Werezi Books

This first book-length study of physico-theology questions the widespread notion of a steadily advancing early modern separation of religion and science.

Beginning around 1650, the emergence of a number of new scientific concepts, methods, and instruments challenged existing syntheses of science and religion. Physico-theology, which embraced the values of personal, empirical observation, was an international movement of the early Enlightenment that focused on the new science to make arguments about divine creation and providence. By reconciling the new science with Christianity across many denominations, physico-theology played a crucial role in diffusing new scientific ideas, assumptions, and interest in the study of nature to a broad public. In this book, sixteen leading scholars contribute a rich array of essays on the terms and scope of the movement, its scientific and religious arguments, and its aesthetic sensibilities.

Contributors: Ann Blair, Simona Boscani Leoni, John Hedley Brooke, Nicolas Brucker, Katherine Calloway, Kathleen Crowther, Brendan Dooley, Peter Harrison, Barbara Hunfeld, Eric Jorink, Scott Mandelbrote, Brian W. Ogilvie, Martine Pécharman, Jonathan Sheehan, Anne-Charlott Trepp, Rienk Vermij, Kaspar von Greyerz

For a long time, physico-theology has been neglected by both theologians and scientists. Finally, bringing together the contributions of leading experts in English, French, German, Italian, and Dutch intellectual history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this ambitious volume overcomes the narrow boundaries of disciplines and national traditions.
—Martin Mulsow, University of Erfurt, author of Enlightenment Underground: Radical Germany, 1680–1720

Physico-theology contributes significantly to ongoing debates about religion and the emergence of the new science of the seventeenth century, the character of the Enlightenment, and, more broadly, the historical relations between religion and science or, to put it more accurately, between divine and natural knowledge. The contributors are extremely qualified, some of the very best in their fields.
—Craig Martin, Ca'' Foscari University of Venice, author of Subverting Aristotle: Religion, History, and Philosophy in Early Modern Science

This volume provides an excellent introduction to the general topic of physico-theology. Its sixteen solid and imaginative essays reveal how scholars across Europe actively learned from and argued with each other. As a guide to recent work on this major early modern religious and intellectual movement, this collection is invaluable.
—H. C. Erik Midelfort, University of Virginia, author of Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of Eighteenth-Century Germany

This stimulating read reimagines the place of physico-theology in the intellectual history of the early modern period. It brings together fine-grained analyses of different intellectual and national contexts in a way that will prove highly rewarding to historians of culture, theology, and science alike.
—Michael Stolberg, University of Würzburg, author of Experiencing Illness and the Sick Body in Early Modern Europe

A groundbreaking book. There is no other comprehensive work on physico-theology, nor on the associated enterprise of a posteriori natural theology. This collection of finely grained studies of individuals, topics, texts, and textual traditions is essential to understanding the broader field.
—Christopher S. Hamlin, University of Notre Dame, author of Hot: A Short History of Fever

Get Physico-theology by at the best price and quality guaranteed only at Werezi Africa's largest book ecommerce store. The book was published by Johns Hopkins University Press and it has pages.

Physico-theology : Religion and Science in Europe, 1650–1750

Book Details

Delivery Location

Mind, Body, & Spirit

Mamba Mentality

Shopping Cart

Digital Library
Coming Soon