The Mechanization of Philosophy Between 1300-1700

The project traces some fundamental changes in the metaphysics of substance (power and quantity) and causality (laws of nature and teleology) from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. These changes were necessary to break the grip of Aristotelian physics and prepare the ground for the two main components of the seventeenth century’s mechanical philosophy, namely, corpuscular or atomist theories of matter and notions of laws of nature. Contrary to the standard view, which attributes the scientific revolution to internal changes in physical explanation, and sees the metaphysical changes in substance and causality as consequent to these, the proposed project aims to make plausible the claim that the metaphysical shift seen in the fourteenth century was a prior and necessary condition for the later developments in physics.

To substantiate these claims the project identifies three major conceptual changes that took place in the early fourteenth century and which all are crucial for the mechanical philosophers of the seventeenth century. The first of these is the concepts of power and activity, the second is the concepts of substance and quantity, and finally the concepts of natural laws and teleology. Given the remarkable similarities between Ockham and Buridan and later early modern thinkers like Descartes, the project assumes that this is not a coincidence and traces the historical developments of these ideas from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. The project hence naturally divides into a conceptual part, explaining and developing the conceptual similarities between Ockham and Buridan on the one hand and seventeenth century mechanical philosophers on the other, and a historical part devoted to exploring the historical connections between these thinkers.

The proposed research will begin with Ockham and Buridan and then push into new ground by studying the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century followers of these philosophers. Although Renaissance scholars have explored the humanists of this period, the natural philosophy and metaphysics of this century is unfamiliar and little explored by historians of science and philosophy. The proposed research project will identify the main thinkers and the relevant works. It will then collect these works, which are not readily available, and make them available through a new web site. It will then through close textual study proceed by drawing out the transmission of ideas from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. The research will then culminate in the natural philosophy of the later sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries. The aim is to connect with and deepen the understanding of late sixteenth-century natural philosophy initiated by Dennis Des Chene’s earlier work and to reconceive our understanding of the seventeenth century’s mechanical philosophy.

The outcome of the proposed project will be an edited volume based on an international workshop held in the third year of the project, two PhD dissertations, articles and conference presentations. The project will also set up a web site, which will aim to become a major source of information in the primary research area and time period. The web site will include information about the project and its activities, but also scanned texts of the major sources and some translations.