1  Basalla, G., ‘The spread of Western science: a three-stage model describes the introduction of modern science into any non-European nation’, Science (1967), 156, 611–22CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also T. Glick (ed.), The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, Austin, TX, 1974; P. Casini, ‘Les Débuts du newtonianisme en Italie, 1700–1740’, Dix-huitième Siècle (1978), 10, 85–100; T. Glick (ed.), The Comparative Reception of Relativity, Dordrecht, 1987; Pagden, A., ‘The reception of the “new philosophy” in 18th-century Spain’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (1988), 51, 126–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D. Goodman, Power and Penury: Government, Technology and Society in Phillip II's Spain, Cambridge, 1988; C. de Pater, ‘The textbooks of 'sGravesande and van Musschenbroek in Italy’, in Italian Scientists in the Low Countries in the 17th and 18th Centuries (ed. C. S. Maffioli and L. C. Palm), Amsterdam, 1989, 231–41; X. Polanco (ed.), Naissance et développement de la science-monde, Paris, 1990; Diaz Molina, L., ‘La ciencia moderna en Cuba a principios del siglo XIX: Las fuentes de la “Fisica” de Felix Varela’, Asclepio: Archivo Iberoamericano de Historia de la Medicina y Antropologia Medica (1990), 42, 393–412Google Scholar; Wright, D., ‘John Fryer and the Shanghai Polytechnic: making space for science in nineteenth-century China’, BJHS (1996), 29, 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. A. Lértora Mendoza, E. Nicolaïdis and J. Vandersmissen (eds.), The Spread of the Scientific Revolution in the European Periphery, Latin America and East Asia, Proceedings of the XXth International Congress of History of Science (Liège, 20–6 July 1997), Vol. V, Turnhout, 1999.

2  E. Ihsanoğlu, Science, Technology and Learning in the Ottoman Empire: Western Influence, Local Institutions, and the Transfer of Knowledge, Aldershot, 2004. For further discussion of the historiographic issues involved in this approach see M. Patiniotis, review of Lértora Mendoza, Nicolaïdis, and Vandersmissen, op. cit. (1), Annals of Science (2003), 60, 455–8.

3  For characteristic instances of a historiography explicitly or implicitly employing the notion of appropriation see F. J. Ragep, S. P. Ragep and S. Livesey (eds.), Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-modern Science Held at the University of Oklahoma, Leiden, New York and Köln, 1996; M. Hård and A. Jamison (eds.), The Intellectual Appropriation of Technology: Discourses on Modernity, 1900–1939, Cambridge, MA, 1998; Mazzotti, M., ‘The geometers of God: mathematics and reaction in the Kingdom of Naples’, Isis (1998), 89, 674–701CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rupke, N., ‘Translation studies in the history of science: the example of Vestiges’, BJHS (2000), 33, 209–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abattouy, M., Renn, J. and Weinig, P., ‘Transmission as transformation: the translation movements in the medieval east and west in a comparative perspective’, Science in Context (2001), 14, 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; K. Gavroglu and M. Patiniotis, ‘Patterns of appropriation in the Greek intellectual life of the 18th century: a case study on the notion of time’, in Revisiting the Foundations of Relativistic Physics: Festschrift in Honor of John Stachel (ed. A. Ashtekar, R. Cohen, D. Howard, J. Renn, S. Sarkar and A. Shimony), Dordrecht, 2003, 569–91; Ben-Zaken, A., ‘The heavens of the sky and the heavens of the heart: the Ottoman cultural context for the introduction of post-Copernican astronomy’, BJHS (2004), 37, 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4  This paper tries to avoid the terms ‘Greek’ and ‘Greece’ as misleading if one is unaware of their different and rather ambiguous connotations in the eighteenth-century Balkans. The term ‘Greek-speaking’ instead of ‘Greek’ is used to denote the scholars of the time. The Greek language was one of the strongest elements of these actors' cultural (but not yet national) identity. There is an extensive secondary bibliography discussing the formation of the Greek national identity both before and after the Greek war of independence. The proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of History, P. M. Kitromilides and T. E. Sclavenitis (eds.), Historiography of Modern and Contemporary Greece, 1832–2002, 2 vols., Athens, 2004, is a very rich collection. See especially ‘The construction of national historiography’ in Vol. I and ‘History of the institutions and of the Greek state’ in Vol. II.

5  For a recent and highly comprehensive overview of Balkan history see M. Mazower, The Balkans, London, 2000.

6  Π. Κονόρτας, Οθωμανικές θεωρήσεις για το Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο, 17 ^ος – αρχές 20 ^ου αιώνα, Athens, 1998.

7  For further discussion see Π. Μ. Κιτρομηλίδης, Nεοελληνικός Διαφωτισμός, Athens, 1996, 25–7.

8  Ν. Ψημμένος (ed.), H Eλληνική Φιλοσοφία από το 1453 ως το 1821, 2 vols., Athens, 1988–9, i, 174.

9  On the revival of Greek philosophical thought see Ε. Π. Παπανούτσος (ed.), Nεοελληνική Φιλοσοφία, 2 vols., Athens 1953, i; G. P. Henderson, The Revival of Greek Thought 1620–1830, Albany, NY, 1970; Ψημμένος, op. cit. (8).

10  G. Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat und europäische Politik 1620–1638, Wiesbaden, 1968.

11  For the life and philosophical work of Korydaleus see Cl. Tsourkas, Les Débuts de l'enseignement philosophique et la libre pensée dans les Balkans. La Vie et l'oeuvre de Théophile Corydalée (1570–1646), second (revised) edn, Thessaloniki, 1967; and Noica, C., ‘La Signification historique de l'oeuvre de Theophile Corydalée’, Revue des études sud-est européenes (1973), 2, 285–306Google Scholar. For a more detailed description of the intellectual environment in which Korydaleus spent his years in Padua see Tsourkas, ibid., 179–95. For the aspects of the Paduan Alexandrism which particularly pertain to Korydaleus's work see C. B. Schmitt, ‘Aristotelianism in the Veneto and the origins of modern science: some considerations on the problem of continuity’, in Atti del convegno internazionale su Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna (1983), 104–23; idem, ‘Cesare Cremonini: un aristotelico al tempo di Galilei’, Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Quaderni (1980), 16, 3–21Google Scholar.

12  One should not, however, see the Phanariots as a Western form of aristocracy. Their noble status corresponded to the social standards of Ottoman society, where the hereditary aristocracy was limited to the highest ranks of the Ottoman administration. The Phanariots were mostly rich bourgeois groups who gained their wealth through their commercial activities and aimed to secure and expand it through their affiliation with the religious and the political authorities of the time. For the Phanariots' contribution within education and in the intellectual life of their time see Κ. Θ. Δημαράς, Nεοελληνικός Διαφωτισμός, Athens, 1993. For the Phanariots as scholars see, among others, Κ. Θ. Δημαράς (ed.), Δημήτριος Kαταρτζής, Δοκίμια, Athens, 1974; and the excellent case study by Dimitris Apostolopoulos, H εμφάνιση της σχολής του φυσικού δικαίου στην ‘τουρκοκρατούμενη’ ελληνική κοινωνία: Vol. I, H ανάγκη μιας νέας Iδεολογίας, Athens, 1980; Vol. II, H πρώτη μετακένωση, Athens, 1983.

13  On this subject see Cicanci, O., ‘Le Rôle de Vienne dans les rapports économiques et culturels du sud-est européens avec le centre de l'Europe’, Revue des études sud-est européenes (1986), 24, 3–16Google Scholar; and especially the thorough study of territorial expansion in Stoianovich, Traian, ‘The conquering Balkan Orthodox merchant’, Journal of Economic History (1960), 20, 234–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14  Κ. Χατζÿπουλος, Eλληνικά Σχολεία στην Περίοδο της οθωμανικής Kυριαρχίας (1453–1821), Thessaloniki, 1991, 88–120 and 264–9.

15  M. Patiniotis, ‘Scientific travels of the Greek scholars in the 18th Century’, in Travels of Learning: A Geography of Science in Europe (ed. A. Simões, A. Carneiro and M. P. Diogo), Dordrecht, 2003, 49–77.

16  For a broad overview of the introduction of the sciences into Greek intellectual life see Г. Καράς (ed.), Iστορία και Φιλοσοφία των Eπιστημών στον Eλληνικό Χώρο (17 ^ος–19 ^ος αι.), Athens, 2003.

17  Dialetis, D., Gavroglu, K. and Patiniotis, M., ‘The sciences in the Greek speaking regions during the 17th and 18th centuries: the process of appropriation and the dynamics of reception and resistance’, Archimedes (1999), 2, 41–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an exhaustive catalogue of the extant printed and manuscript works compiled by the scholars of the time see Г. Καράς, οι Eπιστήμες στην Tουρκοκρατία. Χειρόγραφα και έντυπα, 3 vols., Athens, 1992–4. Reference can also be made to the digital library Hellinomnimon at www.lib.uoa.gr/hellinonmimon. The library, created by the Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Athens University, contains all the philosophical and scientific books written in Greek and printed between 1600 and c.1821. For the function of philosophical and scientific textbooks in the Greek intellectual life of the period see Patiniotis, M., ‘Textbooks at the crossroads: scientific and philosophical textbooks in 18th century Greek education’, Science and Education (2006), 15, 801–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18  For the intellectual itineraries and the professional agenda of eighteenth-century scholars see Patiniotis, op. cit. (15), which includes an indicative list of names and lifespans of the most representative (71–2). Concerning the Greek-speaking scholars' preference to study at the University of Padua see ibid., 58–60; as well as Vlahakis, G. N., ‘An outline of the introduction of classical physics in Greece: the role of the Italian universities and publications’, History of Universities (1995–6), 14, 157–80Google Scholar.

19  Until quite recently accounts of the role of the sciences in modern Greek history formed part of the history of ideas. The man who established the systematic study of the history of ideas from 1600 to the Greek war of independence in the 1820s was K. Th. Dimaras (1904–92). He also introduced the term ‘Greek Enlightenment’ into Greek historiography, so providing the framework within which the antithesis of ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ was shaped. His more influential papers from 1951 to 1977 were gathered in the volume Κ. Θ. Δημαράς, Nεοελληνικός Διαφωτισμός, op. cit. (12). The history of modern Greek science as a distinctive discipline appeared for the first time in the context of the Institute for Neohellenic Research–National Research Foundation, thanks to the work of Yiannis Karas. There are now a number of historians active in the Program of History and Philosophy of Science of this Institute as well as in the Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Athens University, in the National Technical University of Athens and in the University of Ioannina. For a review of the historiography of science in Greece see Ε. Νικολαΐδης, ‘Ιστοριογραφία των Επιστημών’, in Kitromilides and Sclavenitis, op. cit. (4), i, 527–38. An early discussion on the subject can also be found in G. N. Vlahakis, ‘Problems and methodology of exploring the scientific thought during the Greek Enlightenment (1750–1821)’, in Trends in the Historiography of Science (ed. K. Gavroglu, J. Christianidis and Efth. Nicolaidis), Dordrecht, 1993, 397–404. For a very characteristic depiction of the role ‘Newtonian physics’ played in the context of contemporary Greek historiography see Г. N. Βλαχάκης (ed.), H νευτώνεια φυσική και η διάδοσή της στον ευρύτερο Bαλκανικό χώρο (proceedings of an international scientific symposium, Athens, 17–18 December 1993), Athens, 1996; and the collective volume Κέντρο Νεοελληνικών Ερευνών, οι Eπιστήμες στον Eλληνικό Χώρο (proceedings of a conference devoted to the memory of Michael Stephanides, Athens 2–3 June 1995), Athens, 1997. For a discussion of the ‘conservative’–‘progressive’ dipole and an early attempt to relativize this distinction see Г. Ν. Βλαχάκης, ‘H άλλη άποψη: H ‘Επιτομή Φυσικής Ακροάσεως' του Σέργιου Μακραίου’, in οι Eπιστήμες στον Eλληνικό Χώρο, ibid., 249–60.

20  For a slightly different view see G. N. Vlahakis, ‘Dissemination and development of non-Aristotelian physics in Aristotle's land’, in Lértora Mendoza, Nicolaïdis and Vandersmissen, op. cit. (1), 45–52. Vlahakis suggests substituting the term ‘non-Aristotelian’ for the term ‘Newtonian’ to put the emphasis on the eclecticism of Greek-speaking scholars.

21  Π. Κονδύλης, ο Nεοελληνικός Διαφωτισμός. οι φιλοσοφικές ιδέες, Athens, 1988, 10 (my translation).

22  Г. Καράς, οι θετικές επιστήμες στον ελληνικό χώρο (15 ^ος–19 ^ος αιώνας), Athens, 1991, 89 (my translation).

23  Καράς op. cit. (16), 51–3. See also Ψημμένος, op. cit. (8), i, 31; Henderson, op. cit. (9), ‘Introduction’.

24  Καράς, op. cit. (22), 138 (my translation).

25  Καράς, op. cit. (22), 301 and 10. For further elaboration of this historiographic agenda see the introductory essay in Καράς, op. cit. (16), especially 22, 47–50.

26  E. Nicolaïdis, ‘Avant-propos’, in Lértora Mendoza, Nicolaïdis and Vandersmissen, op. cit. (1), 7–8.

27  On the multiplicity and the diversity of interpretations making up the eighteenth-century European image of Newtonianism see M. Patiniotis, ‘Newtonianism’, in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (editor-in-chief Maryanne Horowitz), 6 vols., Detroit, 2005, iv, 1632–8. For the great variety of social, cultural and symbolic uses of the Newtonian heritage see P. Fara, Newton: The Making of Genius, London, 2002.

28  For an early account of the acquaintance of the eighteenth-century Greek-speaking scholars with ‘Newtonianism’ see Vlahakis, G. N., ‘A note for the penetration of Newtonian scientific thought in Greece’, Nuncius (1993), 2, 645–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29  Henderson, op. cit. (9). The work contains many references to Voulgaris and his philosophical output. It is one of very few works treating Voulgaris as a genuine philosopher.

30  The main source for Voulgaris's biography is the introduction in Г. Αινιάν, Συλλογή ανεκδότων συγγραμμάτων του αοιδίμου Eυγενίου του Bουλγάρεως και τινων άλλων μετατυπωθέντων, 2 vols., Athens, 1838, i, based on the recollections of the author's father through his personal acquaintance with Voulgaris. Other works reporting Voulgaris's presence in the intellectual life of his time are Ν. Ψημμένος, ‘Εκσυρικτέον άρα τα χυδαϊστί φιλοσοφείν επαγγελόμενα βιβλιδάρια. Απόπειρα ερμηνείας’, ο Eρανιστής (1995), 20, 36–46; L. Bargeliotes, ‘Aristotle, Philoponus and Vulgaris on the concept of Void’, Πλάτων (1992), 44, 135–46; Г. Κ. Μύαρης, ‘Ιχνηλάτηση της παρουσίας του Ευγένιου Βούλγαρη στην κίνηση ιδεών κατά την περίοδο του νεοελληνικού διαφωτισμού’, Πόρφυρας (1994–5), 71–2, 84–94; ´A. Αγγέλου, ‘Περί αγίων, εικóνων και θαυμάτων’, in Nεοελληνική Παιδεία και Kοινωνία, Athens, 1995, 59–85; P. M. Kitromilides, ‘Athos and the Enlightenment’, in Mount Athos and Byzantine Monasticism: Papers from the Twenty-Eighth Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 1994 (ed. A. Bryer and M. Cunningham), Brookfield, VT, 1996, 257–72; Μ. Πατηνιώτης, ‘Εκλεκτικές συγγένειες: Ευγένιος Βούλγαρης και Θεόφιλος Κορυδαλέας’, Δελτίο Aναγνωστικής Eταιρείας Kερκύρας (2004), 26, 27–78.

31  For Voulgaris's years in Russia see S. K. Batalden, Catherine II's Greek Prelate: Eugenios Voulgaris in Russia, 1771–1806, New York, 1982.

32  This is new and striking information about Voulgaris's network of contacts. Cf. Πέτρου, Г., ‘‘Ο Ευγένιος Βούλγαρης (1716–1806) και η Βασιλική Εταιρεία του Λονδίνου’, Nεύσις (2001), 10, 181–98Google Scholar. As far as is known Voulgaris was the first Greek elected a member of the Royal Society.

33  Ε. Βούλγαρης, Περί των διχονοιών των εν ταις εκκλησίαις της Πολονίας. Δοκίμιον ιστορικόν και κριτικόν. Προ#x03C3;ετέθη και σχεδίασμα περί της Aνεξιθρησκείας, ήτοι περί της ανοχής των ετεροθρήσκων, Leipzig, 1768. The Greek word ανεξιθρησκεία (‘religious tolerance’) was coined by Voulgaris for this translation. See Г. Κεχαγιόγλου, ‘Βενετική έκδοση του Περί διχονοιών των εν ταις εκκλησίαις της Πολωνίας του Ευγενίου Βούλγαρη’, Eλληνικά (1994), 44, 453–60.

34  Ε. Βούλγαρης, Eισαγωγή εις την Φιλοσοφίαν του Γραβεζάνδου, Moscow, 1805.

35  Ε. Βούλγαρης, Γενουηνσίου, Στοιχεία της Mεταφυσικής, Vienna, 1806.

36  Unpublished manuscript. For a historical reconstruction of Voulgaris's Lockean project see ´A. Αγγέλου, ‘Πώς η νεοελληνική σκέψη εγνώρισε το ‘Δοκίμιο’ του John Locke’, Aγγλοελληνική Eπιθεώρηση (1954), 7, 128–49. Reprinted in idem, Των φώτων, Athens, 1988, 1–22. For the influence of John Locke's thought on the Greek philosophical tradition see P. M. Kitromilides, ‘John Locke and the Greek intellectual tradition: an episode in Locke's reception in south-east Europe’, in Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context (ed. G. A. J. Rogers), Oxford, 1994, 217–35.

37  The book was published in Vienna in 1805, but there is strong evidence that it had been written at least twenty-six years earlier. For this issue see Πατηνιώτης, op. cit. (30). According to Karas's catalogue (op. cit. (17), ii, 78–9) the only extant manuscript dates from 1818, which means that Ta Areskonta tois Philosophois was never used in education in its manuscript form (as was in fact the case with most of Voulgaris's other works) but entered the curriculum directly as a printed book.

38  Ε. Βούλγαρης, Tα Aρέσκοντα τοις Φιλοσόφοις, Vienna, 1805, 71.

39  Βούλγαρης, op. cit. (38), 69–70.

40  Βούλγαρης, op. cit. (38), 70.

41  Βούλγαρης, op. cit. (38), 71.

42  I. B. Cohen and A. Whitman, Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. A New Translation, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1999, 404–5. Words and phrases in brackets are from the first Latin edition of the Principia (p. 2) and are cited to make Newton's point clearer. Note how intensively he used the word vulgus in order to distinguish his mathematical account from common perception.

43  Cohen and Whitman, op. cit. (42), 408. The emphasis is mine in both quotations in this paragraph.

44  In Ta Areskonta tois Philosophois Voulgaris devoted a whole chapter to the discussion of ‘The principles of natural bodies’ (op. cit. (38), 15–43). There he openly subscribed to ‘Newtonian atomism’, basically for theological reasons. But at the same time he took special care not to expel the Aristotelian matter–form scheme from his philosophical system. To achieve this he made a very fine distinction. Responding to the objections of an imaginary scholastic interlocutor (op. cit. (38), 42) he explained that matter as the principle of natural bodies must have extension, shape and properties, requirements met only by atoms. On the other hand, though, one may certainly retain the matter–form scheme in order to account for matter per se. The matter–form scheme does not explain anything about the nature of the natural bodies (‘as the Aristotelians mistakenly believe’), but it apparently does as far as the metaphysical category of matter is concerned. Thus in the present discussion he implicitly employed this perception to account for vis inertiae which, according to his view, is basically a feature of matter per se.

45  Βούλγαρης, op. cit. (38), 98.

46  Βούλγαρης, op. cit. (38), 71–2.

47  Βούλγαρης, op. cit. (38), 70–1.

48  Βούλγαρης, op. cit. (38), 71.

49  According to Korydaleus's commentary on Aristotle's Physics, every local motion is a process that connects two different states of being: potential being (δυνάμει ν) and actual being (ἐνεργείᾳ ν). The former corresponds to the starting point of motion (ἐξ οὗ) and the latter to the terminal one (ες ν). Motion itself is the transition from one combination of matter and form to another, through which the being accomplishes a potentiality implanted in its nature. In this sense, motion is the ‘entelechy of potential being to become [actual]’ (ἡ το δυνάμει ντος ἐντελέχεια ᾗ τοιοτον). This perception applies both to the moving body and to the efficient cause, and motion in its most refined sense is a synthesis of the entelechies of the two factors. See Θ. Κορυδαλεύς, Eίσοδος Φυσικής Aκροάσεως κατ’ Aριστοτέλην, συνερανισθείσα υπό του σοφωτάτου Θεοφίλου του Kορυδαλέως, Venice, 1779, 329–32.έ

50  For another such instance see Gavroglu and Patiniotis, op. cit. (3).

51  Voulgaris gave specific examples of how one may apply the three distinctive notions of inertia to kinetic phenomena when he came to examine the causes of motion in Chapter 7 (‘On motion and rest’) of his Ta Areskonta tois Philosophois.

52  For the role of Mme du Châtelet as a mediator between Leibniz and Newton see G.-É. le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, Institutions physiques adressées à Mr. son Fils, Amsterdam, 1742 (first edn: 1740), especially Chapters 8 (‘De la Nature des corps’), and 9 (‘Du Mouvement, et du repos en général, et du mouvement simple’). The ontological status of attractive force was the chief eighteenth-century puzzle in Newtonian physics. Several significant mathematicians such as d'Alembert and Lazare Carnot insisted that the notion of force should be expelled from mechanics. Others, including Johann Bernoulli and Euler, suggested that a dynamic factor was, indeed, necessary in mechanics, but they also tried to keep a distance from the metaphysical consequences of such an assumption. The period's major enterprise was the transformation of Newtonian mechanics so that it might work solely on the basis of kinetic laws. See Patiniotis, op. cit. (27). For 'sGravesande's experimental restructuring of Newtonian mechanics see his work Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy Confirm'd by Experiments; or, an Introduction to Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy, translated into English by J. T. Desaguliers, 2 vols., London, 1720–21. (The Latin original and another English translation by J. Keill were also published in 1720.)

53  On the use of biological metaphors in the study of Aristotelianism see Grant, E., ‘Ways to interpret the terms “Aristotelian” and “Aristotelianism” in medieval and renaissance natural philosophy’, History of Science (1987), 25, 335–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar and D. Sperber, La Contagion des idées, Paris, 1996. See also comments on the same issue in Des Chene, D., ‘On laws and ends: a response to Hattabb and Menn’, Perspectives on Science (2000), 8, 144–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 145.

54  C. Mercer, ‘The vitality and importance of early modern Aristotelianism’, in The Rise of Modern Philosophy: The Tension between the New and Traditional Philosophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz (ed. T. Sorell), Oxford, 1993, 33–67.