Robert Boyle

Boyle, Robert (1627–91)
Boyle is often remembered for the contributions that he made to the sciences of chemistry and pneumatics. Like other natural philosophers in seventeenth-century England, however, he was a synthetic thinker who sought to advance knowledge in all areas of human concern. An early advocate of experimental methods, he argued that experimentation would not [...]

Isaac Newton

Newton, Isaac (1642–1727)
Newton is best known for having invented the calculus and formulated the theory of universal gravity – the latter in his Principia, the single most important work in the transformation of natural philosophy into modern physical science. Yet he also made major discoveries in optics, and put no less effort into alchemy and [...]

Galeno

Galen (ad 129–c.210)
Galen was the most influential doctor of late Greco-Roman antiquity. But he was also a notable philosopher, who desired to effect a synthesis of what was best in the work of his predecessors, not only in medicine but also in logic, epistemology, philosophical psychology and the philosophy of science and explanation. In logic [...]