God's Philosophers

The popular view is that “mediaeval science” is a contradiction in terms, but this is… well, nonsense, really. The mediaeval world did not have “scientists” (the term was only invented in the 1830s), but it did have “natural philosophers” who studied the world about them with great care and interest.

True, they worked within a totally different framework from later scientists, and that made the kind of leaps forward that were made in the 17th century impossible. But nevertheless, they thought logically, examined carefully, reasoned well, and even sometimes experimented successfully.

James Hannam’s book is a great introduction to a… show more.

The Middle Ages in Europe weren't quite the festering stew of ignorance, superstition, and pointless theological arguments about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin as they have often been portrayed. In God’s Philosophers, James Hannam offers a refreshing challenge to the orthodox portrayal that all was darkness until the dawn of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. He also reveals how, far from being the enemy of science, religious belief actually stimulated scientific enquiry during this time. Moreover, while Isaac Newton may have once remarked that he had seen further thanks only to standing on… show more.