Natural Philosophy Information

Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis), is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of natural sciences such as physics as well as metaphysics.

Forms of science historically developed out of philosophy or more specifically natural philosophy. At older universities, long-established Chairs of Natural Philosophy are nowadays occupied mainly by physics professors. Modern notions of science and scientists date only to the 19th century (the Oxford English Dictionary dates the origin of the word "scientist" to 1834). Before then, the word "science" simply meant knowledge and the label of scientist did not exist. Isaac Newton's 1687 scientific treatise is known as The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.

Origin and evolution of the term

The term natural philosophy preceded our current natural science (from the Latin, scientia, meaning "knowledge") when the subject of that knowledge or study was "the workings of nature". Natural philosophy pertains to the work of analysis and synthesis of common experience and argumentation to explain or describe nature—while, in the 16th century and earlier, science was used exclusively as a synonym for knowledge or study. The term science, as in natural science, gained its modern meaning when acquiring knowledge through experiments (special experiences) under the scientific method became its own specialized branch of study apart from natural philosophy. In the Sixteenth Century, Jacopo Zabarella was the first person appointed as a professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Padua.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, natural philosophy referred to what is now physical science. From the mid-19th century, when it became increasingly unusual for scientists to contribute to both physics and chemistry, it just meant physics, and is still used in that sense in degree titles at the University of Oxford. Natural philosophy was distinguished from the other pre-cursor of modern science, natural history, in that the former involved reasoning and explanations about nature (and after Galileo, quantitative reasoning), whereas the latter was essentially qualitative and descriptive.

Scope of natural philosophy

Plato, in what is thought one of his earliest dialogues, Charmides, distinguishes between sciences or bodies of knowledge that produce a physical result, and those that do not. Natural philosophy has been categorized as a theoretical rather than a practical branch of philosophy (like ethics). Sciences that guide arts and draw on the philosophical knowledge of nature can, of course, produce practical results, but these subsidiary sciences (e.g., architecture or medicine) go beyond natural philosophy.

The study of natural philosophy presupposes that change is a reality. Although this may seem obvious, there have been some philosophers who have denied change, such as Plato's predecessor Parmenides and later Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus and perhaps some Eastern philosophers. George Santayana, in his Scepticism and Animal Faith, attempted to show that the reality of change cannot be proven. If his reasoning is sound, it follows that to be a physicist, one must restrain one's skepticism enough to trust one's senses, or else rely on anti-realism.

Beginning with Schelling, the mode of change studied in natural philosophy has been development, rather than evolution. Development is predictable directional change, while evolution is the irreversible accumulation of historically mediated information.

René Descartes' metaphysical system of dualism describes two kinds of substance: matter and mind. According to this system, everything that is "matter" is deterministic and natural—and so belongs to natural philosophy—and everything that is "mind" is volitional and non-natural, and falls outside the domain of philosophy of nature.

Branches and subject matter of natural philosophy

Major branches of natural philosophy include astronomy and cosmology, the study of nature on the grand scale; etiology, the study of (intrinsic and sometimes extrinsic) causes; the study of chance, probability and randomness; the study of elements; the study of the infinite and the unlimited (virtual or actual); the study of matter; mechanics, the study of translation of motion and change; the study of nature or the various sources of actions; the study of natural qualities; the study of physical quantities; the study of relations between physical entities; and the philosophy of space and time. (Adler, 1993)

History of natural philosophy

See History of physics, History of chemistry and History of astronomy for the history of natural philosophy prior to the 17th century.

Figures in natural philosophy

The scientific method has ancient precedents and Galileo exemplifies a mathematical understanding of nature which is the hallmark of modern natural scientists. The 19th century distinction of a scientific enterprise apart from traditional natural philosophy has its roots prior centuries. Proposals for a more "inquisitive" and practical approach to the study of nature are notable in Francis Bacon, who's ardent convictions did much to popularize his insightful Baconian method. The late 17th century natural philosopher Robert Boyle wrote a seminal work on the distinction between physics and metaphysics called, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, as well as The Skeptical Chymist, after which the modern science of chemistry is named, (as distinct from proto-scientific studies of alchemy). These works of natural philosophy are representative of a departure from the medieval scholasticism taught in European universities, and anticipate in many ways, the developments which would lead to science as practiced in the modern sense. As Bacon would say, "vexing nature" to reveal "her" secrets, (scientific experimentation), rather than a mere reliance on largely historical, even anecdotal, observations of empirical phenomena, would come to be regarded as a defining characteristic of modern science, if not the very key to its success. Boyle's biographers, in their emphasis that he laid the foundations of modern chemistry, neglect how steadily he clung to the scholastic sciences in theory, practice and doctrine.^[1] However, he meticulously recorded observational detail on practical research, and subsequently advocated not only this practice, but its publication, both for successful and unsuccessful experiments, so as to validate individual claims by replication.

See also

• Gentleman scientist
• History of science
• Natural environment
• Natural history
• Natural theology
• Naturalism (philosophy)
• Nature (philosophy)
• Nature

References

1. ^ More, Louis Trenchard (January 1941). "Boyle as Alchemist". Journal of the History of Ideas (University of Pennsylvania Press) 2 (1): 61–76. doi:10.2307/2707281. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707281.

• Adler, Mortimer J. (1993). The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical, Moral, Objective, Categorical. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-500574-X.
• Philip Kitcher, Science, Truth, and Democracy. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. LCCN:2001036144 ISBN 0-19-514583-6
• Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1945) Simon & Schuster, 1972.
• Santayana, George (1923). Scepticism and Animal Faith. Dover Publications. pp. 27–41. ISBN 0-486-20236-4.
• David Snoke, Natural Philosophy: A Survey of Physics and Western Thought. Access Research Network, 2003. ISBN 1-931796-25-4.[1] [2]

External links

• Past Exhibit in Philosophical Hall by APS.

Categories: History of philosophy | History of physics | History of science

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