The History and Philosophy of Science: A Reader brings together seminal texts from antiquity to the end of the nineteenth century and makes them accessible in one volume for the first time.

With readings from Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Darwin, Faraday, and Maxwell, it analyses and discusses major classical, medieval and modern texts and figures from the natural sciences. Grouped by topic to clarify the development of methods and disciplines and the unification of theories, each section includes an introduction, suggestions for further reading and end-of-section discussion questions, allowing students to develop the skills needed to:

§ read, interpret, and critically engage with central problems and ideas from the history and philosophy of science
§ understand and evaluate scientific material found in a wide variety of professional and popular settings
§ appreciate the social and cultural context in which scientific ideas emerge
§ identify the roles that mathematics plays in scientific inquiry

Featuring primary sources in all the core scientific fields - astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the life sciences - The History and Philosophy of Science: A Reader is ideal for students looking to better understand the origins of natural science and the questions asked throughout its history. By taking a thematic approach to introduce influential assumptions, methods and answers, this reader illustrates the implications of an impressive range of values and ideas across the history and philosophy of Western science.

Daniel J. McKaughan is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Boston College, USA.

Holly Vande Wall is Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Boston College, USA.

Timeline
Introduction, Daniel J. McKaughan and Holly Vandewall

Part I. ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND MATHEMATICS
Introduction
Plato, Philebus
Plato, Republic
Plato, Timaeus
Lucretius, On The Nature of Things
Aristotle, Categories
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics
Aristotle, Physics
Aristotle, On the Heavens
Aristotle, Meteorology
Aristotle, De Anima
Aristotle, Parts of Animals
Aristotle, Generation of Animals
Euclid, Elements
Apollonius, The Conics
Ptolemy, Introduction to the Almagest
Avicenna, De Mineralibus
Al-Biruni, Letters to Avicenna on Aristotelian Astronomy and Physics
Aquinas, On the Motion of the Heart
Buridan, Questions on Aristotelian Philosophy
Oresme, A Treatise on the Configuration of Qualities and Motions
Suggested Readings
Discussion Questions

Part II. TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE: MECHANICS AND ASTRONOMY
Introduction
Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres
Osiander, Preface to On the Revolutions
Tycho Brahe, Preface to The Improved Mechanic Astronomy
Kepler, Astronomia Nova
Galileo, Message to Cosimo de'Medici
Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two New Sciences
Descartes, Discourse on Method
Descartes, Principles of Philosophy
Descartes, Le Monde
Bacon, The New Organon
Bacon, The New Atlantis
Newton, Principia
Huygens, Treatise on Light
Newton, Opticks
Newton, Letter to Oldenberg
Buffon, On the Formation of the Planets
Suggested Readings
Discussion Questions

Part III: TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE: CHEMISTRY, HEAT, AND THE UNIFICATION OF FORCES
Introduction
Hermes Trismegistus, The Emerald Tablet
Paracelsus, Of the Nature of Things
Newton, The Key and Commentary on the Emerald Tablet
Boyle, On the Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Hypothesis
Boyle, Experimental Researches on Combustion
Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist
Becher, Concerning the First Principle of Metals and Stones
Stahl, Preliminaries
Priestley, Of Dephlogisticated Air
Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry
Young, On the Theory of Light and Colors
Dalton, A New System of Chemical Philosophy
Gay-Lussac, Memoir on the Combination of Gases
Avagadro, Determining Relative Masses of Elementary Molecules
Oersted, The Electromagnetic Effect (4 pages)
Faraday, Lectures on Electricity and Magnetism
Faraday, Experimental Researches in Electricity
Carnot, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
Clausius, On the Nature of the Motion We Call Heat
Maxwell, A Dynamical Theory of the ElectroMagnetic Field
Canizzaro, Sketch of a Course of Chemical Philosophy
Mendeleev, Relation between Properties and Atomic Weights
Kelvin, On the Dynamical Theory of Heat
Suggested Readings
Discussion Questions

Part IV: THE SPECIALIZATION OF NATURAL HISTORY: THE HUMAN ANIMAL, ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, AND GEOLOGY
Introduction
William Harvey, Concerning the Movement of the Heart and Blood
Descartes, Treatise on Man
Hooke, Micrographia
Schwann, Microscopical Investigations
Buffon, Natural History “Second Discourse”
Buffon, On the Generation and Species of Animals
Linnaeus, On the Increase of the Habitable Earth
Linnaeus, Economy of Nature
Cuvier, On the Revolutions of the Earthly Globe
Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy
Cuvier, Lectures on Comparative Anatomy and Natural History of Fishes
Lyell, Principles of Geology
Paley, Natural Theology
Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population
Mendel, Experiments in Plant Hybridization
Suggested Readings
Discussion Questions

Part V. EVOLUTIONARY THEORY: DARWINISM AND ITS RECEPTION
Introduction
A. R. Wallace, On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart
Darwin, The Origin of Species
Darwin, Descent of Man
Darwin, Variation of Plants and Animals “Pangenesis”
Kelvin, On the Age of the Earth: Uniformity Briefly Refuted and Of Geological Dynamics
Jenkin, Review of the Origin of the Species
Sedgwick, Objections to Mr. Darwin's Theory
Owen, Darwin on the Origin of Species
Gray, Darwin and His Reviewers
Agassiz, Methods in the Study of Natural History
Huxley, T. H., The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species
Suggested Readings
Discussion Questions

Glossary
Index