Knowledge and Cosmos: Development and Decline of the Medieval Perspective

by Robert K. DeKosky

Overview

In Knowledge and Cosmos: Development and Decline of the Medieval Perspective, 2nd Edition, Robert K. DeKosky focuses on issues in astronomy, cosmology, physics, matter theory, philosophy, and theology vital to the “Copernican Revolution.” This book describes efforts among individuals advocating different world views to fit new ideas compatibly into broad perspectives reflecting four traditional patterns of interpretation: teleological, mechanical, occultist, and mathematico-descriptive. These four modes had guided medieval accounts of heavenly phenomena, material process, and motion.

The teleological explanation, prevalent in Aristotle’s natural philosophy, posited “final causes” (ends or goals toward which objects strove or attempted to become). Ancient classical atomists had emphasized strictly mechanical explanations, invoking direct material contact and collision of moving matter as agents of physical change. Traditions of astrology, magic, and alchemy embraced an occultist pattern of interpretation—citing hidden forces opaque to both sensual detection and rational understanding as explanations of various phenomena. Finally, the mathematico-descriptive approach interpreted natural phenomena according to geometric or arithmetic relationships; unlike the other three, this did not involve causal explanation of a process.

Part I discusses development of the four patterns in the ancient period and their uneasy medieval relationships with each other and with basic Judaeo-Muslim-Christian exigencies of faith. Theory of the heavens follows, including the mathematico-descriptive approach of Ptolemaic astronomy, the teleological and mechanical cosmology of Aristotle, and occultist interpretations of astrologers and magicians. Part I then turns to matter and materiality, discussing differences among the mechanical philosophy of classical atomism, teleological emphases in Aristotle’s material theory, and occultist assumptions of some alchemists. Finally, Part I analyzes conceptions of motion, focusing on Aristotelian interpretations and critical commentaries thereon during the Middle Ages.

Part II relates struggles of leading early-modern figures to adapt new concepts (e.g., Copernicus’ heliocentric astronomy/cosmology, Galileo’s inertial theories of motion, and Kepler’s elliptical planetary orbit) to an allegiance to two or more of the four patterns of interpretation. By this approach, it identifies decreasing dependence on teleological explanation of physical phenomena as crucial to decline of medieval interpretations of those phenomena, followed by rejection of teleology in the natural philosophy of Descartes, and subsequent fruitful confluence of the mechanical, mathematico-descriptive, and occultist patterns in the physics and cosmology of Isaac Newton.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761874034
Publisher:	Hamilton Books
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	532
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Robert K. DeKosky is professor emeritus of history at the University of Kansas

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Part 1: Knowledge and Cosmos: Development of the Medieval Perspective

Section 1: Faith and Reason: Theories of Cognition and the Medieval Intellectual Background

Introduction to Section 1

Chapter 1: Plato and Aristotle

Chapter 2: Late Antiquity: The Platonic Philosophical Strain

Chapter 3: Islamicate Philosophical Syncretism

Chapter 4: High Scholasticism and the Universities: Aristotelian Thought Re‑enters Western

Europe

Chapter 5: William of Ockham and the 14th Century Critique of Human Knowledge

Section Two. The Heavens: Astronomy, Cosmology, and Astrology

Chapter 6: Development of Astronomy: A Mathematico-Descriptive Approach to Heavenly

Phenomena

Chapter 7: The Teleological-Mechanical Cosmos of Aristotle and Its Influence on Medieval

Natural Philosophy

Chapter 8: Astrological Causation and the Occultist Interpretation of Heavenly Bodies and Their

Influences

Chapter 9: Classical Atomism: A Mechanical Philosophy

Chapter 10: Aristotelian Conceptions of Materiality and the Teleological Mode

Chapter 11: Alchemy

Section 4: Conceptions of Motion

Chapter 12: Projectile Motion: Aristotle and His Critics

Chapter 13: Falling Bodies: Aristotle and His Critics

Chapter 14: Emergence of a Kinematic Approach to Motion

Part II: Knowledge and Cosmos: Decline of the Medieval Perspective

Introduction to Part II

Section Five: The “Revolution” in Astronomy

Chapter 15: Copernicus

Chapter 16: Responses to Copernicus

Chapter 17: Kepler

Section 6: Galileo Galilei Between World Views

Introduction to Section 6

Chapter 18: Galileo and Astronomy: Conflict Over World Systems

Chapter 19: Galileo and the Science of Motion: Physical Justification for a Moving Earth

Chapter 20: The Galilean Approach to Explication of Physical Process

Chapter 21: Galileo and the Nature of Materiality

Epilogue: Demise of the Medieval Perspective

Bibliography

Index

About the Author