In this work of model clarity, Yves Simon discusses the basic insights
of the creators of modern thought: Descartes, Newton, Galileo, Comte,
Mach, Meyerson, Bergson, Planck, and the issues at stake in the
development of modern science and in the rejection of the Aristotelian
physics.
Simon distinguishes between a philosophy of nature and a science of
nature -- and grants a real value to both. A discussion of this vexing
problem and its application to the modern controversy over determinism
and chance raised by modern physics rounds out this philosophical and
historical highlighting of man's most important theories of nature.