Natural philosophyNatural philosophy or philosophy of nature

(from Latin philosophia naturalis) was the

philosophical study of nature and the physical

universe that was dominant before the development of

modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of

natural science.

From the ancient world, starting with Aristotle, to the

19th century, the term "natural philosophy" was the

common term used to describe the practice of

studying nature. It was in the 19th century that the

concept of "science" received its modern shape with

new titles emerging such as "biology" and "biologist",

"physics" and "physicist" among other technical fields

and titles; institutions and communities were founded, and unprecedented applications to and

interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred.[1] Isaac Newton's book Philosophiae

Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687 ), whose title translates to "Mathematical Principles of Natural

Philosophy", reflects the then-current use of the words "natural philosophy", akin to "systematic study of

nature". Even in the 19th century, a treatise by Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait, which helped define

much of modern physics, was titled Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867 ).

In the German tradition, Naturphilosophie (philosophy of nature) persisted into the 18th and 19th

century as an attempt to achieve a speculative unity of nature and spirit. Some of the greatest names in

German philosophy are associated with this movement, including Goethe, Hegel and Schelling.

Naturphilosophie was associated with Romanticism and a view that regarded the natural world as a kind

of giant organism, as opposed to the philosophical approach of figures such as John Locke and Isaac

Newton who espoused a more mechanical view of the world, regarding it as being like a machine.

Origin and evolut ion of the term

Scope

Branches and subject matter

HistoryMedieval philosophy of motion

Aristotle's philosophy of nature

Other significant figures in natural philosophy

Current work in the phi losophy of science and nature

See also

References

Further reading

External l inks

A celestial map from the 17th century, by the

Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit

Contents

The term natural philosophy preceded our current natural science (i.e. empirical science). Empirical

science historically developed out of philosophy or, more specifically , natural philosophy. Natural

philosophy was distinguished from the other precursor of modern science, natural history, in that natural

philosophy involved reasoning and explanations about nature (and after Galileo, quantitative reasoning),

whereas natural history was essentially qualitative and descriptive.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, natural philosophy was one of many branches of philosophy, but was not a

specialized field of study. The first person appointed as a specialist in Natural Philosophy per se was

Jacopo Zabarella, at the University of Padua in 157 7 .

Modern meanings of the terms science and scientists date only to the 19th century. Before that, science

was a synonym for knowledge or study, in keeping with its Latin origin. The term gained its modern

meaning when experimental science and the scientific method became a specialized branch of study apart

from natural philosophy.[2]

From the mid-19th century, when it became increasingly unusual for scientists to contribute to both

physics and chemistry , "natural philosophy" came to mean just physics, and the word is still used in that

sense in degree titles at the University of Oxford. In general, chairs of Natural Philosophy established long

ago at the oldest universities are nowadays occupied mainly by physics professors. Isaac Newton's book

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687 ), whose title translates to "Mathematical Principles

of Natural Philosophy", reflects the then-current use of the words "natural philosophy", akin to "systematic

study of nature". Even in the 19th century, a treatise by Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait, which helped

define much of modern physics, was titled Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867).

Greek philosophers defined it as the combination of beings living in the universe, ignoring things made by

humans.[3] The other definition refers to human nature.[3]

In Plato's earliest known dialogue, Charmides distinguishes between science or bodies of knowledge that

produce a physical result, and those that do not. Natural philosophy has been categorized as a theoretical

rather than a practical branch of philosophy (like ethics). Sciences that guide arts and draw on the

philosophical knowledge of nature may produce practical results, but these subsidiary sciences (e.g.,

architecture or medicine) go beyond natural philosophy.

The study of natural philosophy seeks to explore the cosmos by any means necessary to understand the

universe. Some ideas presuppose that change is a reality . Although this may seem obvious, there have

been some philosophers who have denied the concept of metamorphosis, such as Plato's predecessor

Parmenides and later Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus, and perhaps some Eastern philosophers.

George Santayana, in his Scepticism and Animal Faith, attempted to show that the reality of change

cannot be proven. If his reasoning is sound, it follows that to be a physicist, one must restrain one's

skepticism enough to trust one's senses, or else rely on anti-realism.

René Descartes' metaphysical system of mind–body dualism describes two kinds of substance: matter and

mind. According to this system, everything that is "matter" is deterministic and natural—and so belongs to

natural philosophy—and everything that is "mind" is volitional and non-natural, and falls outside the

Origin and evolution of the term

Scope

domain of philosophy of nature.

Major branches of natural philosophy include astronomy and cosmology, the study of nature on the

grand scale; etiology, the study of (intrinsic and sometimes extrinsic) causes; the study of chance,

probability and randomness; the study of elements; the study of the infinite and the unlimited (virtual or

actual); the study of matter; mechanics, the study of translation of motion and change; the study of nature

or the various sources of actions; the study of natural qualities; the study of physical quantities; the study

of relations between physical entities; and the philosophy of space and time. (Adler, 1993)

Humankind's mental engagement with nature certainly predates civilization and the record of history.

Philosophical, and specifically non-religious thought about the natural world, goes back to ancient

Greece. These lines of thought began before Socrates, who turned from his philosophical studies from

speculations about nature to a consideration of man, viz., political philosophy. The thought of early

philosophers such Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Democritus centered on the natural world. In addition,

three presocratic philosophers who lived in the Ionian town of Miletus (hence the Milesian School of

philosophy,) Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, attempted to explain natural phenomena without

recourse to creation myths involving the Greek gods. They were called the physikoi (natural

philosophers,) or, as Aristotle referred to them, the physiologoi. Plato followed Socrates in concentrating

on man. It was Plato's student, Aristotle, who, in basing his thought on the natural world, returned

empiricism to its primary place, while leaving room in the world for man.[4] Martin Heidegger observes

that Aristotle was the originator of conception of nature that prevailed in the Middle Ages into the

modern era:

The Physics is a lecture in which he seeks to determine beings that arise on their own, τα

φύσει ὄντα, with regard to their being. Aristotelian "physics" is different from what we mean

today by this word, not only to the extent that it belongs to antiquity whereas the modern

physical sciences belong to modernity , rather above all it is different by virtue of the fact

that Aristotle's "physics" is philosophy, whereas modern physics is a positive science that

presupposes a philosophy.... This book determines the warp and woof of the whole of

Western thinking, even at that place where it, as modern thinking, appears to think at odds

with ancient thinking. But opposition is invariably comprised of a decisive, and often even

perilous, dependence. Without Aristotle's Physics there would have been no Galileo.[5]

Aristotle surveyed the thought of his predecessors and conceived of nature in a way that charted a middle

course between their excesses.[6]

Plato's world of eternal and unchanging Forms, imperfectly represented in matter by a

divine Artisan, contrasts sharply with the various mechanistic Weltanschauungen, of which

atomism was, by the fourth century at least, the most prominent… This debate was to persist

throughout the ancient world. Atomistic mechanism got a shot in the arm from Epicurus…

while the Stoics adopted a divine teleology… The choice seems simple: either show how a

structured, regular world could arise out of undirected processes, or inject intelligence into

Branches and subject matter

History

the system. This was how Aristotle… when still a young acolyte of Plato, saw matters.

Cicero… preserves Aristotle's own cave-image: if troglodytes were brought on a sudden into

the upper world, they would immediately suppose it to have been intelligently arranged. But

Aristotle grew to abandon this view; although he believes in a divine being, the Prime Mover

is not the efficient cause of action in the Universe, and plays no part in constructing or

arranging it... But, although he rejects the divine Artificer, Aristotle does not resort to a pure

mechanism of random forces. Instead he seeks to find a middle way between the two

positions, one which relies heavily on the notion of Nature, or phusis.[7]

"The world we inhabit is an orderly one, in which things generally behave in predictable ways, Aristotle

argued, because every natural object has a "nature"—an attribute (associated primarily with form) that

makes the object behave in its customary fashion..."[8] Aristotle recommended four causes as appropriate

for the business of the natural philosopher, or physicist, “and if he refers his problems back to all of them,

he will assign the ‘why’ in the way proper to his science—the matter, the form, the mover, [and] ‘that for

the sake of which’”. While the vagaries of the material cause are subject to circumstance, the formal,

efficient and final cause often coincide because in natural kinds, the mature form and final cause are one

and the same. The capacity to mature into a specimen of one's kind is directly acquired from “the primary

source of motion”, i.e., from one's father, whose seed (sperma) conveys the essential nature (common to

the species), as a hypothetical ratio.[9]

Material cause  An object's motion will behave in different ways depending on the [substance/essence]from which it is made. (Compare clay, steel, etc.)

Formal cause  An object's motion will behave in different ways depending on its material arrangement.(Compare a clay sphere, clay block, etc.)

Efficient cause That which caused the object to come into being; an "agent of change" or an "agent ofmovement".

Final cause  The reason that caused the object to be brought into existence.

From the late Middle Ages into the modern era, the tendency has been to narrow "science" to the

consideration of efficient or agency-based causes of a particular kind:[10]

The action of an efficient cause may sometimes, but not always, be described in terms of

quantitative force. The action of an artist on a block of clay, for instance, can be described in

terms of how many pounds of pressure per square inch is exerted on it. The efficient

causality of the teacher in directing the activity of the artist, however, cannot be so

described…

The final cause acts on the agent to influence or induce her to act. If the artist works "to make

money," making money is in some way the cause of her action. But we cannot describe this

influence in terms of quantitative force. The final cause acts, but it acts according to the

mode of final causality , as an end or good that induces the efficient cause to act. The mode of

causality proper to the final cause cannot itself be reduced to efficient causality , much less

to the mode of efficient causality we call "force."[11]

Medieval thoughts on motion involved much of Aristotle's works Physics and Metaphysics. The issue that

medieval philosophers had with motion was the inconsistency found between book 3 of Physics and book

5 of Metaphysics. Aristotle claimed in book 3 of Physics that motion can be categorized by substance,

quantity , quality , and place. where in book 5 of Metaphysics he stated that motion is a magnitude of

quantity . This disputation led to some important questions to natural philosophers: Which

category/categories does motion fit into? Is motion the same thing as a terminus? Is motion separate

from real things? These questions asked by medieval philosophers tried to classify motion.[12]

William Ockham gives a good concept of motion for many people in the Middle Ages. There is an issue

with the vocabulary behind motion which makes people think that there is a correlation between nouns

and the qualities that make nouns. Ockham states that this distinction is what will allow people to

understand motion, that motion is a property of mobiles, locations, and forms and that is all that is

required to define what motion is. A famous example of this is Occam's razor which simplifies vague

statements by cutting them into more descriptive examples. "Every motion derives from an agent."

becomes "each thing that is moved, is moved by an agent" this makes motion a more personal quality

referring to individual objects that are moved.[12]

"An acorn is potentially, but not actually, an oak tree. In becoming an oak tree,it becomes actually what it originally was only potentially. This change thusinvolves passage from potentiality to actuality — not from non-being to beingbut from one kind or degree to being another"[8]

Aristotle held many important beliefs that started a convergence of thought for natural philosophy.

Aristotle believed that attributes of objects belong to the objects themselves, and share traits with other

objects that fit them into a category. He uses the example of dogs to press this point. An individual dog

may have very specific attributes (ex. one dog can be black and another brown) but also very general

ones that classify it as a dog (ex. four-legged). This philosophy can be applied to many other objects as

well. This idea is different than that of Plato, with whom Aristotle had a direct association. Aristotle

argued that objects have properties "form" and something that is not part of its properties "matter" that

defines the object. The form cannot be separated from the matter. Given the example that you can not

separate properties and matter since this is impossible, you cannot collect properties in a pile and matter

in another.[8]

Aristotle believed that change was a natural occurrence. He used his philosophy of form and matter to

argue that when something changes you change its properties without changing its matter. This change

occurs by replacing certain properties with other properties. Since this change is always an intentional

alteration whether by forced means or by natural ones, change is a controllable order of qualities. He

argues that this happens through three categories of being: non-being, potential being, and actual being.

Through these three states the process of changing an object never truly destroys an objects forms during

this transition state but rather just blurs the reality between the two states. An example of this could be

changing an object from red to blue with a transitional purple phase.[8]

Medieval philosophy of motion

Aristotle's philosophy of nature

Other significant figures in natural philosophy

Early Greek philosophers studied motion and the cosmos. Figures like Hesiod regarded the Natural world

as offspring of the gods, whereas others like Leucippus and Democritus regarded the world as lifeless

atoms in a vortex. Anaximander deduced that eclipses happen because of apertures in rings of celestial

fire. Heraclitus believed that the heavenly bodies were made of fire that were contained within bowls. He

thought that eclipses happen when the bowl turned away from the earth. Anaximenes is believed to have

stated that an underlying element was air, and by manipulating air someone could change its thickness to

create fire, water, dirt, and stones. Empedocles identified the elements that make up the world which he

termed the roots of all things as Fire, Air. Earth, and Water. Parmenides argued that all change is a logical

impossibility . He gives the example that nothing can go from nonexistence to existence. Plato argues that

the world is an imperfect replica of an idea that a divine craftsman once held. He also believed that the

only way to truly know something was through reason and logic not the study of the object itself, but that

changeable matter is a viable course of study.[8]

The scientific method has ancient precedents and Galileo exemplifies a mathematical understanding of

nature which is the hallmark of modern natural scientists. Galileo proposed that objects falling regardless

of their mass would fall at the same rate, as long as the medium they fall in is identical. The 19th-century

distinction of a scientific enterprise apart from traditional natural philosophy has its roots in prior

centuries. Proposals for a more "inquisitive" and practical approach to the study of nature are notable in

Francis Bacon, whose ardent convictions did much to popularize his insightful Baconian method. The late

17 th-century natural philosopher Robert Boyle wrote a seminal work on the distinction between physics

and metaphysics called, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, as well as The

Skeptical Chymist, after which the modern science of chemistry is named, (as distinct from proto-

scientific studies of alchemy). These works of natural philosophy are representative of a departure from

the medieval scholasticism taught in European universities, and anticipate in many ways, the

developments which would lead to science as practiced in the modern sense. As Bacon would say, "vexing

nature" to reveal "her" secrets, (scientific experimentation), rather than a mere reliance on largely

historical, even anecdotal, observations of empirical phenomena, would come to be regarded as a

defining characteristic of modern science, if not the very key to its success. Boyle's biographers, in their

emphasis that he laid the foundations of modern chemistry , neglect how steadily he clung to the

scholastic sciences in theory, practice and doctrine.[13] However, he meticulously recorded

observational detail on practical research, and subsequently advocated not only this practice, but its

publication, both for successful and unsuccessful experiments, so as to validate individual claims by

replication.

For sometimes we use the word nature for that Author of nature whom the schoolmen,

harshly enough, call natura naturans, as when it is said that nature hath made man partly

corporeal and partly immaterial. Sometimes we mean by the nature of a thing the essence,

or that which the schoolmen scruple not to call the quiddity of a thing, namely, the attribute

or attributes on whose score it is what it is, whether the thing be corporeal or not, as when

we attempt to define the nature of an angel, or of a triangle, or of a fluid body, as such.

Sometimes we take nature for an internal principle of motion, as when we say that a stone let

fall in the air is by nature carried towards the centre of the earth, and, on the contrary, that

fire or flame does naturally move upwards toward heaven. Sometimes we understand by

nature the established course of things, as when we say that nature makes the night succeed

the day, nature hath made respiration necessary to the life of men. Sometimes we take

nature for an aggregate of powers belonging to a body, especially a living one, as when

physicians say that nature is strong or weak or spent, or that in such or such diseases nature

left to herself will do the cure. Sometimes we take nature for the universe, or system of the

corporeal works of God, as when it is said of a phoenix, or a chimera, that there is no such

thing in nature, i.e. in the world. And sometimes too, and that most commonly, we would

express by nature a semi-deity or other strange kind of being, such as this discourse

examines the notion of.[14]

— Robert Boyle, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature

Natural philosophers of the late 17 th or early 18th century were sometimes insultingly described as

'projectors'. A projector was an entrepreneur who invited people to invest in his invention but - as the

caricature went - could not be trusted, usually because his device was impractical.[15] Jonathan Swift

satirized natural philosophers of the Royal Society as 'the academy of projectors' in his novel Gulliver's

Travels. Historians of science have argued that natural philosophers and the so-called projectors

sometimes overlapped in their methods and aims.[16][17]

The modern emphasis is less on a broad empiricism (one that includes passive observation of nature's

activity), but on a narrow conception of the empirical concentrating on the control exercised through

experimental (active) observation for the sake of control of nature. Nature is reduced to a passive

recipient of human activity .

In the middle of the 20th century, Ernst Mayr's discussions on the teleology of nature brought up issues

that were dealt with previously by Aristotle (regarding final cause) and Kant (regarding reflective

judgment).[18]

Especially since the mid-20th-century European crisis, some thinkers argued the importance of looking at

nature from a broad philosophical perspective, rather than what they considered a narrowly positivist

approach relying implicitly on a hidden, unexamined philosophy.[19] One line of thought grows from the

Aristotelian tradition, especially as developed by Thomas Aquinas. Another line springs from Edmund

Husserl, especially as expressed in The Crisis of European Sciences. Students of his such as Jacob Klein

and Hans Jonas more fully developed his themes. Last, but not least, there is the process philosophy

inspired by Alfred North Whitehead's works.[20]

Among living scholars, Brian David Ellis, Nancy Cartwright, David Oderberg, and John Dupré are some of

the more prominent thinkers who can arguably be classed as generally adopting a more open approach to

the natural world. Ellis (2002) observes the rise of a "New Essentialism."[21] David Oderberg (2007 ) takes

issue with other philosophers, including Ellis to a degree, who claim to be essentialists. He revives and

defends the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition from modern attempts to flatten nature to the limp subject of

the experimental method.[22] In his In Praise of Natural Philosophy: A Revolution for Thought and Life (ht

tp://www.mqup.ca/in-praise-of-natural-philosophy-products-97 807 7 3549036.php) (2017 ), Nicholas

Maxwell argues that we need to reform philosophy and put science and philosophy back together again to

create a modern version of natural philosophy.

Environmental philosophy

Current work in the philosophy of science and

nature

See also

Gentleman scientist

History of science

Natural environment

Natural theology

Naturalism (philosophy)

Nature (philosophy)

Protoscience

1. Cahan, David, ed. (2003). From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences: Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century

Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226089282.

2. The naturalist-theologian William Whewell coined the word "scientist"; his earliest written use identified by the

Oxford English Dictionary was in 1834.

3. Moreno Muñoz, Miguel (20 September 1998). "Historia de la filosofía (C.O.U.) - Tema 1" (http://web.archive.or

g/web/20100923234739/http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org:80/educacion/9/Usr/ibjoa/Filos/tema1.html#NA

T). Gobierno de Canarias (in Spanish). Archived from the original (http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org:80/educa

cion/9/Usr/ibjoa/Filos/tema1.html#NAT) on 23 September 2010. Retrieved 28 June 2018.

4. Michael J. Crowe, Mechanics from Aristotle to Einstein (Santa Fe, NM: Green Lion Press, 2007), 11.

5. Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, trans. Reginald Lilly, (Indiana University Press, 1991), 62-63 (http

s://books.google.com/books?id=rWDUmlA6M98C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA63#v=onepage&q&f=false).

6. See especially Physics, books I & II.

7. Hankinson, R. J. (1997). Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought (https://books.google.com/books?id=

iwfy-n5IWL8C). Oxford University Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-19-924656-4.

8. David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 50.

9. Aristotle, Physics II.7.

10. Michael J. Dodds, "Science, Causality and Divine Action: Classical Principles for Contemporary Challenges,"

CTNS Bulletin 21:1 [2001].

11. Dodds 2001, p. 5.

12. John E. Murdoch and Edith D. Sylla Science in The Middle Ages:The Science of Motion (1978) University of

Chicago Press p. 213-222

13. More, Louis Trenchard (January 1941). "Boyle as Alchemist". Journal of the History of Ideas. University of

Pennsylvania Press. 2 (1): 61–76. doi:10.2307/2707281 (https://doi.org/10.2307/2707281). JSTOR 2707281

(https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707281).

14. Boyle, Robert; Stewart, M.A. (1991). Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle (https://books.google.com/

books?id=_tNzGMLGSGwC&pg=PA177). HPC Classics Series. Hackett. pp. 176–177. ISBN 978-0-87220-122-4.

LCCN 91025480 (https://lccn.loc.gov/91025480).

15. "The Age of the Projectors | History Today" (http://www.historytoday.com/alex-keller/age-projectors).

www.historytoday.com. Retrieved 2016-10-19.

16. Willmoth, Frances (1993-01-01). Sir Jonas Moore: Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science (https://bo

oks.google.co.uk/books?id=Ku2IWu3xchoC&dq=alex+keller+projector&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s). Boydell &

Brewer. ISBN 9780851153216.

17. Yamamoto, Koji (2015-12-01). "Medicine, metals and empire: the survival of a chymical projector in early

eighteenth-century London" (https://zenodo.org/record/895512). The British Journal for the History of

Science. 48 (4): 607–637. doi:10.1017/S000708741500059X (https://doi.org/10.1017/S000708741500059X).

ISSN 0007-0874 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0007-0874).

18. "Teleology and Randomness in the Development of Natural Science Research: Systems, Ontology and

Evolution" Interthesis, v. 8, n. 2, p. 316-334, jul/dec.2011 (http://pt.scribd.com/doc/117102437/Teleology-an

d-Randomness-in-the-Development-of-Natural-Science-Research-Systems-Ontology-and-Evolution.)

References

Adler, Mortimer J. (1993). The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical, Moral, Objective, Categorical.Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-500574-X.

E.A. Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1954).

Philip Kitcher, Science, Truth, and Democracy. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science. Oxford; New York:Oxford University Press, 2001. LCCN:2001036144 ISBN 0-19-514583-6

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstancesfrom the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1945) Simon & Schuster, 1972.

Santayana, George (1923). Scepticism and Animal Faith. Dover Publications. pp. 27–41. ISBN 0-486-20236-4.

David Snoke, Natural Philosophy: A Survey of Physics and Western Thought. Access Research Network, 2003.ISBN 1-931796-25-4.[1] (http://www.cityreformed.org/snoke/hsbook/hsbook.html) [2] (http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/Homeschool_Reviews/reviews.php?rid=909)

Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy(Crossway Books, 1994, ISBN 0891077669).

Alfred N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, The Macmillan Company, 1929.

René Thom, Modèles mathématiques de la morphogenèse, Christian Bourgois, 1980.

Claude Paul Bruter, Topologie et perception, Maloine, 3 vols. 1974/1976/1986.

Jean Largeault, Principes classiques d'interprétation de la nature, Vrin, 1988.

Moritz Schlick, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949.

Andrew G. Van Melsen, The Philosophy of Nature, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh 1954.

Miguel Espinoza, La matière éternelle et ses harmonies éphémères, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2017.

"Aristotle's Natural Philosophy" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-natphil/), Stanford Encyclopediaof Philosophy

Institute for the Study of Nature (http://www.isnature.org)

"A Bigger Physics (http://www.isnature.org/Files/Augros_2009-Bigger_Physics.htm)," a talk at MIT byMichael Augros

Other articles (http://www.isnature.org/articles.htm)

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19. E.A. Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1954),

227-230.

20. See, e.g., Michel Weber and Will Desmond, (eds.), Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought (https://www.aca

demia.edu/279955/Handbook_of_Whiteheadian_Process_Thought), Frankfurt / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Process

Thought X1 & X2, 2008.

21. See his The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism 2002. ISBN 0-7735-2474-6

22. David S. Oderberg, Real Essentialism (Routledge, 2007). ISBN 0415323649

Further reading

External links