Reading Natural Philosophy: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science and Mathematics

David B. Malament

Professor Howard Stein has made significant contributions on a wide range of topics in the history and philosophy of science, with an emphasis on physics. Stein has published papers on early physicists and philosophers such as Isaac Newton as well as papers on later science, especially relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and foundations of mathematics.

The essays in this volume treat such topics as: Plato's conception of exact science; the structure of argumentation in Newton's Principia; imagery in the work of Descartes and Newton; patterns of reasoning in Maxwell; Mach's conception of space, time, and motion; Einstein's conception of geometry; conceptual and technical issues in the foundations of relativity theory; general issues in epistemology; and the structuralist conception of mathematics.

The volume includes a comprehensive bibliography of Howard Stein's writings.