School of Social and Political Science

Background

Qualifications

• BA (University of Leeds)
• Cert. Ed. (University of Birmingham)
• M. Phil. (University of Leeds)
• Ph.D. (Open University)

Biographical statement

John Henry works on the history of science and medicine from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. He is particularly interested in the relationships of, and interactions between, science, medicine, magic, philosophy and religion in the Renaissance and early modern period. He has recently published a new edition and translation of Jean Fernel's (1497-1558), On the Hidden Causes of Things (1548), a major magical text in the history of Renaissance medicine (publisher's notice). Other recent publications include: The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science, Studies in European History. Third Edition, revised (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, publisher's notice), and A Short History of Scientific Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, publisher's notice).

My Edinburgh Research Explorer listing can be accessed here:

http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/john-henry%285464693c-9f…

Publications

Books:

As Author:

Joint author (with Prof. Barry Barnes, University of Exeter, and Prof. David Bloor, University of Edinburgh) of Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis (Athlone Press, London/University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996), pp. xiii + 230. [A tudományos tudás szociológiai elemzése, translated into Hungarian by Péter Faragó and János Tanács (Osiris Kiadó, Budapest, 2002), pp. 316. Ke xue zhi shi: Yi zhong she hui xue de fen xi, translated by Dongmei Xing and Zhong Cai (Nan Jing Da Xue Chu Ban She, Zhong Gou, Nan Jing, 2004).]

The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science, Studies in European History (Macmillan, Basingstoke/St Martin’s Press, New York, 1997), pp. x + 137. [Portuguese edition: A Revolução Científica e as Origens da Ciência Moderna, translated by Maria Luiza X. de A. Borges (Jorge Zahar Editor, Rio de Janeiro, 1998)]. Second Edition, revised (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2002), pp. x + 160. [Japanese edition: (Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 2005), xiv + 169 + 66. ISBN 4-00-027095-8. Turkish edition: Bilim Devrimi ve modern Bilimin Kökenleri (Kure Yayinlari, Istanbul, 2009), xii + 145. ISBN 978-975-6614-61-7. Third edition, revised (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2008), x + 162 [Chinese edition: (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2013), pp. 265. ISBN 978-7-301-22496-0].

Moving Heaven and Earth: Copernicus and the Solar System (Icon Books, Cambridge, 2001), pp. iv + 156 [Chinese edition: Chungqing University Press, Chungqing, 2002, pp. vi + 195].

Knowledge is Power: Francis Bacon and the Method of Science (Icon Books, Cambridge, 2002), pp. vi + 177 [Chinese Edition: Chungqing University Press, Chungqing, 2003, pp. x + 260].

A Short History of Scientific Thought (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. xvii + 306 [Korean edition: Cum Libro Publishing Co., Seoul, 2013, pp. 542].

Religion, Magic, and the Origins of Science in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. xii + 314.

As Editor:

Joint editor (with Dr Sarah Hutton, University of Middlesex) of: New Perspectives on Renaissance Thought: Essays in the History of Science, Education and Philosophy, in Memory of Charles B. Schmitt (Duckworth, London, 1990), pp. xi + 324.

Joint editor (with John M. Forrester, independent scholar) of: Jean Fernel’s On the Hidden Causes of Things: Forms, Souls, and Occult Diseases in Renaissance Medicine (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005), pp. vii + 779.

Major articles:

“Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Concept of Space and its later Influence”, Annals of Science, 36 (1979), pp. 549-75.

“Atomism and Eschatology: Catholicism and Natural Philosophy in the Interregnum”, British Journal for the History of Science, 15 (1982), pp. 211-39. [Reprinted in Vere Chappell (ed.), Essays on Early Modern Philosophers from Descartes and Hobbes to Newton and Leibniz, Volume 6: Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), pp. 203-231.]

“Thomas Harriot and Atomism: A Reappraisal”, History of Science, 20 (1982), pp. 267-96.

“A Cambridge Platonist's Materialism: Henry More and the Concept of Soul”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 49 (1986), pp. 172-95.

“Occult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in pre-Newtonian Matter Theory”, History of Science, 24 (1986), pp. 335-81. [Reprinted in Vere Chappell (ed.), Essays on Early Modern Philosophers from Descartes and Hobbes to Newton and Leibniz, Volume 7: Seventeenth-Century Natural Scientists (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), pp. 1-47.]

“Medicine and Pneumatology: Henry More, Richard Baxter and Francis Glisson's Treatise on the Energetic Nature of Substance”, Medical History, 31 (1987), pp. 15-40.

“The Origins of Modern Science: Henry Oldenburg's Contribution” [essay review of The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, edited and translated by A.R. Hall and M. Boas Hall], British Journal for the History of Science, 21 (1988), pp. 103-10.

“Newton, Matter and Magic”, in Let Newton Be, edited by J. Fauvel, R. Flood, M. Shortland and R. Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 127-45.

“The Matter of Souls: Medical Theory and Theology in Seventeenth-Century England”, in The Medical Revolution in the Seventeenth Century, edited by R.K. French and A. Wear (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989), pp. 87-113.

“Robert Hooke, the Incongruous Mechanist”, in Robert Hooke: New Studies, edited by Michael Hunter and Simon Schaffer (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), pp. 149-80.

“Magic and Science in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, in A Companion to the History of Modern Science, edited by G.N. Cantor, J.R.R. Christie, J. Hodge, and R.C. Olby (Routledge, London and New York, 1990), pp. 583-96.

“Henry More versus Robert Boyle: The Spirit of Nature and the nature of Providence”, in Henry More (1614-1687): Tercentenary studies, edited by Sarah Hutton (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1990), pp. 55-75.

“Doctors and Healers: Popular Culture and the Medical Profession”, in Science, Culture and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe, edited by Stephen Pumfrey, Paolo Rossi, and Maurice Slawinski (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1991), pp. 191-221, 308-11.

“The Scientific Revolution in England” in The Scientific Revolution in National Context, edited by Roy Porter and Mikuláš Teich (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992), pp. 178-210.

“Henry More and Newton's Gravity”, History of Science, 31 (1993), pp. 83-97.

“Boyle and Cosmical Qualities”, in Robert Boyle Reconsidered, edited by Michael Hunter (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994), pp. 119-38.

“'Pray do not ascribe that notion to me': God and Newton's Gravity”, in The Books of Nature and Scripture: Recent Essays on Natural Philosophy, Theology and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands of Spinoza's Time and the British Isles of Newton's Time, edited by James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1994), pp. 123-47.

“Palaeontology and Theodicy: Religion, Politics and the Asterolepis of Stromness”, in Hugh Miller and the Controversies of Victorian Science, edited by Michael Shortland (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996), pp. 151-70.

“New Doctrines of Body and Its Powers, Place and Space” (joint author with Alan Gabbey, Daniel Garber, and Lynn Joy), in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, edited by D. Garber and M. Ayers (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998), pp. 553-623.

“Isaac Newton and the Problem of Action at a Distance”, Krisis, 8 (1999), pp. 30-46 [Special issue: Revolution in Science. The journal of The Krisis Society for Philosophical Dialogue and Reflection, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest. ISSN 1224-0044].

“Science and the Scientific Revolution”, in Peter N. Stearns (ed.), Encyclopaedia of European Social History, from 1350 to 2000, 6 vols (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 2001) [winner of the ALA Outstanding Reference Source Award, for 2001], Vol. 2, pp. 77-94.

“Animism and Empiricism: Copernican Physics and the Origins of William Gilbert’s Experimental Method”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 62 (2001), pp. 99-119.

“Void Space, Mathematical Realism and Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’s Use of Atomistic Arguments”, in Christoph Lüthy, John Murdoch, and William Newman (eds), Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theory (E. J. Brill, Leiden, 2001), pp. 133-61.

“Metaphysics and the Origins of Modern Science: Descartes and the Importance of Laws of Nature”, Early Science and Medicine, 9 (2004), pp. 73-114.

“Newtonianism in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Introduction”, in John Hutchinson, Moses’s Principia, volume 1 of Newtonianism in Eighteenth-Century Britain, pp. v-xxxi (7 vols, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2004).

“Science and the Coming of the Enlightenment”, in Martin Fitzpatrick, Peter Jones, Christa Knellwolf, and Iain McCalman (eds), The Enlightenment World (Routledge, London, 2004), pp. 10-26.

“Jean Fernel and the Importance of His De abditis rerum causis” [with John M. Forrester], in John M. Forrester and John Henry (eds), Jean Fernel’s On the Hidden Causes of Things: Forms, Souls and Occult Diseases in Renaissance Medicine (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005), pp. 3-65.

“Galileo, Descartes, and the Importance of Kinematics”, in Juan José Saldaña (ed.), Science and Cultural Diversity. Proceedings of the XXIst International Congress of the History of Science(Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, D. F., 2005), pp. 3090-3103 [on CD-ROM].

“National Styles in Science: A Factor in the Scientific Revolution?” in David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers (eds), Geography and Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 43-74.

“Henry More (1614-1687)”, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (August, 2007): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/henry-more/

“Psychology and the Laws of Nature: From Souls to the Powers of the Mind in the Scottish Enlightenment”, in Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell (eds), Medicine and Religion in Enlightenment Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2007), pp. 243-58.

“Physics in Edinburgh: From Napier’s Bones to Higgs’s Boson”, Physics in Perspective, 9 (2007), pp. 468-501. [Reprinted in J. S. Rigden and Roger H. Stuewer (eds), The Physical Tourist: A Science Guide for the Traveler (Basel: Birkhauser Verlag, 2009), pp. 21-54.]

“The Fragmentation of the Occult and the Decline of Magic,” History of Science, 46 (2008), pp. 1-48.

“Voluntarist Theology at the Origins of Modern Science: A Response to Peter Harrison”, History of Science, 47 (2009), pp. 79-113.

“Sir Kenelm Digby, Recusant Philosopher”, in G. A. J. Rogers, Tom Sorrell, and Jill Kraye (eds), Insiders and Outsiders in the Seventeenth Century (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 43-75.

“Religion and the Scientific Revolution”, in Peter Harrison (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 39-58.

“The Exoteric and the Esoteric: Francis Bacon’s Two Philosophies of Nature”, in Dave Patrick (ed.), The View Beyond: Sir Francis Bacon, Alchemy, Science, Mystery (London: Polair Publishing, 2011), pp. 32-52.

“Gravity and De gravitatione: The Development of Newton’s Ideas on action at a Distance”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 42 (2011), pp.11-27.

“The Origins of the Experimental Method—Mathematics or Magic?”, in Hubertus Busche, Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter (eds), Departure for Modern Europe: Philosophy between 1400 and 1700. A Handbook of Early Modern Philosophy (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2011), pp. 702-14.

“Galileo and the Scientific Revolution: The Importance of His Kinematics”, Galilaeana, 8 (2011), pp. 3-36.

“‘Mathematics made no contribution to the public weal’: Why Jean Fernel became a Physician”, Centaurus, 53 (2011), pp. 193-220.

“Omnipotence and Thinking Matter: John Locke and the Use of Reason in Religion”, in Delfina Giovannozzi and Marco Veneziani (Eds), Materia, Atti del XIII Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo (Roma, 7-9 gennaio 2010) (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2011), pp. 357-79.

“Why Thomas Harriot was not the English Galileo”, in Robert Fox (ed.), Thomas Harriot: Mathematics, Exploration, and Natural Philosophy in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 113-37.

“The Absorbtion of Occult Traditions into Early Modern Natural Philosophy: A New Account of the Decline of Magic” [in Russian], State, Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide, New Series, 1 (2013), pp. 53-91 [ISSN 2073 – 7203 (print), 2073 – 7211 (online)].

“The Reception of Cartesianism”, in Peter Anstey (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 116-43.

“Jean Fernel on Celestial Influences and the Reform of Medical Theory”, in Dario Tessicini and Patrick Boner (eds), Celestial Novelties, Science and Politics on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution (1540-1630) (Rome: Olschki, 2013), pp. 133-57.

“Girolamo Cardano and the De subtilitate” (with John M. Forrester), in The De subtilitate of Girolamo Cardano, edited and translated by John M. Forrester, with an Introduction by John Henry and John M. Forrester, 2 vols (Phoenix: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2013), vol. I, pp. xi-xxxvii.

“Testimony and Empiricism: John Sergeant, John Locke, and the Social History of Truth”, in Tamas Demeter, Kathryn Murphy, and Claus Zittel (eds.), Conflicting Values of Inquiry: The Ideologies of Epistemology in Early Modern Europe ( Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 95-124.

“Science in the Athens of the North: The Development of Science in Enlightenment Edinburgh”, in Robert G. W. Anderson (ed.), Cradle of Chemistry: The Early Years of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2015), pp. 7-24.

“The Theological Origins of the Concept of Laws of Nature and Its Subsequent Secularisation”, in Neil Spurway (ed.), Laws of Nature, Laws of God? (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), pp. 65-90.

“A Pragmatic Aspect of Polymathy: The Alliance of Mathematics and Medicine in Liddel’s Time”, in Karin Friedrich and Pietro Omodeo (eds), Scotland’s John Dee: Duncan Liddel (1561–1613), Networks of Polymathy and the Northern European Renaissance (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 93-112.

“Hobbes, Galileo, and the Physics of Simple Circular Motions”, Hobbes Studies, 29 (2016), pp. 9-38.

"Theology and Science", in Ulrich L. Lehner, Richard Muller, and Gregory Roeber (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 608-24.

"Science and the Coming of Enlightenment", in Gadi Taub (ed.), The History of Ideas, Volume I: The Enlightenment (Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 2016), pp. 27-43.

“Enlarging the Bounds of Moral Philosophy: Why Did Isaac Newton Conclude the Opticks the Way He Did?” Notes and Records. The Royal Society’s Journal for the History of Science, 71 (2017), pp. 21-39.

"The Scientific Revolution", in Iwan Morus (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 143-78.

“Voluntarism and Panentheism: The Sensorium of God and Isaac Newton’s Theology” [with J. E. McGuire], The Seventeenth Century, 33 (2018), 587–612.

“Newton and Action at a Distance”, in Eric Schliesser and Chris Smeenk (eds), Oxford Handbook of Isaac Newton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 1-34, published online.

“Laws of Nature”, in Dana Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe (eds), Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences (Dordrecht: Springer, 2019), pp. 1–13, published online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_5-1.

“Intellectualism and Voluntarism”, in Dana Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe (eds), Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences (Dordrecht: Springer, 2019), published online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_5-1.

“Science and Reason”, in C. Scott Dixon and Beat Kümin (eds), Interpreting Early Modern Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 329–55.

“Primary and Secondary Causation in Samuel Clarke’s and Isaac Newton’s Theories of Gravity,” Isis, 111 (2020), pp. 542–61.

“Newton, the Sensorium of God, and the Cause of Gravity,” Science in Context, 33 (2020), pp. 329–51.

“Hobbes’s Mechanical Philosophy and Its English Critics,” in Marcus P. Adams (ed.), A Companion to Hobbes (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2021), pp. 381–97.

“Sir Kenelm Digby, the Immortality of the Soul, and Philosophical Theology in Seventeenth-Century England”, in Laura Georgescu and Han Thomas Adriaenssen (eds), The Philosophy of Kenelm Digby (1603-1665) (Cham: Springer, 2022), pp. 89-112.

"Newton's 'De Aere et Aethere' and the Introduction of Interparticulate Forces into His Physics", Annals of Science, 80 (2023): 232-67.  published online: https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2023.2192721

“The General Resurrection and Early Modern Natural Philosophers: A Preliminary Survey”, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 58 (2023): 905-27; http://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12913

“Natural Philosophy and Autobiography: Girolamo Cardano’s De subtilitate and Experiential Philosophy”, in Jonathan Regier and Guido Giglioni (eds), A Renaissance Master of Variety: Girolamo Cardano on Nature, Knowledge, and Human Experience (Leiden: Brill, 2025?), in press.

“‘Like Nets or Cobwebs’: Kenelm Digby, Isaac Newton, and the Problem of Rarefaction”, British Journal for the History of Science, 58 (2025)?, in press.

Shorter articles:

“Der Aristotelismus und die neue Wissenschaft”; “Kenelm Digby”; “Thomas White”; “Francis Glisson”; “Die Rezeption der atomistischen Philosophie”; and “Walter Charleton”, in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie begründet von Friedrich Ueberweg (13th edition), Band 3: Die Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts—England, edited by Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Schwabe & CO AG., Basel, 1988), pp. 354-5; 359-62; 364-6; 367-9; 370-76; 376-82, respectively.

“Edinburgh and Its Legacy to Science”, European Geophysical Society Newsletter, 39 (July 1991): 33-4.

Six short bio-bibliographical articles (Robert Boyle 1627-1691, Walter Charleton 1620-1707, Robert Hooke 1635-1703, Henry More 1614-1687, Isaac Newton 1642-1727, Thomas White 1593-1676) in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, edited by D. Garber and M. Ayers (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998), pp. 1405-6; 1411; 1436-7; 1451-2; 1452-3; and 1471, respectively.

“La Nature, l’Église et l’État”, Les Cahiers de Science et Vie, No. 45 (June, 1998): 80-86 [special issue on “Science anglaise, science française”].

“William Cleghorn, 1751-83”; “William Keir, 1750-83”; “Gowin Knight, 1713-72”; “George Martine, 1702-41”; “Donald Monro, 1727-1802”; “Samuel Pike, 1717-73”; “Bryan Robinson, 1680-1754”; “Peter Shaw, 1694-1763”; “Robert Simson, 1687-1768”; “Robert Smith, 1689-1768”; in Dictionary of Eighteenth Century British Philosophers, 2 volumes, edited by John W. Yolton, John Valdimir Price and John Stephens (Thoemmes Press, Bristol, 1999), Vol. 1, p. 598, Vol 2, pp. 514-5, 525-6, 598, 635-6, 691-3, 760-1, 789-90, 798-9, 817-8, respectively.

“Magic and the Origins of Modern Science”, The Lancet, Supplement 2000, Part 354 (December, 1999): 23.

“Francis Glisson”, “John Wilkins”, and “Thomas Willis”, in Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers, edited by Andrew Pyle, 2 vols. (Thoemmes Press, Bristol, 2000), pp. 345-8, 888-93, 895-99, respectively.

“Atheism”, “Atomism”, “Causation”, “Macrocosm/Microcosm”, “Meteorology”, “Gender” (with Sara Miles), and “Orthodoxy (Eastern)” (with Allyne L. Smith Jr., H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., and Edward W. Hughes), in The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopaedia, edited by Gary B. Ferngren, Edward J. Larson and Darrel W. Amundsen (Garland Publishing Inc., New York, 2000), pp. 182-8, 122-7, 31-7, 344-50, 424-8, 223-30, and 268-73 respectively.

“Attraction”, “Cambridge Platonism”, “Cudworth, Ralph”, “Magic”, “Matter”, “More, Henry”, “Rosicrucianism”, “Spirit”, and “Towneley, Richard”, in Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution, from Copernicus to Newton, edited by Wilbur Applebaum (Garland Publishing Inc., New York, 2000), pp. 60-2, 117-8, 178-9, 379-82, 398-404, 442-3, 578-9, 613-5, 648-9, respectively.

“Atomism”, “Hermeticism”, “Occult Sciences”, “Religion and Science: General Works”, “Religion and Science: Renaissance”, and “Vacuum”, in Reader's Guide to the History of Science, edited by Arne Hessenbruch (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, London and Chicago, 2000), pp. 56-9, 334-6, 529-31, 639-41, 645-7, 741-2, respectively.

“Trusting Print/Making Natural Philosophy [Essay review of Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998]”, Metascience, 10 (2001): 5-14.

“Scientific Revolution” for the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia, World English Edition (Websters International Publishing, London, 2001).

“A Short History of Scientific and Technical Education in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Heriot-Watt Universities (the Partner HEIs in the NAHSTE Project)”, on-line essay to introduce users to the NAHSTE Project (Navigational Aids in the History of Science, Technology and the Environment—a web-based catalogue of manuscripts relating to the history of science and technology, produced under the auspices of the Research Support Libraries Programme, launched July 8, 2002), http://www.nahste.ac.uk/research/essay.html.

“James Croll”, “Hugh Miller”, and “St George Jackson Mivart”, in W. J. Mander and Alan P. F. Sell (eds), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers, 2 vols (Thoemmes Press, Bristol, 2002), pp. i, 286-7; ii, 799-802; and ii, 804-6, respectively.

“Causation”, in Gary Ferngren (ed.), Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2002), pp. 130-42.

“Gender” [with Sara Miles], in Gary Ferngren (ed.), A Historical Introduction to Science and Religion (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2002), pp. 359-73.

“Tradition and Reform: Jean Fernel’s Physiologia (1567)”, with John Forrester [Introduction to new edition and translation of Fernel’s Physiologia by John Forrester], Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 93 (2003), pp. 1-12 & 609-13.

“The Scientific Revolution, 1550-1700” [with Roy Porter], in Mark Cohen and John Major (eds), History in Quotations (Cassell, London, 2003), pp. .

“Glisson, Francis”, “Hooke, Robert”, “Matter, Theories of”, and “Scientific Revolution”, in Jonathan Dewald (ed.), Dictionary of Early Modern Europe, 6 vols (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 2004), iii, pp. 69-70, and 201-2; iv, pp. 54-9; and v, pp. 343-52, respectively.

“Bryan Robinson (1680-1754)”, in Tom Duddy (ed.), Dictionary of Irish Philosophers (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004), pp. .

“Samuel Boulton (fl. 1656)”, “Colin Campbell (1644-1726)”, “Walter Charleton (1619-1707)”, “John Craig (d. 1620)”, “John Craig (d. 1655)”, “John Keill (1671-1721)”, “Seth Ward (1617-1689)”, and “John Wilkins (1614-1672)”, in New Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, 60 vols (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004), vi, pp. 811-2; ix, pp. 751-2; xi, pp. 172-5; xiii, pp. 950-1; xiii, pp. 951-2; xxxi, pp. 42-5; lvii, pp. 349-52; and lviii, pp. 982-5, respectively.

“Reforming the Theory of Disease. Jean Fernel’s On the Hidden Causes of Things: Forms, Souls and Occult Diseases in Renaissance Medicine…”, Intellectual News, 14 (Winter 2004), pp. 130-1.

“Alchemy”; “William Cleghorn (1751-83)”; “James Croll (1821-90)”; “Digges, Leonard (c. 1515–c.1559) and Thomas (c.1546–1595)”; “Francis Glisson (1598?-1677)”; “God, concepts of”; “God, existence of”; “William Keir (d. 1783)”; “Gowin Knight (1713-72)”; “George Martine (1702-41)”; “Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy”; “Hugh Miller (1802-56)”; “St George Jackson Mivart (1827-1900)”, “Donald Monro (1727-1802)”; “Natural Theology”; “Samuel Pike (1717-73)”; “Bryan Robinson (1680-1754)”; “Peter Shaw (1694-1763)”; “Robert Simson (1687-1768)”; “Robert Smith (1689-1768)”; “John Wilkins (1614-72)”, and “Thomas Willis (1621-75)”, in Anthony Grayling, Andrew Pyle, and Naomi Goulder (eds), Continuum Encyclopaedia of British Philosophy, 4 vols (Thoemmes Continuum, London, 2006), vol. 1, pp. 53-4, 638, 752-3, vol. 2, pp. 849-50, 1236-38, 1239-44, 1244-46, vol. 3, pp. 1745-6, 1778-79, 2086, 2132-40, 2185-88, 2216-7, 2235-6, 2305-6, 2514-15, vol. 4, pp. 2739-40, 2896-97, 2935, 2973, 3438-41, 3462-64, respectively.

“John Caius (1510-1573)”, Jacques Dubois (Sylvius) (1478-1555), “Jean Fernel (1497-1558)”, “William Harvey (1578-1657), “Thomas Linacre (1460?-1524)”, “Richard Lower (1631-1691)”, “Sir Thomas Turquet de Mayerne (1573-1655)”, “Jacques-Benigne Winsløw (1669-1760)”, in Dictionary of Medical Biography, edited by William F. Bynum and Helen Bynum, 5 vols (Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut, 2007), ii, 292-3, 437-8, 482-6; iii, 615-7, 794-5, 815; v, 1249-50, 1313-4, respectively.

“Empirismus”, and “Erfahrung” in Friedrich Steinle (ed.), Enzyklopaedie der Neuzeit, 16 vols (J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 2007), iii, columns 271-76 and 431-35, respectively.

“Historical and other Studies of Science, Technology and Medicine in the University of Edinburgh”, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 62 (2008), pp. 223-35.

“Ideology, Inevitability, and the Scientific Revolution”, Isis, 99 (2008), pp. 552-9.

“Jean Fernel (1497-1558)”, in Joseph P. Byrne (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Pestilence, Pandemics and Plagues, 2 vols (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2008), i, 212-13.

“The Merton Thesis”, in Heidi A. Campbell and Heather Looy (eds), A Science and Religion Primer(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2009), pp. 141-3.

“Theology and the Meaning of Matter: A Response to Peter Harrison”, in Michael Fuller (ed.), Matter and Meaning: Is Matter Sacred or Profane? (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), pp. 57-66.

"Newton and Action at a Distance between Bodies: A Response to Andrew Janiak's Three Concepts of Causation in Newton", Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 47 (2014), pp. 91-97.

“Robert Boyle”, and “Rosicrucian” in Larry Nolan (ed.), Cambridge Descartes Lexicon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 77-8, and 659-60, respectively.

“The Scientific Revolution: Five Books about It”, Isis, 107 (2016), pp. 809-17 [Essay review].

“Atheism”, in Gary B. Ferngren (ed.), Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), pp. 333-47.

“Causation” [with Mariusz Tabaczek], in Gary B. Ferngren (ed.), Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), pp. 377-94.

“Evolution” [with Peter Bowler], in Gary B. Ferngren (ed.), Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), pp. 204-19.

“Natural History” [with Peter M. Hess], in Gary B. Ferngren (ed.), Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), pp. 174-91.

"Action at a Distance", in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Renaissance Philosophy(Dordrecht: Springer, 2017), published online: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_…

"Fernel, Jean", in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2017), published online: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_…

“Francis Bacon”, in Daniel Robinson, Chad Meister, and Charles Taliaferro (eds), The History of Evil, Volume 3: The Early Modern Age (Durham: Acumen, 2018), pp. 129–38.

“Cleghorn, William (1754–83)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0120); “Croll, James (1821–90)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052475-0143); “Glisson, Francis (1598?–1677)” DOI: 10.5040/9781350052499-0163); “Keir, William (d. 1783)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0310); “Knight, Gowin (1713–72)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0319); “Martine, George (1702–41)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0360); “Miller, Hugh (1802–56)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052475-0391); “Mivart, St George Jackson (1827–1900)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052475-0394); “Monro, Donald (1727–1802)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0385); “Pike, Samuel (c.1717–73)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0420); “Robinson, Bryan (1680–1754)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0451); “Shaw, Peter (1694–1764)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0475); Simson, Robert (1687–1763) (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0481); “Smith, Robert (1689–1768)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052482-0487); “Wilkins, John (1614–72)” (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052499-0411); Willis, Thomas (1621–75) (DOI: 10.5040/9781350052499-0414), in The Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Philosophers, Bloomsbury Online Resources (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).

“Newtonianism in Britain”, in Dana Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe (eds), Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences (Dordrecht: Springer, 2020), pp. 1–6, published online, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_116-1.

“Action at a Distance in Early Modern Natural Philosophy”, in Dana Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe (eds), Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences (Dordrecht: Springer, 2020), pp. 1–7, published online, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_39-1

“Newton’s Unnatural Laws: The Hidden Occult History of Action at a Distance”, IAI News, online publication, https://iai.tv/articles/newtons-unnatural-laws-auid-1640?_auid=2020 (23rd October, 2020).

“Introduction”, in Reassessing the Wider Aspects of Newton’s Thought – A Symposium. Special Issue of Early Science and Medicine, 26 (2) (2021), pp. 117–123.

“Francis Bacon: Lordlar Kamarası Başkanı Gibi Felsefe Yapmak” [Turkish translation of “Francis Bacon: Writing Philosophy like a Lord Chancellor”], Bilim Tarihi Güncesi [History of Science], August, 2022, pp. 74-77.

“Vorvort zur englischen Ausgabe”, in Girolam Cardano, De Subtilitate von der Feinheit der Welt und des Denkens, translated into German by Martin Regenbrecht (Berlin: Regenbrecht Verlag, 2023), pp. 13-29.

“Medical and Scientific Books, 1560-1707” (with Helen Dingwall), in Alastair Mann (ed.), The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Vol. I (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024?), in press.

“The Importance of Marginalia: Copernicus’ On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in Scotland”, in Alastair Mann (ed.), The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Vol. I (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024?), in press.

Book Reviews:

163 reviews since 1983 in the following academic journals:

Ambix; American Historical Review; Annals of Science; Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences; British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies; British Journal for the History of Philosophy; British Journal for the History of Science; Bulletin of the History of Medicine; Cambridge Review; Centaurus; Early Science and Medicine; Ecumene; Edinburgh Review; English Historical Review; Expository Times; Heythrop Journal; The Historian; History; History Today; HOPOS; Intellectual History Review; International Journal for Philosophy of Religion; Isis; Journal of the American Medical Association; Journal of Ecclesiastical History; Journal of Modern History; The Lancet; London Journal; Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft; Medical History; Metascience; Nature; Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London; Nuncius; Public Understanding of Science; Renaissance Quarterly; Renaissance Studies; Science and Education; The Seventeenth Century; Social History of Medicine; Studium; Times Higher Education Supplement; Times Literary Supplement.