Holistic Inspiration of Physics

Val Dusek teaches philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. He has written many articles on philosophy and science.

• Preface and Acknowledgments1 Introduction: Historical Undergrounds, Holistic Theories, and Classical PhysicsPART I The Contributions of Chinese Science and Technology2 Discovery of the Compass and Magnetic Declination3 Major Movements of Chinese Thought4 Social Background of Organismic Thought: "China" in Three Classic Sociologies5 Interlude: Peter the Wayfarer and the Western Reception of the CompassPART II Renaissance Occultism6 Occultism and the Rise of Early Modern Science7 Occultism and the Social Background of Science: Peasants, Artisans, and Women8 Gilbert and Early Modern Theories of the Magnet9 Kepler and the Magnetic Force Model of the Solar System10 Newton: Alchemy and Active Principles11 Interlude: Leibniz and ChinaPART III Romantic Philosophy of Nature and Electromagnetism12 Philosophical Background of Romantic Science13 Social Background to Romanticism: Revolution and Women14 Schelling's Romantic Philosophy of Nature15 Coleridge: Poet of Nature16 Orsted: Romanticism, Nature Philosophy, and the Discovery of Electromagnetism17 Davy, Faraday, and Field Theory18 Maxwell, Field Theory, and Mechanical Models19 Conclusion: Metaphysics of Science--Creation and JustificationNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

DusekÆs book is an intellectual feast where we find magic, witches, mysterious correlations, trigrams of the I Ching, forces and fields, peasants and Platonists, wild nature, primitives and sophisticates, and how they hang together. - Robert S. Cohen (Professor of Physics and Philosophy Emeritus, Boston University)