Single Review on past events

Jeff Kochan is an Associated Fellow affiliated with the Department of Philosophy.

Historians have rightly questioned the popular belief that modern science emerged suddenly with the Scientific Revolution. Yet most still hold that early-modern practitioners broke abruptly with the past by abandoning Aristotelian final causes – teleology. Jeff argues, instead, that final causation was not abandoned by early-modern practitioners, but radically transformed. It continued to play a necessary role in early-modern scientific practice in the guise of what Jeff calls the Galilean First Thing.