From Myth to Modern Mind

More than any other discipline, science has shaped the modern view of the world. The purpose of this two volume study is to recount how this came to be. Beginning with a depiction of primitive forms of mentality, Volume I, <I>Theogony through Ptolemy</I>, traces the contributions of the Presocratics and Plato to the sustained growth of scientific rationalism, culminating in Aristotle''s organismic cosmology. This is followed by a description of the research of the Hellenistic precursors of modern science from Euclid and Archimedes through Ptolemy and Galen, comparing their mental outlook with that of the early church fathers. Volume II, <I>Copernicus through Quantum Mechanics</I>, recounts the origins of modern physical science and its conceptual development from the fourteenth century to the present.