From the Closed World to the Infinite
Universe (Hideyo Noguchi Lecture)
by Alexandre Koyre
Intellectual Elegance Defined
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a radical change occurred
in the patterns and framework of European thought. In the wake of
discoveries through the telescope and Copernican theory, the notion of an
ordered cosmos of fixed stars gave way to that of a universe infinite in both
time and space - with significant and far-reaching consequences for
human thought. Alexandre Koyre interprets this revolution in terms of the
change that occurred in our conception of the universe and our place in it
and shows the primacy of this change in the development of the modern
world.
Personal Review: From the Closed World to the Infinite
Universe (Hideyo Noguchi Lecture) by Alexandre Koyre

Of all the tomes I read during my years studying the history of science, this
is the one I tend to come back to the most.
Koyre describes the thinking of such diverse figures as Giordano Bruno,
Nicholas of Cusa, Galileo, Henry More, and Johannes Kepler regarding the
possibility that the universe might be of unlimited extent. As such, the
discussions, particularly early on, deal more with scholastic philosophy,
with heavy emphasis on religious implications. They deal with abstract
notions, and some of the thinking of these early figures is quite bold,
startling even, and beautiful, after a fashion.
It is apropos to recall that science was long known as "natural
philosophy"...and indeed, as the former figures give way to the analyses of
Newton and Leibniz, we find Koyre's work limning the disentangling of
these two threads, philosophy and science, at least with respect to
cosmology.
In particular, Koyre underlines one of the most ironical developments in all
the history of ideas at the very end of the book, in recounting how the
triumph of Newtonian physics rendered superfluous the God that it had
been Newton's purpose to honor through his science.
Not for everyone; but for me, magnificent.
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