Change in human understanding of the natural world during the early modern period marks one of the most important episodes in intellectual history. This era is often referred to as the scientific revolution, but recent scholarship has challenged traditional accounts. Here, in Reconfiguring the World, Margaret J. Osler treats the development of the sciences in Europe from the early sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries as a complex and multifaceted process. The worldview embedded in modern science is a relatively recent development. Osler aims to convey a nuanced understanding of how the natural world looked to early modern thinkers such as Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton. She describes investigation and understanding of the natural world in terms that the thinkers themselves would have used. Tracing the views of the natural world to their biblical, Greek, and Arabic sources, Osler demonstrates the impact of the Renaissance recovery of ancient texts, printing, the Protestant Reformation, and the exploration of the New World. She shows how the traditional disciplinary boundaries established by Aristotle changed dramatically during this period and finds the tensions of science and religion expressed as differences between natural philosophy and theology. Far from a triumphalist account, Osler's story includes false starts and dead ends. Ultimately, she shows how a few gifted students of nature changed the way we see ourselves and the universe.

玛格丽特·J·奥斯勒(Margaret J. Osier,1942—2010),1968年获印第安纳大学科学史与科学哲学博士,卡尔加里大学(University of Calgary)历史系教授和哲学系兼职教授,主要研究科学革命的历史和背景以及近代早期科学与宗教的关系。主要著作有《重构世界：从中世纪到近代早期欧洲的自然、上帝和人类认汉》(Recon他uring the World：Nature．God,and Human Understanding from the Middle Agesto Early Modern Europe,2010)、《神的意志与机械论哲学：伽桑狄和笛卡儿论受造世界中的偶然性和必然性》(Divine Will andtheMechanicalPhilosophy：Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessi咿in the Created World,1994),编著有《重新思考科学革命》(Rethinking the Scientific Revolution,2000)、《原子、普纽玛和宁静：欧洲思想中的伊壁鸠鲁主题和斯多亚主题》(Atoms,Pneuma,and Tranquillity：Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European Thought,1991)、《宗教、科学和世界观：韦斯特福尔纪念文集》(Religion,Science,and Woddview：Essays inHonor of Richard S．Westfall,1985)等等。