Descartes' Natural Philosophy

by Stephen Gaukroger (Editor), John Schuster (Editor), John Sutton (Editor)

The most comprehensive collection of essays on Descartes' scientific writings ever published, this volume offers a detailed reassessment of Descartes' scientific work and its bearing on his philosophy. The 35 essays, written by some of the world's leading scholars, cover topics as diverse as optics, cosmology and medicine, and will be of vital interest to all historians of philosophy or science.

Genres: Philosophy

780 pages, Hardcover

First published June 29, 2000

About the author

Stephen Gaukroger is a British philosopher and intellectual historian. He is Professor of History of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Sydney. Recently he also took up a position as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen.

He received his BA (hons) in philosophy, with congratulatory first class honours, from the University of London in 1974, and his PhD, in history and philosophy of science, from the University of Cambridge in 1977. He was a Research Fellow at Clare Hall Cambridge, and then at the University of Melbourne, before joining the Philosophy Department at Sydney in 1981. In 2011, he moved to the Unit for History and Philosophy of Science. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, a Corresponding Member of l’Académie Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences, and in 2003 was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for contributions to history of philosophy and history of science. He is presently Professor of History of Philosophy and History of Science, and ARC Professorial Fellow. His work has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Serbian.