Update: 9 March 2012. I officially retired from the University of New South Wales in March 2011. My research, writing and publishing activities have subsequently been conducted in conjunction with the University of Sydney, as an honorary fellow of the Unit for History & Philosophy of Science, and as a member of the history of early modern science research team in the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science. I have also been named an Honorary Fellow of Campion College, the only private liberal arts college in Australia.
From now on it is best to use the following email address: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
I currently have several items in the publication pipeline
I am deliighted to report that Descartes Agonistes: Physico-mathematics, Method and Mechanism 1618-1633 will be published in its full and unexpurgated form by Springer within calendar 2012. It will be roughly 450 pages; 13 chapters and 2 appendices with 72 diagrams and illustrations.
Other items in the pipline:
John A. Schuster, “Physico-Mathematics and the Search for Causes in Descartes’ Optics”, appeared online in Synthèse, December 2011, and will be published in that journal shortly.
John A. Schuster and Judit Brody, “Descartes and Sunspots: Matters of Fact and Systematising Strategies in the Principia Philosophiae” has been accepted by Annals of Science and currently is in production for early publication.
For the Descartes Lexicon (CUP) ed. Lawrence Nolan: articles ‘Hydrostatics’, ‘Physico-Mathematics’, ‘Light’, ‘Vortices’, 'Kepler' and ‘Magnetism’.
For the Oxford Handbook of the History of Physics (OUP), eds. Jed Buchwald and Robert Fox, chapter, “Cartesian Physics”
John A. Schuster, “What was the Relation of Baroque Culture to the Trajectory of Early Modern Natural Philosophy” to appear in Archives internationales d’histoire des idees, special volume, eds. O.Gal and R. Chen-Morris.
John A. Schuster, “Consuming and Appropriating Practical Mathematics and the Mixed Mathematical Fields, or Being “Influenced” by Them: The Case of the Young Descartes” in Lesley Cormack, ed. Mathematical Practitioners and the Transformation of Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, forthcoming, Chicago University Press.
The open access textbook on this site, "The Scientific Revolution" has been extensively revised during 2011 in preparation for its translation into Chinese by Professor An Weifu and its publication by the Shanghai Scientific and Technical Educational Publishers. Anyone wishing access to the revised chapters in their English forms should contact me directly. The chapters on this site have not yet been updated.
