About
Alexandre Koyré, born in 1892 in Taganrog (Russian Empire) and died in 1964 in Paris, was a French philosopher and historian of science of Russian origin. Trained at Göttingen under Husserl and Hilbert, then in Paris with Bergson and Brunschvicg, he served in the French Foreign Legion during World War I and left Russia permanently in 1919. Director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études from 1931, he taught in New York during World War II. His work on Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton renewed the history of science by showing that the Scientific Revolution was a conceptual rupture, the geometrization of space, and the destruction of the finite cosmos.
* 1892-08-28 — † 1964-04-28
Major works
- Études galiléennes (1939)historical study
- From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (1957)historical study
- La Révolution astronomique: Copernic, Kepler, Borelli (1961)historical study
- Newtonian Studies (1965)posthumous collection
Key milestones
- 1931Appointed director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, chair in History of Religious Thought in Modern Europe.
- 1958Founded the Centre de Recherches d'Histoire des Sciences at the EPHE, later renamed Centre Alexandre Koyré.
- 1959Received the George Sarton Medal, the highest honor of the History of Science Society.
Themes
Scientific RevolutionHistory of ideasCosmologyEpistemologyPhilosophy of physics
Sources: lindahall.org · oxfordreference.com