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This controversial essay, first published in 1853, addresses the question of the existence of intelligent life on other planets. It was first published anonymously, owing to the ferocity of the ongoing debates between the religious and scientific scholarly communities. Its author, William Whewell (1794-1866) was a leading intellectual of the Victorian period, and a notable polymath. A contemporary and adviser of Herschel, Darwin and Faraday, he wrote extensively on subjects ranging from astronomy and mineralogy to moral philosophy, educational reform and architecture, and engaged with John Stuart Mill in a lively debate about inductive reasoning. In Of The Plurality of Worlds, Whewell denied the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, afraid that the concept of extraterrestrial life would encourage the theory of evolution and put at risk mankind's connection to God.

Plurality of worlds. --- Life on other planets --- Religious aspects. --- Worlds, Plurality of --- Astronomy --- Cosmology --- Planets --- Stars

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This is a fascinating history of the debate over the question of extraterrestrial life from Classical Greece to the mid-eighteenth century. Using many primary and secondary sources, this book analyses why such great thinkers as Aristotle, Aquinas, Ockham, Galileo, Kepler, Huygens, and Kant thought the debate over the plurality of worlds a subject for serious discussion. The author shows how conflicting arguments from science, philosophy, and theology gradually converged to the same opinion - that intelligent life must fill the universe.

Plurality of worlds --- Life on other planets --- Pluralité des mondes --- Vie extraterrestre --- Worlds, Plurality of --- Astronomy --- Cosmology --- Planets --- Stars --- Extraterrestrial life --- Fermi's paradox --- Plurality of worlds. --- Life on other planets. --- Extraterrestrial anthropology.

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800.1 --- 800.1 Taalfilosofie --- Taalfilosofie --- Plurality of worlds. --- Pluralité des mondes --- Réalisme --- Plurality of worlds --- Modality (Theory of knowledge) --- Conceptualism --- Worlds, Plurality of --- Modality (Theory of knowledge). --- Pluralité des mondes --- Réalisme --- Realism --- Empiricism --- Philosophy --- Universals (Philosophy) --- Dualism --- Idealism --- Materialism --- Nominalism --- Positivism --- Rationalism --- Astronomy --- Cosmology --- Planets --- Stars --- Knowledge, Theory of --- Realism.