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In what sense, if any, is time related to nature? In this dissertation, I argue that Aristotle's Treatise on Time (<italic>Physics</italic> iv 10-14) must be read in light of his foregoing discussion of nature (<italic>phusis</italic>) in Physics i-iv 9. Thus, Aristotle's definition of time (<italic>chronos</italic>) in Physics iv 11, that time is the number (<italic>arithmos</italic>) of motion (<italic>kinesis</italic>) with respect to before and after (219b1), is highly contextualized and as such must be understood as not only derivative of both Aristotle's definition of nature, as the inner capacity for motion and rest (192b13-22), and of his explanation of kinêsis, but also parallel to his analyses of the infinite (<italic>apeiron</italic>), place (<italic>tops</italic>), and void (<italic>kenos</italic>). What is more, I bring attention to the fact that Aristotle's understanding of nature is shaped fundamentally by the distinction he makes in the <italic>Physics</italic> and elsewhere (<italic>Metaphysics</italic> iv) between potentiality (<italic>dunamis</italic>) and actuality (<italic>entelecheia</italic>). With this in mind, I distinguish between the potential for time and actual time in Aristotle and conclude that the human being, along with actual motion, is both the necessary and sufficient condition for actual time on his account. Time, for Aristotle, then, results from an interaction between two or more parts of nature. It is not an a priori substance to be examined qua itself. My conclusions, therefore, offer a solution to those who read Aristotle's Treatise on Time as a confused inquiry, i.e. one that oscillates between a theory of knowledge and a theory of reality and combines what many believe to be Aristotle's characteristic realism with idealism. Finally, I use these conclusions to show a likeness between the account of time I attribute to Aristotle and what I suggest to be a return to thinking about time as derivative of a theory of nature in early Schellingian <italic>Naturphilosophie</italic>. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Philosophy / PhD; / Dissertation;

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In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there was a close connection between natural philosophy and theology. However, this connection was neither essential nor intrinsic, but was open to discussion and negotiation, and natural theology played an important role in these negotiations. While there is already a great deal of literature concerned with natural theology from two distinct academic disciplines???history of science and history of religion???neither set of literature has adequately grasped the nature of the tradition, leading to conflicting claims about its historical origin. In addition, the close connection between natural and revealed theology evident in the works of orthodox Christians in early modern England has been frequently overlooked. This thesis, then, is a contribution to discussions of the relations between theology and natural philosophy in early modern England. Its main purpose is to develop and test a theoretical model of natural theology, designed to overcome some of the limitations of existing approaches. According to this model, a tradition of natural theology only emerged in England in the seventeenth century, due to the theological and natural philosophical turmoil of the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, although it was not without precedents. This tradition of natural theology was apologetically focused, providing arguments in favour of religious doctrines originally derived from revelation. Natural theology was a dynamic discourse, which may be represented by the metaphor of a kaleidoscope, in which resources chosen from natural philosophy and theology were combined and refracted according to the pre-existing views of the practitioner as well as the contextual challenges to which he was responding. By employing a variety of resources from both natural philosophy and theology, natural theology could function as a kind of mediator between these two neighbouring traditions. This model will be tested against a range of historical case studies that represent the moments in the historical trajectory of natural theology at which output of the discourse became more concentrated, due to renewed upheaval within and between theology and natural philosophy.

This thesis takes issue with the standard critical attribution to Milton of a backward Aristotelian scientific paradigm for his work, demonstrating that body and soul represented in Paradise Lost are inscribed in terms of radical contemporary medical theories of vitalism. Milton’s close friendship with his doctor, Nathan Paget, links him to Paget’s colleague, Francis Glisson, Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge University, an academic and practising physician who was closely involved in cutting-edge contemporary medical research. Not only can Glisson’s heretical notion of the energetic, living nature of substance be seen to match the dynamic scale of nature represented in Paradise Lost, but in fact Milton’s animist materialism corresponds precisely to the chemical innovations made by Glisson in the anatomy of blood and bodily fluids and spirits. Exploring Milton’s representation of body and soul, spirit and matter, in the light of these contemporary medical innovations, this thesis focuses upon the way that his theodicy is supported by this most heretical natural philosophy. Milton’s vital anatomia animata is shown to be central to the harmonious integration of science and theology in Paradise Lost; it complements the literalism of the poem and provides a non-satanic logic of self-determination. Beginning with the basic evidence of Milton’s materialism of the soul in the Christian Doctrine, the first chapter correlates the theological assertions made with the language of natural philosophy that Milton uses to make them. The next chapter addresses the problem of the antinomy between the material soul proposed by Milton and the Aristotelian terminology with which he describes it, arguing that the latter is more heterogeneous than literary critics have acknowledged. The third chapter examines several versions of vitalism in order to delineate a working, medical model of the active matter presupposed by Milton’s body-soul composites and the wider natural philosophy of Paradise Lost. This model of active matter and spirit is then used in chapter four to illuminate the representation of Creation, demonstrating the acute accuracy with which Milton’s Creation draws upon contemporary medical research into conception. Chapter five extends the analysis to compare early notions of chemical digestion with the metabolic transformations of paradise. The final chapter demonstrates that the physiological and psychological corruptions of the Fall correspond to the effects of the putrid or poisonous ferment, while Milton’s representation of regeneration calls upon the vital, generative anatomia animata.

This thesis represents a systematic analysis of one of the commentaries of Adam of Buckfield on the physical works of Aristotle. The aim is to indicate how natural philosophy was taught in the early universities and how Aristotle's text became canonical in the arts course. The evidence, from extensive palaeographical research, is used to assess Buckfield's influence at an important time when Oxford was a young university, still shaping its curricula. It is argued that since natural philosophy was forbidden in the university of Paris during the time when Buckfield was teaching, a particular importance attaches to Oxford's interpretation of the physical works of Aristotle. The subsequent revival of natural philosophy in Paris and other universities that followed the Parisian model, it is argued, therefore owes a considerable debt to Oxford and its early masters, among whom Adam of Buckfleld was the earliest to complete a commentary on all the major physical works. The thesis examines the manuscript traditions in which Buckfield's works survives: separate copies of commentaries; whole commentaries written out in the Corpus vetustius collections of physical works; fragments of commentaries in the standard gloss in the same collection. Reasons are suggested for the difference between the natures of these manuscripts in the context of thirteenth-century teaching. A special study of Buckfleld's commentary on the De dfferentia spirilus et anime illuminates these kinds of manuscripts, indicates where further work will be profitable, and allows a reconstruction of the teaching material and techniques of Oxford regent masters of the thirteenth century.

In this dissertation I demonstrate that the political views and use of natural philosophy by deistsheretics who denied revelation, active providence, and the authority of priestsin early-modern England were not as subversive as past scholarship suggests. Like other erudite endeavours in the period, a deist conception of God was the foundation for their interpretation of contemporary natural philosophy and political writings. Though many scholars have noted that deists employed contemporary natural philosophy in many of their works, the way deists actually used these writings has not been explored in a comprehensive manner. Moreover, when many historians engage deism, they frequently stop at one deist in particular, John Toland. My dissertation reveals how theology informed deist natural philosophy which in turn was inseparably joined to their political works. The two goals of this study are to remove deists from the sidelines of intellectual debates in early-modern England and place them squarely in the centre alongside other political and natural philosophical authors and to demonstrate that deism cannot be reduced to or encapsulated in the person of John Toland.

In this dissertation I demonstrate that the political views and use of natural philosophy by deistsheretics who denied revelation, active providence, and the authority of priestsin early-modern England were not as subversive as past scholarship suggests. Like other erudite endeavours in the period, a deist conception of God was the foundation for their interpretation of contemporary natural philosophy and political writings. Though many scholars have noted that deists employed contemporary natural philosophy in many of their works, the way deists actually used these writings has not been explored in a comprehensive manner. Moreover, when many historians engage deism, they frequently stop at one deist in particular, John Toland. My dissertation reveals how theology informed deist natural philosophy which in turn was inseparably joined to their political works. The two goals of this study are to remove deists from the sidelines of intellectual debates in early-modern England and place them squarely in the centre alongside other political and natural philosophical authors and to demonstrate that deism cannot be reduced to or encapsulated in the person of John Toland.