SummaryA feature of mid-nineteenth century scientific debates in France on the subject of plant nutrition was the rivalry, at times acrimonious, between Jean Baptiste Boussingault and Georges Ville. It started in 1848 when Ville was demonstrator to Boussingault, who held one of the two chairs of agriculture at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. A study of their disputes serves to illustrate their mutual incompatibility, exacerbated by the patronage extended to Ville by his step-brother, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, afterwards Napoléon III. (...) Their disputes were not merely the result of personal differences but also accompanied the development of two concepts of plant nutrition, namely the rôle of atmospheric nitrogen. and its possible assimilation by plants, and the chemical nature of plant nutrients, especially nitrates and phosphates. (shrink)

A new English translation of Schelling’s unfinished magnum opus, complete with a contextualizing introduction by the translator.

Few editors of Virgil have given these last three words a satisfactory sense: none, to my knowledge, has fully recognized their difficulty. The root of the trouble lies in the Roman repugnance for limiting words to a single, specialized, technical sense: licium and tela are, consequently, found with a variety of different meanings. Notwithstanding this difficulty, however, I hope to show that this passage has a meaning that is both simple and unambiguous.

For many years it has been recognized that serious contradictions exist in PolybiusThe only point of controversycan be whether these contradictory elements were innate in Polybius De Sanctis Staatstheorie, it has exercised a dominating influence over all work on the subject.

This is a new release of the original 1925 edition.

On the History of Modern Philosophy is a key transitional text in the history of European philosophy. In it, F. W. J. Schelling surveys philosophy from Descartes to German Idealism and shows why the Idealist project is ultimately doomed to failure. The lectures trace the path of philosophy from Descartes through Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, to Hegel and Schelling's own work. The extensive critiques of Hegel prefigure many of the arguments to be found in Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, (...) and Derrida. This is the first English translation of On the History of Modern Philosophy. In his introduction Andrew Bowie sets the work in the context of Schelling's career and clarifies its philosophical issues. The translation will be of special interest to philosophers, intellectual historians, literary theorists, and theologians. (shrink)

An adamant fan of Darwin, F.W. Headley attempts to argue the difficulties of believing in Socialism and Darwinism simultaneously and highlights issues which could prevent Socialism from being put into practice. Originally published in 1909, this study uses examples of communities in countries such as England and India to illustrate Headley’s key belief that societies only function well if they do not interfere with the fight for existence and natural selection. This title will be of interest to students of Philosophy, (...) Sociology and Anthropology. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (first published in 1797 and revised in 1803), one of the most significant works in the German tradition of philosophy of nature and early nineteenth-century philosophy of science. It stands in opposition to the Newtonian picture of matter as constituted by inert, impenetrable particles, and argues instead for matter as an equilibrium of active forces that engage in dynamic polar opposition to one another. In the revisions of (...) 1803 Schelling incorporated this dialectical view into a neo-Platonic conception of an original unity divided upon itself. The text is of more than simply historical interest: its daring and original vision of nature, philosophy, and empirical science will prove absorbing reading for all philosophers concerned with post-Kantian German idealism, for scholars of German Romanticism, and for historians of science. (shrink)