Filosofía de la naturaleza

Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis) was the philosophical study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of natural science. From the ancient world, starting with Aristotle, to the 19th century, natural philosophy was the common term for the practice of studying nature. It was in the 19th century that the concept of science received its modern shape with new titles emerging such as biology and biologist, physics and physicist among other technical fields and titles; institutions and communities were founded, and unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred. Isaac Newton's book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), whose title translates to Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, reflects the then-current use of the words natural philosophy, akin to systematic study of nature. Even in the 19th century, a treatise by Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait, which helped define much of modern physics, was titled Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867). In the German tradition, Naturphilosophie (philosophy of nature) persisted into the 18th and 19th century as an attempt to achieve a speculative unity of nature and spirit. Some of the greatest names in German philosophy are associated with this movement, including Goethe, Hegel and Schelling. Naturphilosophie was associated with Romanticism and a view that regarded the natural world as a kind of giant organism, as opposed to the philosophical approach of figures such as John Locke and Isaac Newton who espoused a more mechanical view of the world, regarding it as being like a machine.

La filosofía de la naturaleza, a veces llamada filosofía natural o cosmología es el nombre que recibió la rama de la ciencia que hoy conocemos como física hasta mediados del siglo XIX. Así, el conocido tratado de Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica.