The Invention of Physical Science: Intersections of Mathematics, Theology and Natural Philosophy Since the Seventeenth Century Essays in Honor of Erwin N. Hiebert.

Original cloth. Near Fine, in near fine dust jacket. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol. 139. Modern physical science is constituted by specialized scientific fields rooted in experimental laboratory work and in rational and mathematical representations. Contemporary scientific explanation is rigorously differentiated from religious interpretation, although, to be sure, scientists sometimes do the philosophical work of interpreting the metaphysics of space, time, and matter. However, it is rare that either theologians or philosophers convincingly claim that they are doing the scientific work of physical scientists and mathematicians. The rigidity of these divisions and differentiations is relatively new. Modern physical science was invented slowly and gradually through interactions of the aims and contents of mathematics, theology, and natural philosophy since the seventeenth century. In essays ranging in focus from seventeenth-century interpretations of heavenly comets to twentieth-century explanations of tracks in bubble chambers, ten historians of science demonstrate metaphysical and theological threads continuing to underpin the epistemology and practice of the physical sciences and mathematics, even while they became disciplinary specialties during the last three centuries. The volume is prefaced by tributes to Erwin N. Hiebert, whose teaching and scholarship have addressed and inspired attention to these issues. Table of contents (10 chapters) Natural Theology, Natural Philosophy, and the Certainty of Mathematics Devils’ Hells and Astronomers’ Heavens: Religion, Method, and Popular Culture in Speculations About Life on Comets Sara Schechner Genuth Pages 3-26 The Doctrine of Chances Without Chance: Determinism, Mathematical Probability, and Quantification in the Seventeenth Century Lorraine J. Daston Pages 27-50 God, Truth, and Mathematics in Nineteenth Century England Joan L. Richards Pages 51-78 Problems of Contingency, Coherence, and Truth Theologians, Science, and Theories of Truth in Nineteenth-Century Germany Frederick Gregory Pages 81-96 Equivalence, Pragmatic Platonism, and Discovery of the Calculus Skuli Sigurdsson Pages 97-116 The Aims and Foundations of Physical Science: The Cases of Electrical Physics, Psychophysics, and Physical Chemistry The Training of German Research Physicist Heinrich Hertz Jed Z. Buchwald Pages 119-145 From Psychophysics to Phenomenalism: Mach and Hering on Color Vision Richard L. Kremer Pages 147-173 A Usable Past: Creating Disciplinary Space for Physical Chemistry Diana Kormos Barkan Pages 175-202 Explanation and Discovery: The Claims of Chemistry, Physics, and Fortran Physics and Chemistry: Commensurate or Incommensurate Sciences? Mary Jo Nye Pages 205-224 Fortran, Physics, and Human Nature Peter Galison Pages 225-260.…