The Necessity of the Universe. Christiaan Huygens's Cosmotheoros (1698) and its philosophical and literary backgrounds: an intellectual testament.
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Master Thesis
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Abstract
Christiaan Huygens's cosmological work 'Cosmotheoros' (1698) has often been neglected by historians of the sciences. This is mainly due to its 'strange' character in contrast to Huygens's scientific work. This thesis aims to offer a comprehensive interpretation of this posthumously published work, through an analysis that takes into account the work's philosophical, literary, theological, and scientific backgrounds. In this broad interpretative framework, the book and the cosmological speculations it contains make sense as a final attempt by Huygens to present his scientific work and ideas within a comprehensive world view - which deals with some of the primary natural philosophical problems of the later seventeenth century.
Keywords
Christiaan Huygens, Cosmotheoros, cosmology, plurality of worlds, extraterrestrial life, necessity, determinism, probability, divine providence, argument from design, God or Nature, history of science, philosophy, literature, theology, seventeenth century, Lucian, Plutarch, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Kepler, Fontenelle.