Squaring the Circle: The War Between Hobbes and Wallis

Εξώφυλλο
University of Chicago Press, 1999 - 419 σελίδες
In 1655, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes claimed he had solved the centuries-old problem of "squaring of the circle" (constructing a square equal in area to a given circle). With a scathing rebuttal to Hobbes's claims, the mathematician John Wallis began one of the longest and most intense intellectual disputes of all time. Squaring the Circle is a detailed account of this controversy, from the core mathematics to the broader philosophical, political, and religious issues at stake.

Hobbes believed that by recasting geometry in a materialist mold, he could solve any geometric problem and thereby demonstrate the power of his materialist metaphysics. Wallis, a prominent Presbyterian divine as well as an eminent mathematician, refuted Hobbes's geometry as a means of discrediting his philosophy, which Wallis saw as a dangerous mix of atheism and pernicious political theory.

Hobbes and Wallis's "battle of the books" illuminates the intimate relationship between science and crucial seventeenth-century debates over the limits of sovereign power and the existence of God.

Αναζήτηση στο βιβλίο

Περιεχόμενα

CHAPTER
1
CHAPTER
48
CHAPTER THREE
73
CHAPTER FOUR
131
CHAPTER FIVE
189
CHAPTER
247
CHAPTER SEVEN
293
Persistence in Error
340
APPENDIX
357
References
385
Index
411
Πνευματικά δικαιώματα

Άλλες εκδόσεις - Προβολή όλων

Συχνά εμφανιζόμενοι όροι και φράσεις

Αναφορές για αυτό το βιβλίο

Σχετικά με τον συγγραφέα (1999)

Douglas M. Jesseph is assistant professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University.

Πληροφορίες βιβλιογραφίας