Causality and Scientific Explanation, Vol. 1: Medieval and Early Classical Science

William Wallace brings a fine intelligence and years of reflection to show how the concept of causal explanation can contribute to the cumulative growth of knowledge in science. Wallace's approach is historical as well as analytical, and consists in a careful and highly original study of how the search for causes has provided a paradigm of scientific method from its origins in the Middle Ages up to the present day. The first of two volumes poses the contemporary question and traces its origin back to the 'Posterior Analytics' of Aristotle. The author then concentrates on medieval science to document the impact of the 'Analytics' at the universities of Oxford, Paris, and Padua from the 13th to the 16th centuries, evaluating in the process the rival claims of historians of science as to the importance of these centers for the genesis of the experimental method. The volume concludes with a study of the founders of modern science from William Gilbert to Isaac Newton, showing the surprising use they made of causal concepts in their own now classical contributions.