The Transformation of Natural Phil: The Case of Philip Melanchthon: 34 (Ideas in Context, Series Number 34)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 1/12/2008
EAN 9780521030465, ISBN10: 0521030463
Paperback, 268 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
This book proposes that Philip Melanchthon was responsible for transforming traditional university natural philosophy into a specifically Lutheran one. Motivated by desire to check civil disobedience and promote a Lutheran orthodoxy, he created a natural philosophy based on Aristotle, Galen and Plato, incorporating contemporary findings of Copernicus and Vesalius. The fields of astrology, anatomy, botany and mathematics all constituted a natural philosophy in which Melanchthon wished to demonstrate God's Providential design in the physical world. Rather than dichotomizing or synthesizing the two distinct areas of 'science' and 'religion', Kusukawa advocates the need to look at 'Natural philosophy' as a discipline quite different from either 'modern science' or 'religion': a contextual assessment of the implication of the Lutheran Reformation on university education, particularly on natural philosophy.
List of illustrations
Notes on the text
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The way of the schoolmen
2. Law and Gospel
the reforms of Luther and Melanchthon
1. Luther's reform - establishing the message of the Gospel
2. Melanchthon's reform - law and philosophy
3. The soul
4. The Providence of God
5. The construction of orthodoxy
Conclusion
a transformation of natural philosophy
Bibliography
Index.