Preface

—Ralph Lerner

Introduction

—Daniel A. Doneson, Svetozar Y. Minkov, and Bernhardt L. Trout

PART I. THE PROJECT FOR MASTERY

Chapter 1. Machiavelli and the Discovery of Fact

—Harvey C. Mansfield

Chapter 2. The Place of the Treatment of the Conquest of Nature in Francis Bacon's On the Wisdom of the Ancients

—Svetozar Y. Minkov

Chapter 3. Hobbes on Nature and Its Conquest

—Devin Stauffer

Chapter 4. Devising Nature: An Essay on Descartes's Discourse on Method

—Stuart D. Warner

Chapter 5. Montesquieu, Commerce, and Science

—Diana J. Schaub

Chapter 6. Bacon and Franklin on Religion and Mastery of Nature

—Jerry Weinberger

PART II. ANCIENT ALTERNATIVES AND ANTICIPATIONS

Chapter 7. On the Supremacy of Contemplation in Aristotle and Plato

—Robert C. Bartlett

Chapter 8. Xenophon and the Conquest of Nature

—Christopher Nadon

Chapter 9. Lucretius on Rebelling Against the "Laws" of Nature

—Paul Ludwig

PART III. CONSEQUENCES, CRITIQUES, AND CORRECTIONS

Chapter 10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Return to Nature vs. Conquest of Nature

—Arthur Melzer

Chapter 11. Kant on Organism and History: Ambiguous Endings

—Richard Velkley

Chapter 12. Beyond the Island of Truth: Hegel and the Shipwreck of Science

—Michael A. Gillespie

Chapter 13. Separating the Moral and Theological Prejudices and Taking Hold of Human Evolution

—Lise van Boxel

Chapter 14. Mastery of Nature and Its Limits: The Question of Heidegger

—Mark Blitz

Chapter 15. What Is Natural Philosophy? The Perspective of Contemporary Science

—Adam Schulman

Chapter 16. Quantum Mechanics and Political Philosophy

—Bernhardt L. Trout

Notes

List of Contributors

Index

Acknowledgments