The Book of Nature and the Books of Men. Idea and History of the Book in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy and Science of Nature

The rise of XVIIth century natural philosophy determines a significant break with the tradition and enthe idea of a new beginning of scientific investigation grounded on mathematics and experiment; at the same time, the diffusion of printed books repre- sents an essential factor for the dissemination of the new philosophy. The ideal of the book, as an expression for this new philosophy, results from the speculation about the corre- spondence between the language and structure of the philosophical book and the “book of nature” written by God. At the same time, the pursuit of this ideal requires the critical knowledge of the book tradition and the awareness of the imperfection that characterizes any given accomplishment of the ideal. This inner tension finds an exemplary solution in Newton’s Principia mathematica, where the incompleteness of the book of natural philos- ophy is recognized as an intrinsic feature, which directs Newton’s own selection and or- dering of the material in the process of editing his work. After Newton, several attempts have been made to recover the systematic unity of natural philosophy in a single book, in a system of books or in encyclopaedies. In late XIXth century, as the specialization and multiplication of scientific disciplines establishes the impossibility to master natural phi- losophy as a whole, the intrinsic historicity of natural philosophy is recognized as a cru- cial factor of scientific thought itself. This significant change of perspective, compared to early modern philosophy, produces the need for different ways of understanding the uni- ty of science and the role of books in scientific practice. Nowadays several distinguished scholars in the history and philosophy of science underscore the need to restore the his- torical awareness of late XIXth-early XXth century science among scientists, in order to promote the development of new scientific ideas.