Prospect of Immortality
9. The Science of the Soul: Naturalising the Mind in Great Britain and North America
10. Down to Earth: Untangling the Secular from the Sacred in Late-Modern Geology
11. Naturalising the Bible: The Shifting Role of the Biblical Account of Nature
12. Anthropology and Original Sin: Naturalizing Religion, Theorizing the Primitive
13. The Theology of Victorian Scientific Naturalists

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