THE FOUNDATIONS

OF MODERN
SCIENCE IN THE
MIDDLE AGES
Their religious, institutional, and
intellectual contexts
EDWARD GRANT
Indiana University

CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Preface

page xi
1. THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE FIRST SIX CENTURIES
OF CHRISTIANITY

Christianity and pagan learning

Hexaemeral literature: Christian commentaries on the creation
account in Genesis
Christianity and Greco-Roman culture
The state of science and natural philosophy during the first six
centuries of Christianity
The seven liberal arts
\
2. THE NEW BEGINNING: THE AGE OF TRANSLATION
IN THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

Education and learning in the twelfth century

Latin translations from Arabic and Greek
The translation of the works of Aristotle
The dissemination and assimilation of Aristotle's natural
philosophy
,
The contributions of Greek commentators
The contributions of Islamic commentators
Pseudo-Aristotelian works
Reception of the translations
3. THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY

Students and masters

Teaching in the arts faculty

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Contents

The curriculum of the arts faculty

Logic
The quadrivium
The three philosophies
The higher faculties of theology and medicine
The social and intellectual role of the university
The manuscript culture of the Middle Ages
4. WHAT THE MIDDLE AGES INHERITED FROM ARISTOTLE

The terrestrial region: Realm of incessant change

Motion in Aristotle's physics
Natural motion of sublunar bodies
Violent, or unnatural, motion
The celestial region: Incorruptible and changeless
5. THE RECEPTION AND IMPACT OF ARISTOTELIAN LEARNING AND
THE REACTION OF THE CHURCH AND ITS THEOLOGIANS

The Condemnation of 1277

The eternity of the world
The doctrine of the double truth
Limitations on God's absolute power
Two senses of the hypothetical in medieval natural philosophy
The theologian-natural philosophers
6. WHAT THE MIDDLE AGES DID WITH ITS ARISTOTELIAN LEGACY

The terrestrial region

The causes of motion
Internal resistance and natural motion in a vacuum
Violent motion in a vacuum and impetus theory
The kinematics of motion
Motion as the quantification of a quality: The intension
and remission of forms
The celestial region
The three-orb compromise
The number of total orbs
Celestial incorruptibility and change
The causes of celestial motion
External movers
Internal movers
Internal and external movers combined
Does the earth have a daily axial rotation?

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ix

The world as a whole, and what may lie beyond

Is the world created or eternal?
On the possible existence of other worlds
Does space or void exist beyond our world?

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7. MEDIEVAL NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, ARISTOTELIANS,

AND ARISTOTELIANISM

The questions literature of the late Middle Ages

Natural philosophy in other literary modes
The cosmos as subject matter of natural philosophy
The big picture
The operational details
What is natural philosophy?
The questions in natural philosophy
The techniques and methodologies of natural philosophy
Abstract methodology
Methodologies that were actually used
The role of mathematics in natural philosophy
The use of natural philosophy in other disciplines
Theology
Medicine
Music
Characteristic features of medieval natural philosophy
Aristotelians and Aristotelianism

127

8. HOW THE FOUNDATIONS OF EARLY MODERN SCIENCE

WERE LAID IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The contextual pre-conditions that made the Scientific

Revolution possible
The translations
The universities
The theologian-natural philosophers
Religion and natural philosophy in medieval Islam
A comparison of natural philosophy in Islam and the
Christian West
The other Christianity: Science and natural philosophy in
the Byzantine Empire
The substantive pre-conditions that made the Scientific
Revolution possible
The exact sciences
Natural philosophy: The mother of all sciences
Medieval natural philosophy and the language of science

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..

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Contents

Medieval natural philosophy and the problems of science

Freedom of inquiry and the autonomy of reason
On the relationship between medieval and early modern
science
On the relationship between early and late medieval science
Greco-Arabic-Latin science: A triumph of three civilizations

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Notes
Bibliography
Index

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