Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks

Autores
Manzo, Silvia Alejandra; Pietro Daniel Omodeo; Rodolfo Garau
Año de publicación
2019
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
parte de libro
Estado
versión publicada
Descripción
In the period of emergence of early modern science, ‘monsters’ or individuals with physical congenital anomalies were considered as rare events which required special explanations entailing assumptions about the laws of nature. This concern with monsters was shared by representatives of the new science and Late Scholastic authors of university textbooks. This paper will reconstruct the main theses of the treatment of monsters in Late Scholastic textbooks, by focusing on the question as to how their accounts conceived nature’s regularity and teleology. It shows that they developed a naturalistic teratology in which, in contrast to the naturalistic explanations usually offered by the new science, finality was at central stage. This general point does not impede our noticing that some authors were closer to the views emerging in the Scientific Revolution insofar as they conceived nature as relatively autonomous from God and gave a relevant place to efficient secondary causation. In this connection, this paper suggests that the concept of the laws of nature developed by the new science –as exception-less regularities—transferred to nature’s regularity the ‘strong’ character that Late Scholasticism attributed to finality and that the decline of the Late Scholastic view of finality played as an important concomitant factor permitting the transformation of the concept of laws of nature.
Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales
Materia
Filosofía
Epistemology
Natural law
Character (symbol)
Secondary causation
Scholasticism
Scientific revolution
Naturalism
Teleology
History
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Repositorio
SEDICI (UNLP)
Institución
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
OAI Identificador
oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/125242

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network_name_str SEDICI (UNLP)
spelling Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooksManzo, Silvia AlejandraPietro Daniel OmodeoRodolfo GarauFilosofíaEpistemologyNatural lawCharacter (symbol)Secondary causationScholasticismScientific revolutionNaturalismTeleologyHistoryIn the period of emergence of early modern science, ‘monsters’ or individuals with physical congenital anomalies were considered as rare events which required special explanations entailing assumptions about the laws of nature. This concern with monsters was shared by representatives of the new science and Late Scholastic authors of university textbooks. This paper will reconstruct the main theses of the treatment of monsters in Late Scholastic textbooks, by focusing on the question as to how their accounts conceived nature’s regularity and teleology. It shows that they developed a naturalistic teratology in which, in contrast to the naturalistic explanations usually offered by the new science, finality was at central stage. This general point does not impede our noticing that some authors were closer to the views emerging in the Scientific Revolution insofar as they conceived nature as relatively autonomous from God and gave a relevant place to efficient secondary causation. In this connection, this paper suggests that the concept of the laws of nature developed by the new science –as exception-less regularities—transferred to nature’s regularity the ‘strong’ character that Late Scholasticism attributed to finality and that the decline of the Late Scholastic view of finality played as an important concomitant factor permitting the transformation of the concept of laws of nature.Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias SocialesSpringer, Cham2019info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPartinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionCapitulo de librohttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_3248info:ar-repo/semantics/parteDeLibroapplication/pdf61-92http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/125242enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/isbn/978-3-319-67378-3info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/0068-0346info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/2214-7942info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1007/978-3-319-67378-3_4info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Platainstacron:UNLP2025-09-29T11:29:48Zoai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/125242Institucionalhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicaNo correspondehttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/oai/snrdalira@sedici.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13292025-09-29 11:29:48.374SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Platafalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
title Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
spellingShingle Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
Manzo, Silvia Alejandra
Filosofía
Epistemology
Natural law
Character (symbol)
Secondary causation
Scholasticism
Scientific revolution
Naturalism
Teleology
History
title_short Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
title_full Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
title_fullStr Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
title_full_unstemmed Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
title_sort Monsters, laws of nature, and teleology in late scholastic textbooks
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Manzo, Silvia Alejandra
Pietro Daniel Omodeo
Rodolfo Garau
author Manzo, Silvia Alejandra
author_facet Manzo, Silvia Alejandra
Pietro Daniel Omodeo
Rodolfo Garau
author_role author
author2 Pietro Daniel Omodeo
Rodolfo Garau
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Filosofía
Epistemology
Natural law
Character (symbol)
Secondary causation
Scholasticism
Scientific revolution
Naturalism
Teleology
History
topic Filosofía
Epistemology
Natural law
Character (symbol)
Secondary causation
Scholasticism
Scientific revolution
Naturalism
Teleology
History
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv In the period of emergence of early modern science, ‘monsters’ or individuals with physical congenital anomalies were considered as rare events which required special explanations entailing assumptions about the laws of nature. This concern with monsters was shared by representatives of the new science and Late Scholastic authors of university textbooks. This paper will reconstruct the main theses of the treatment of monsters in Late Scholastic textbooks, by focusing on the question as to how their accounts conceived nature’s regularity and teleology. It shows that they developed a naturalistic teratology in which, in contrast to the naturalistic explanations usually offered by the new science, finality was at central stage. This general point does not impede our noticing that some authors were closer to the views emerging in the Scientific Revolution insofar as they conceived nature as relatively autonomous from God and gave a relevant place to efficient secondary causation. In this connection, this paper suggests that the concept of the laws of nature developed by the new science –as exception-less regularities—transferred to nature’s regularity the ‘strong’ character that Late Scholasticism attributed to finality and that the decline of the Late Scholastic view of finality played as an important concomitant factor permitting the transformation of the concept of laws of nature.
Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales
description In the period of emergence of early modern science, ‘monsters’ or individuals with physical congenital anomalies were considered as rare events which required special explanations entailing assumptions about the laws of nature. This concern with monsters was shared by representatives of the new science and Late Scholastic authors of university textbooks. This paper will reconstruct the main theses of the treatment of monsters in Late Scholastic textbooks, by focusing on the question as to how their accounts conceived nature’s regularity and teleology. It shows that they developed a naturalistic teratology in which, in contrast to the naturalistic explanations usually offered by the new science, finality was at central stage. This general point does not impede our noticing that some authors were closer to the views emerging in the Scientific Revolution insofar as they conceived nature as relatively autonomous from God and gave a relevant place to efficient secondary causation. In this connection, this paper suggests that the concept of the laws of nature developed by the new science –as exception-less regularities—transferred to nature’s regularity the ‘strong’ character that Late Scholasticism attributed to finality and that the decline of the Late Scholastic view of finality played as an important concomitant factor permitting the transformation of the concept of laws of nature.
publishDate 2019
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2019
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Capitulo de libro
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_3248
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status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/125242
url http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/125242
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv eng
language eng
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/isbn/978-3-319-67378-3
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/0068-0346
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info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1007/978-3-319-67378-3_4
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
61-92
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer, Cham
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer, Cham
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)
instname:Universidad Nacional de La Plata
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repository.name.fl_str_mv SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Plata
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