Wolfgang Lefèvre Books

Focusing on the co-evolution of technological and scientific literature between 1450 and 1750, this book explores six key fields: Architecture, Chemistry, Gunnery, Mechanical Engineering, Mining, and Practical Mathematics. It delves into the relationships and interactions between these areas of advanced knowledge and learned literature, emphasizing the role of technological texts in shaping understanding during the early modern period. The study provides insights into how these disciplines influenced one another and contributed to the broader intellectual landscape of the era.

This addresses the transformations of metaphysics as a discipline, the emergence of analytical mechanics, the diverging avenues of 18th-century Newtonianism, the body-mind problem, and philosophical principles of classification in the life sciences. An appendix contains a critical edition and first translation into English of Newton's scholia from David Gregory's Estate on the Propositions IV through IX Book III of his Principia.

The origin of this volume stems from a 1997 workshop in Berlin, part of a series organized under the Network on Science and Visual Images (1500-1800), funded by the European Science Foundation and initiated by William Shea. The contributions have been thoroughly revised and supplemented with additional invited papers for publication. This work aims to highlight the complex role of images in the early modern period, emphasizing their mediating function between science and its cultural context, as well as between practical knowledge and theoretical reflection in scientific theories. The analysis of images is presented as a crucial aspect of the history of science, linked to a broader cultural history and serving as a historical epistemology of knowledge. This volume seeks to address the often-neglected significance of images in the history of science, challenging the traditional focus on texts. However, it does not provide a systematic or comprehensive account of scientific images during the early modern period. Instead, it reflects the original intention of the Network to contribute to a historical reconstruction of the role of images in the development of scientific understanding.

Wie entstand die Theorie Darwins? War sie ein Produkt des fortschrittsgläubigen 19. Jahrhunderts? Warum wurde sie trotz der weltanschaulichen Kontroversen, die sie provozierte, von Darwins Fachgenossen akzeptiert? Auf welche Kenntnis- und Problemsituation in den Lebenswissenschaften bezog sie sich? Diesen Fragen geht das Buch in materialreichen und leichtverständlichen Analysen der Vorgeschichte von Darwins Theorie und ihrer ersten Rezeption nach Erscheinen der Origins of Species im Jahre 1859 nach. Ein Nachwort informiert über die Entwicklung der Darwin-Forschung in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten. Das Buch wendet sich gleichermaßen an Biologen und Biologiehistoriker wie an ein breites interessiertes Publikum und eignet sich insbesondere für die Lehre an Gymnasien und Universitäten.