New. New Book; Fast Shipping from UK; Not signed; Not First Edition; The Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World. ISBN 052152492x 9780521524926 [GB]

ISBN10: 052152492X, ISBN13: 9780521524926, [publisher: Cambridge University Press] Softcover Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - This book is about ways of understanding contingency and necessity in the world and how these ideas influenced the development of the mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century. It examines the transformation of medieval ideas about God's relationship to the creation into seventeenth century ideas about matter and method as embodied in early articulations of the mechanical philosophy. Medieval thinkers were primarily concerned with the theological problem of God's relationship to the world he created. They discussed questions about necessity and contingency as related to divine power. By the seventeenth century, the focus had shifted to natural philosophy and the extent and certitude of human knowledge. Underlying theological assumptions continued to be reflected in the epistemological and metaphysical orientations incorporated into different versions of the mechanical philosophy. The differences between Pierre Gassendi's (1592-1655) and Rene Descartes' (1596-1650) versions of the mechanical philosophy directly reflected the differences in their theological presuppositions. Gassendi described a world utterly contingent on divine will. This contingency expressed itself in his conviction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about the natural world and that the matter of which ...
Show/Hide image