841 Result(s)
within
History of Science
Philosophy of Science
Chapter
English
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Chapter
Arguments Showing that Descartes’ Physics is Mathematical
I would like to present four arguments in support of the thesis that Cartesian physics was a mathematical physics. The first two are historical, the other two of a systematic nature. I believe that together th...
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The Characteristics and Diversity of Experimentation in the Sciences
This introduction aims at raising the central questions that will be discussed throughout the book in a variety of ways, adapted to each scientific discipline. What is experimentation, and what distinguishes i...
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Experimentation in Chemistry
This chapter first evokes the objects of chemistry and the role played by experimentation in the constitution of its objects. It then studies how chemists set up experimental protocols to deal with the depende...
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Experimentation in Psychology
Attempts to define scientific psychology by its object have regularly provoked lively controversies throughout the history of the discipline. Nonetheless, a consensus seems to have been reached early in the hi...
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Experimentation in Economics
According to some authors, experimental economics can be defined as “the use of experimentation as a method of investigation in economics.” In this chapter, after recalling some aspects of the emergence of exp...
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Experimentation in Medicine
This chapter distinguishes three forms of experimentation in medical practice, emerging at different periods of the history of medicine: (1) clinical practice, (2) perilous trial of a new remedy, and (3) metho...
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Experimentation in Archaeology
After a brief overview of the history of archaeological experimentation which has not yet been established as a sub-discipline, this chapter presents four recent examples of experimentation focusing on questio...
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Schuster’s Interpretation of Descartes in Descartes Agonistes
Most historians of science contrast Descartes’ verbally formulated (and in many respects mistaken) physics with Galileo’s and Newton’s mathematical physics. Garber called Descartes’ physics “metaphysical physi...
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What is Mathesis Universalis?
There are several interpretations of what mathesis universalis could have been. Some interpreters claim that mathesis universalis is a universal method of discovery; others understand it as coextensive with al...
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What is Mathematical Physics?
We consider the answer to this question to be the central problem of the interpretation of Descartes’ scientific work. Schuster declared Descartes’ physics, because of its verbal character, to be natural philo...
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Conclusion
Schuster criticized Descartes’ method, which he interpreted as a unique, universal, transferable and efficacious general method of discovery and/or justification for rational disciplines. The accumulation of s...
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Experimentation in Physics
This chapter presents the different purposes of observation and experiment in physics using examples that allow us to grasp the historical transformations linked to the development of instrumentation. We cover...
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Experimentation in the Life Sciences
This chapter provides a brief overview of the increasing importance of experimentation in the life sciences from the seventeenth century to the present day. In the wake of the Scientific Revolution initiated i...
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Experimentation in Sociology
This chapter looks at the forms of experimental reasoning in sociology. While sociology is often described as a non-experimental discipline, a literature survey shows that all forms of experimentation are prac...
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Experimentation in Management Science
The chapter aims to deepen understanding of experimental practices and their contribution to management sciences. It examines the integration of experimental methods in management, noting its delayed adoption ...
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The Medical Clinic as an Experimental Practice
The author argues the following hypothesis: the medical clinic is an experimental practice, in the sense given to this term by Claude Bernard, and the clinic is its specific laboratory. Its object is not the d...
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Who Was Descartes?
Descartes is considered one of the founders of the modern theory of knowledge and the creator of a dualistic metaphysics. This is why books about Descartes are usually written by historians of philosophy. When...
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What is Method?
As Timothy Reiss pointed out, in the Discours de la Méthode Descartes includes the description of two methods. The first is given in the second part of the treatise, and consists of four rules (Descartes 1637a, p...
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Newton’s Example of the Two Globes
At the end of the Scholium Newton includes a long paragraph about two globes revolving around their center of gravity and held together by a tensed cord. It has been interpreted as a thought experiment (Sect. ...
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Introduction
Since the last quarter of the twentieth century there has been growing interest in women’s contributions to the histories of science, philosophy, and literature dating back to the very beginnings of these disc...
