Project

Experiment and observation in seventeenth-century meteorology and natural philosophy. A comparative study of Descartes's 'Météores' and Fromondus's 'Meteorologicorum Libri Sex'

Code
3G049910
Duration
01 January 2010 → 31 December 2015
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Research disciplines
  • Humanities
    • Theory and methodology of philosophy
    • Philosophy
    • Ethics
    • Other philosophy, ethics and religious studies not elsewhere classified
Keywords
meteorology history of science historical epistemology history of philosophy
 
Project description

The project investigates which epistemological presuppositions are responsible for the different approach towards meteorological phenomena in the work of Descartes and Fromondus. The primary aim is to understand which different meanings could be ascribed to experimental and observational practices in the first half of the seventeenth century. In these analyses we will focus on the following two questions: what is the role of observation and experiment in the generation of new knowledge and how is the status of meteorological phenomena as natural phenomena understood.