Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Aristotelian Tradition and the Rise of British Empiricism

Logic and Epistemology in the British Isles (1570–1689)

  • Book
  • © 2013

Overview

Authors:
  1. Marco Sgarbi

    1. University of Verona, Mantova, Italy

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Contains a unique history of epistemology before John Locke
  • First book that considers the intellectual background of the rise of empiricism and shows the continuity of the Aristotelian scientia in the seventeenth century
  • Considers all the logical textbooks, which were published in Britian between (1570–1689 ?

Part of the book series: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (AUST, volume 32)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 1-15

  3. Logic in the British Isles During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 17-33

  4. Logic in the Universities of the British Isles

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 35-51

  5. Jacopo Zabarella’s Empiricism

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 53-77

  6. Early Aristotelianism Between Humanism and Ramism

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 79-97

  7. The Influence of Paduan Aristotelianism and the Genesis of the British School

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 99-113

  8. Continental Aristotelians in the British Isles

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 115-146

  9. The Empiricism of Seventeenth-Century Aristotelianism

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 147-166

  10. The Reformers of Aristotelian Logic

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 167-195

  11. Late Seventeenth-Century Aristotelianism

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 197-229

  12. Conclusion

    • Marco Sgarbi
    Pages 231-234

  13. Back Matter

    Pages 235-259
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

Offers an extremely bold, far-reaching, and unsuspected thesis in the history of philosophy: Aristotelianism was a dominant movement of the British philosophical landscape, especially in the field of logic, and it had a long survival. British Aristotelian doctrines were strongly empiricist in nature, both in the theory of knowledge and in scientific method; this character marked and influenced further developments in British philosophy at the end of the century, and eventually gave rise to what we now call British empiricism, which is represented by philosophers such as John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. Beyond the apparent and explicit criticism of the old Scholastic and Aristotelian philosophy, which has been very well recognized by the scholarship in the twentieth century and which has contributed to the false notion that early modern philosophy emerged as a reaction to Aristotelianism, the present research examines the continuity, the original developments and the impact of Aristotelian doctrines and terminology in logic and epistemology as the background for the rise of empiricism.Without the Aristotelian tradition, without its doctrines, and without its conceptual elaborations, British empiricism would never have been born. The book emphasizes that philosophy is not defined only by the ‘great names’, but also by minor authors, who determine the intellectual milieu from which the canonical names emerge. It considers every single published work of logic between the middle of the sixteenth and the end of the seventeenth century, being acquainted with a number of surviving manuscripts and being well-informed about the best existing scholarship in the field.  ​

Reviews

From the reviews:

“Marco Sgarbi offers a detailed examination of the epistemology and methodologies propounded by the logic textbooks in use at both Oxford and Cambridge … . Sgarbi has done sterling work in surveying the neglected logic texts of the period. The great value of his study is its detailed examination of these humble textbooks and his demonstration of their value as a source in the history of philosophy. For that reason it will be a valuable point of reference for all historians of early modern philosophy.” (Sarah Hutton, Intellectual History Review, October, 2013)

“Sgarbi, who has read the works of Ricardo Pozzo carefully, has written a book with a title that will command immediate attention from a wide range of historians and philosophers of early modern science. … Sgarbi’s energetic researches have produced a fairly thorough work in which nearly every printed English logic textbook is dealt with. … The book will be very welcome as introducing a necessary and very helpful nuancing to the views of the development of empiricism … .” (Daniel C. Anderson, Journal of Early Modern Studies, Vol. 2 (2), 2013)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Verona, Mantova, Italy

    Marco Sgarbi

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Aristotelian Tradition and the Rise of British Empiricism

  • Book Subtitle: Logic and Epistemology in the British Isles (1570–1689)

  • Authors: Marco Sgarbi

  • Series Title: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4951-1

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-007-4950-4Published: 11 October 2012

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-94-007-9489-4Published: 09 November 2014

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-4951-1Published: 11 October 2012

  • Series ISSN: 1871-7381

  • Series E-ISSN: 2215-1958

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XII, 260

  • Topics: History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Logic

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation