Non-Fiction Books:

Squaring the Circle

The War between Hobbes and Wallis
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Paperback / softback
$144.99
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Description

In 1655, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes claimed he had solved the centuries-old problem of "squaring of the circle" (constructing a square equal in area to a given circle). With a scathing rebuttal to Hobbes's claims, the mathematician John Wallis began one of the longest and most intense intellectual disputes of all time. Squaring the Circle is a detailed account of this controversy, from the core mathematics to the broader philosophical, political, and religious issues at stake. Hobbes believed that by recasting geometry in a materialist mold, he could solve any geometric problem and thereby demonstrate the power of his materialist metaphysics. Wallis, a prominent Presbyterian divine as well as an eminent mathematician, refuted Hobbes's geometry as a means of discrediting his philosophy, which Wallis saw as a dangerous mix of atheism and pernicious political theory. Hobbes and Wallis's "battle of the books" illuminates the intimate relationship between science and crucial seventeenth-century debates over the limits of sovereign power and the existence of God.

Author Biography:

Douglas M. Jesseph is assistant professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University.
Release date Australia
January 1st, 2000
Audiences
  • Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
  • Professional & Vocational
  • Undergraduate
Pages
433
Dimensions
17x23x3
ISBN-13
9780226399003
Product ID
7633515

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