Nature and Science

Science began as philosophy, and philosophers have never stopped asking what it shows us. This pathway runs from the Presocratics and Lucretius' atoms through Bacon's new method to Peirce, Poincaré and Whitehead on what scientific knowledge really is.

1. 1
   FragmentsThe Presocratics · 1.5 hrs · ▶ ListenThe first attempts to explain everything: water, fire, atoms, flux.
2. 2
   On the Nature of ThingsLucretius · 6 hrs · ▶ ListenAn atomist universe in verse, without gods or fear.
3. 3
   New OrganonFrancis Bacon · 6 hrs · ▶ ListenA new method for science: observation and experiment over authority.
4. 4
   Illustrations of the Logic of ScienceCharles Sanders Peirce · 3 hrs · ▶ ListenHow to make our ideas clear, and how belief is fixed.
5. 5
   Science and HypothesisHenri Poincaré · 4 hrs · ▶ ListenHow much of science is convention?
6. 6
   Science and the Modern WorldAlfred North Whitehead · 6 hrs · ▶ ListenHow the scientific picture of nature took hold, and where it fails.
7. 7
   Creative EvolutionHenri Bergson · 9 hrs · ▶ ListenLife as a creative surge that mechanism cannot capture.