Science Without God?: Rethinking the History of Scientific Naturalism
Peter Harrison and Jon H. Roberts
Abstract
Modern scientific explanations invariably exclude reference to God and the supernatural. Science and naturalism thus go hand in hand. But in the past things were often different. Beginning with the naturalists of ancient Greece, and proceeding through the Middle Ages, the scientific revolution, and into the nineteenth century, the chapters of this volume examine past ideas about ‘nature’ and ‘the supernatural’. Ranging over different scientific disciplines and historical periods, they show how past thinkers often relied upon theological ideas and presuppositions in their systematic investigati ... More
Modern scientific explanations invariably exclude reference to God and the supernatural. Science and naturalism thus go hand in hand. But in the past things were often different. Beginning with the naturalists of ancient Greece, and proceeding through the Middle Ages, the scientific revolution, and into the nineteenth century, the chapters of this volume examine past ideas about ‘nature’ and ‘the supernatural’. Ranging over different scientific disciplines and historical periods, they show how past thinkers often relied upon theological ideas and presuppositions in their systematic investigations of the world. In addition to providing material that contributes to a history of nature and naturalism, this collection challenges a number of widely held misconceptions about the history of scientific naturalism.
Keywords:
Scientific naturalism,
methodological naturalism,
laws of nature,
history of science,
the supernatural,
science and religion
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2019 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198834588 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2019 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198834588.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Peter Harrison, editor
Australian Laureate Fellow; Director, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland
Jon H. Roberts, editor
Tomorrow Professor of History, Boston University
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