Koyré, Alexandre (1892–1964)

The scope of his research and his effort to give civilization meaning make Alexandre Koyré one of the boldest and most influential of twentieth-century historians of scientific thought. He was Russian of origin, German by philosophical training, French by adoption, and chose the USA as his second intellectual homeland. From the mysticism of the Renaissance to Romantic philosophy, from Copernican theory to Newtonian synthesis, he interpreted modern cosmology in the light of ‘the unity of human thought’ and of mathematical realism, as both effect and origin of a ‘spiritual’ revolution.