The nature of change: non-Aristotelian theories of motion in the early seventeenth century

This thesis focuses on the works of four natural philosophers writing in the first decades of the seventeenth century. The chief interest lies in the authors’ conceptions of local motion, especially as it relates to other types of natural change and to their conceptions of natural philosophy as a whole. The four authors are Daniel Sennert (1572–1637), Sébastien Basson (ca. 1573–post 1625), David Gorlaeus (1591–1612), and Francis Bacon (1561–1626). Each of them proposes a non-Aristotelian theory of nature, meaning that each of them disagrees in at least one core respect with Aristotle. At the same time, their visions for natural philosophy also differ strongly from the alternatives to Aristotle proposed later in the century by authors like Descartes or Galileo. For this reason, they are transitional authors that do not fit easily into the established narratives of the philosophical and scientific changes of this part of the Scientific Revolution.