Koyré

Summary

Dominique Pagani ranks Alexandre Koyré among the great French epistemologists1 and sees his work as an important moment in the French epistemological school2. He draws above all on two books. From the Galilean Studies, which he recommends several times, he takes the idea that Galileo is not content with the experimental fact and that, as the texts show, he is only satisfied once he reaches the mathematical equation23. He uses From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe to trace the movement from Copernicus to Galilean physics. Sometimes reading it through Akoun, he also finds in it the link between the development of scientific thought and philosophical and religious ideas, as well as the replacement of the finite cosmos by the infinite universe4. He makes this title a definition of modernity and turns it against what he calls a puritanical ecology that would lead back to the closed world. He stresses that modern science discovers a universe that is not closed at the very moment when the world is proclaimed to be limited56.

1. 1Hegel on the Beach 3/52 Feb 2016 · 31:48
2. 2#9.11 How can sciences of history be real?7 Jan 2021 · 14:50
3. 3From Copernicus to Lenin: revolution!28 Aug 2026 · 30:54
4. 4#9.11 How can sciences of history be real?7 Jan 2021 · 1:17:17
5. 5“What threatens societies are the men and women who benefit from the exploitation of others”12 Mar 2019 · 48:09
6. 6#9 Romantic irony and the Vinteuil sonata15 Jan 2021 · 1:07:31

Summary produced automatically from 11 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.