The Transformation of Natural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon

Sachiko Kusukawa (Trinity College, Cambridge)

The Transformation of Natural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Country
United Kingdom
Published
9 March 1995
Pages
268
ISBN
9780521473477

The Transformation of Natural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon

Sachiko Kusukawa (Trinity College, Cambridge)

This book proposes that Philip Melanchthon was responsible for transforming traditional university natural philosophy into a specifically Lutheran one. Motivated by desire to check civil disobedience and promote a Lutheran orthodoxy, he created a natural philosophy based on Aristotle, Galen and Plato, incorporating contemporary findings of Copernicus and Vesalius. The fields of astrology, anatomy, botany and mathematics all constituted a natural philosophy in which Melanchthon wished to demonstrate God’s Providential design in the physical world. Rather than dichotomising or synthesising the two distinct areas of ‘science’ and ‘religion’, Kusukawa advocates the need to look at ‘Natural philosophy’ as a discipline quite different from either ‘modern science’ or ‘religion’: a contextual assessment of the implication of the Lutheran Reformation on university education, particularly on natural philosophy.

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