Autonomous Nature: Problems of Prediction and Control From Ancient Times to the Scientific Revolution

NY: Routledge, New York, 2016. xiii, 196 pages; 24 cm As new; very fine. Paperback. ISBN: 9781138931008

Autonomous Nature investigates the history of nature as an active, often unruly force in tension with nature as a rational, logical order from ancient times to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. Along with subsequent advances in mechanics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, and electromagnetism, nature came to be perceived as an orderly, rational, physical world that could be engineered, controlled, and managed. Autonomous Nature focuses on the history of unpredictability, why it was a problem for the ancient world through the Scientific Revolution, and why it is a problem for today. The work is set in the context of vignettes about unpredictable events such as the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, the Bubonic Plague, the Lisbon Earthquake, and efforts to understand and predict the weather and natural disasters. This book is an ideal text for courses on the environment, environmental history, history of science, or the philosophy of science. -- Provided by publisherContents: Introduction:Can nature be controlled?. Autonomous nature. Greco-Roman concepts of nature. Christianity and nature. Nature personified: Renaissance ideas of nature. Controlling nature. Vexing nature: Francis Bacon and the origins of experimentation. Natural law: Spinoza on natura naturans and natura naturata. Laws of nature:Lleibniz and Newton. Epilogue: rambunctious nature in the twenty-first century.