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Fact, Faith and Fiction in the Development of Science

The Gifford Lectures Given in the University of St Andrews 1976

  • Book
  • © 1999

Overview

Authors:
  1. R. Hooykaas

    1. Utrecht, The Netherlands

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Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (BSPS, volume 205)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
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  2. Introduction

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 5-16

  3. On Natural Theology

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 17-25

  4. Harmony in Nature

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 27-77

  5. The Philosopher’s Stone

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 79-98

  6. The Undying Fire Qualitative Theories of Stahl and Lavoisier

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 99-115

  7. A Tunnel Through the Earth

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 117-145

  8. And the Sun Stood Still

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 147-181

  9. Thinking with the Hands

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 183-228

  10. Physical and Mathematical Theories

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 229-264

  11. Works of Nature, Works of Art

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 265-318

  12. Cleopatra’s Nose

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 319-341

  13. The ‘Thinking Reed’

    • R. Hooykaas
    Pages 343-372

  14. Back Matter

    Pages 373-462
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Keywords

About this book

In this posthumous book, the late Professor R. Hooykaas (1906-1994) conveys a lifetime of historical thought about modes of scientific advance over the centuries. In what variety of ways has the human mind, with all its subjectivity and its capacity for self-deception, but also its piercing gifts of discovery, managed to come to terms with `the whimsical tricks of nature'? Central to this erudite, penetrating, and widely ranging study is Hooykaas's distinction between facts (given by nature yet entirely subject to our mode of interpreting them), faith (broad conceptions like the idea of order, of simplicity, or of harmony), and fictions in the sense of those daring intellectual tools, such as theories and hypotheses and models, which reflect the scientist's creative imagination. Case studies drawn from the history of all branches of science (including chemistry and the earth sciences) and from Antiquity to the present day, serve to widen and to deepen the understanding of every reader (whether a historian of science or not) with a desire to learn more about the realities of the scientific pursuit.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Utrecht, The Netherlands

    R. Hooykaas

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