Kallinen | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

The seventeenth century is known as the era when the old philosophies such as Aristotelianism waned. However, the Academy of Turku was a bastion of this philosophy, designed, as it was, for the training of clergymen. Of new schools of thought it was only mechanistic Cartesianism that succeeded in gaining a foothold despite intense opposition. In this study Maija Kallinen presents a vivid picture of all the fields of physics from the theory on elements to meteorology and psychology. She explores which factors in the academic context of natural philosophy retarded change and which encouraged it, and the same time she related physics to other disciplines, especially to theology, mathematics and medicine. Whereas studies of major European universities abound, this study meets the long-felt need for a general overview of a minor early modern university. Written in a relaxed style, this study is accessible to readers with little background knowledge of the subject, but it will also be of interest to all schools of 17th-century learning.