The ArgumentOur understanding of the predisposing factors, the nature, and the fate of the Oxford Calculatory tradition can be significantly increased by seeing it in its social and institutional context. For instance, the use of intricate imaginary cases in Calculatory works becomes more understandable if we see the connection of these works to undergraduate logical disputations. Likewise, the demise of the Calculatory tradition is better understood in the light of subsequent efforts at educational reform.Unfortunately, too little evidence remains about the (...) Calculators and their context to enable anything like a full reconstruction of the relation of the Oxford Calculators' work to its context. Nevertheless, seeking out and fitting together the bits of information that do remain can add to our insight. Among the topics worth further research are the relation of training incalculationesto later careers in church or government, and the special features of the Calculatory tradition as a tradition consisting of multiple parallel manifestations closely interconnected with other disciplines, ranging from logic and natural philosophy to theology and medicine. (shrink)

Thomas Bradwardine's theological treatise De Causa Dei provides a valuable source for late medieval views on the relationship between science and religion. Bradwardine, who can be seen as belonging in a tradition deriving from Roger Bacon, was strongly impressed by the impotence of human reason in dealing with an apparent infinitude of facts, and accordingly stressed both ancient authority and prophetic revelation as appropriate sources of scientific knowledge. Two particularly important ancient works for him were the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum and (...) De Mundo. The latter led him to an arresting image of the universe as a magnetically driven clock. (shrink)