The Natural and the Human

Stephen Gaukroger, who was educated at London and Cambridge Universities, is Emeritus Professor of History of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Sydney. He is author of nine books in the history of science and history of philosophy, including an intellectual biography of Descartes, as well as translations of the works of Descartes and Arnauld. The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210-1685, was published in 2006, and The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680-1760, was published in 2010. His work has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Serbian.

In the first volume of his series to date (whose publication has spanned the decade 2006 to 2016), the author studied the period from 1210 to 1685, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture. His second volume overlapped the first, covering 1680 to 1760, The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility. Together, these three books represent one of the landmark achievements in the field of history of science, and represent essential reading for a wide range of disciplines. A tremendous intellectual achievement. We all eagerly await the fourth volume, dealing with science and civilisation from about 1840 to 1940.

• Introduction Part I 1: The Dichotomies of Understanding 2: Rethinking the Nature of Matter Part II 3: Anthropological Medicine 4: Philosophical Anthropology 5: The Natural History of Man 6: Social Arithmetic Part III 7: The Naturalization of Religion Conclusion Bibliography of Works Cited Index