“Conflicting Values of Inquiry. Ideologies of Epistemology in Early Modern Europe” (ed. Tamás Demeter, Kathryn Murphy and Claus Zittel). Brill, 2015

Abstract

What are the standards for natural philosophical inquiry? To this question Early Modern philosophers came with different particular answers, with different ideologies of knowledge that centre around values such as usefulness or moral goodness. The challenges that early modern philosopher had to deal with were less the discovery of new facts and theories but the creation of the standards and values according to which his endeavours represent genuine inquiries into nature.