Albert Eagle was an English mathematician and philosopher who wrote several books (some of them privately published) giving his forcefully expressed and somewhat eccentric views on science and mathematics.

Biography

He was an assistant to

J. J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of ...

, and was later a lecturer at the

Victoria University of Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. A ...

. His best-known book is on

elliptic function In the mathematical field of complex analysis, elliptic functions are special kinds of meromorphic functions, that satisfy two periodicity conditions. They are named elliptic functions because they come from elliptic integrals. Those integrals are ...

s, where he uses his idiosyncratic mathematical notation, such as τ instead of π/2, and !''n'' for ''n'' factorial. In his other writings he dismissed

special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between Spacetime, space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, Annus Mirabilis papers#Special relativity, "On the Ele ...

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

and

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

as absurdities. Eagle's book ''The Philosophy of Religion versus The Philosophy of Science'' criticizes the

theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical ph ...

and the philosophy of

materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...

. Eagle was influenced by

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the S ...

and believed that spiritual forces guide evolution (

spiritual evolution Spiritual evolution, also called higher evolution, is the idea that the mind or spirit, in analogy to biological evolution, collectively evolves from a simple form dominated by nature, to a higher form dominated by the spiritual or divine. It is d ...

). Eagle has been described as a

pantheist Pantheism can refer to a number of philosophical and religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arisesAnn Thomson; Bodies ...

as he held the view that God is the ultimate substance and the world is but a pattern on his surface. Eagle proposed that man is composed of four substances: the physical body, the non-physical body, the mind of which ideas and memories are gathered and the inner-ego or personality. Eagle believed that the inner-ego, mind and non-physical body survive death into another world.

Publications

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Review
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Review by Robert Lerner

References

Bibliography

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External links

Religion, Or Science, Or Neither!
''Catholic Herald''. (April 16, 1937).
Papers by Albert Eagle on ADS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eagle, Albert 20th-century English philosophers English mathematicians Pantheists Relativity critics Theistic evolutionists Vitalists Year of birth missing Year of death missing