The life sciences in early modern philosophy

"This present volume advances a recent historiographical turn towards the intersection of early modern philosophy and the life sciences by bringing together many of its leading scholars to present the contributions of important but often neglected figures, such as Ralph Cudworth, Nehemiah Grew, Francis Glisson, Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Georg Ernst Stahl, Juan Gallego de la Serna, Nicholas Hartsoeker, Henry More, as well as more familiar figures such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Kant."--Front inside flap of dust jacket.

Infinity and life: the role of infinity in Leibniz's theory of living beings / Ohad Nachtomy -- What is life? A comparative study of Ralph Cudworth and Nehemiah Grew / Raphaële Andrault -- The impossibility of a "Newton of the blade of grass" in Kant's teleology / Thomas Teufel -- Fabricius's Galeno-Aristotelian teleomechanics of muscle / Peter Distelzweig -- Metaphysical problems in Francis Glisson's theory of irritability / Anne-Lise Rey -- The organism-mechanism relationship: an issue in the Leibniz-Stahl controversy / François Duchesneau -- Material causes and incomplete entities in Gallego de la Serna's theory of animal generation / Andreas Blank -- Biology and theology in Malebranche's theory of organic generation / Karen Detlefsen -- Réaumur's crayfish experiments in Hartsoeker's Systéme: regeneration and the limits of mechanism / Catherine Abou-Nemeh -- Epigenesis as Spinozism in Diderot's biological project / Charles T. Wolfe -- On the continuity of nature and the uniqueness of human life in G.W. Leibniz / Lea F. Schweitz -- Order of insects: insect species and metamorphosis between Renaissance and Enlightenment / Brian W. Ogilvie.