This volume considers contingency as a historical category resulting from the combination of
various intellectual elements - epistemological philosophical material as well as
theological and broadly speaking intellectual. With contributions ranging from fields as
diverse as the histories of physics astronomy astrology medicine mechanics physiology and
natural philosophy it explores the transformation of the notion of contingency across the
late-medieval Renaissance and the early modern period. Underpinned by a necessitated vision
of nature seventeenth century mechanism widely identified apparent natural irregularities with
the epistemological limits of a certain explanatory framework. However this picture was
preceded by and in fact emerged from a widespread characterization of contingency as an
ontological trait of nature typical of late-Scholastic and Renaissance science. On these bases
this volume shows how epistemological categories which are preconditions of knowledge as
historically-situated a priori and seemingly self-evident are ultimately rooted in
time.Contingency is intrinsic to scientific practice. Whether observing the behaviour of a
photon diagnosing a patient or calculating the orbit of a distant planet scientists face the
unavoidable challenge of dealing with data that differ from their models and expectations.
However epistemological categories are not fixed in time. Indeed there is something
fundamentally different in the way an Aristotelian natural philosopher defined a wonder or a
monstrous birth as contingent a modern scientist defines the unexpected result of an
experiment and a quantum physicist the behavior of a photon. Although to each inquirer these
instances appeared self-evidently contingent each also employs the concept differently.
