Physiologia provides an accessible and comprehensive guide to late Aristotelian natural philosophy; with that context in hand, it offers new interpretations of major themes in Descartes’s natural philosophy.

Table of Contents: Illustrations Acknowledgments Conventions Introduction 3 Ch. 1 Kinds of Natural Philosophy 14 Ch. 2 Methods of Bookishness 49 Ch. 3 Modes of Argument 82 Ch. 4 Bodin’s Philosophy of Nature 116 Ch. 5 Theatrical Metaphors 153 Ch. 6 The Reception of the Theatrum 180 Epilogue: The Legacies of the Theatrum 225 Notes 233 Bibliography 331 Index 369.

'During the course of the seventeenth century, within the scholastic tradition itself, commentaries on Aristotle's natural philosophical works increasingly gave way to textbooks and compendia organized along thematic lines' (Dear 1985, 161).

'dealing with a special problem and limited in its proof. . .shows how Aristotelian Bacon was in his methodology'; Vickers 1992, 505 dislikes intensely.