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Encyclopedia of Cosmology: Historical, Philosophical, and Scientific Foundations of Modern Cosmology (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)

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Cosmology is a difficult term to define. Scientists, philosophers and theologians use the term in different ways, often roughly referring to the same category of object or idea, but using vastly different methods and tools. If one studies Kant's cosmology, for example, one is studying a vastly different field than if one picks up an astrophysics text on cosmology, such as the cosmology text by Narlikar from which I learned large-scale structures of the universe.

Cosmology, like much of science, was once assumed under the heading of philosophy -- in ancient Greece, for example, the great thinkers, those we classify as philosophers, were often ancient Renaissance thinkers, not separating out according to academic guidelines such as exist today components as being more philosophy or science or history. Thus, any attempt to look at cosmology properly, in its entirety, must begin with the ancients, and must take into account the various fields' contributions and digressions from the subject.

Perhaps first was the more philosophical and religious wonderings about the universe, its origins and its nature, and how things worked within. Included in this encyclopedia therefore are investigations of ancient Greek cosmology, tracing from there through the dominant Western strands of Christianity and the Enlightenment period to both the philosophical school and the physical science/astronomical side of cosmology. Even in the Enlightenment, the cross-currents between Copernican and Darwinian cosmologies and philosophical/religious cosmologies continued, and still play out to this day.

There are articles here that deal with particular philosophers and scientists as they developed their cosmological ideas. One will find articles on people as early as Thales and as recent as Hawking. There are articles on key cultural idea of cosmology, including an extensive essay on Religion and Cosmology; this is not just an enterprise for the physical scientists, as the article on Dante's moral cosmology relates. One will find interesting material in articles such as Egyptian Cosmology, Islamic Cosmology, and other societal contexts.

However, this is primarily a book for scientists, and assumes in most of its articles a familiarity with physics, mathematics and astronomy to a fairly sophisticated degree. Articles on the more recent cosmological constructs, such as the Big Bang cosmology, the Inflationary University, the Steady State cosmology, and other topics are well done. Indeed, the Steady State article was contributed by one of its originators. The philosophical side of astrophysical theories becomes evident in articles on the Grand Unified Theory, the Anthropic Principle, the article on Mulitple Universes, and the article on the Origins of Modern Cosmology.

This is an encyclopedia, arranged alphabetically -- many entries are more like longer dictionary definitions, descriptions and applications of equations and formulae, and treatments of scientific principles often used in astronomy and physics. These are useful beyond the field of cosmology. There is perhaps more philosophy and history here than a typical astronomer would want; there is perhaps more mathematical and physical science than a philosopher or historian would want. Nonetheless, it is a grand text, very complete, with good bibliographic information for major articles suggesting further reading.