Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Squaring the Circle: The War between Hobbes and Wallis

Squaring the Circle: The War between Hobbes and Wallis

Jesseph, Douglas M.

Paperback

Series: Science and Its Conceptual Foundations

PhilosophyGeneral Mathematics

ISBN10: 0226399001
ISBN13: 9780226399003
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: Jan 1 2000
Pages: 433
Weight: 1.31
Height: 0.95 Width: 6.04 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In 1655, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes claimed he had solved the centuries-old problem of squaring of the circle (constructing a square equal in area to a given circle). With a scathing rebuttal to Hobbes's claims, the mathematician John Wallis began one of the longest and most intense intellectual disputes of all time. Squaring the Circle is a detailed account of this controversy, from the core mathematics to the broader philosophical, political, and religious issues at stake.

Hobbes believed that by recasting geometry in a materialist mold, he could solve any geometric problem and thereby demonstrate the power of his materialist metaphysics. Wallis, a prominent Presbyterian divine as well as an eminent mathematician, refuted Hobbes's geometry as a means of discrediting his philosophy, which Wallis saw as a dangerous mix of atheism and pernicious political theory.

Hobbes and Wallis's battle of the books illuminates the intimate relationship between science and crucial seventeenth-century debates over the limits of sovereign power and the existence of God.

5 different editions

Also available

Also in

Philosophy

View All