John Dumbleton - Scientific Contributions

Scientific Contributions

The four Merton ‘Calculators’ were not only well versed in the current issues of philosophy during the fourteenth century; they actually initiated new groundbreaking scientific postulations. John of Dumbleton was no exception. Because he concurred with many of the positions held by William Ockham (b. 1288, d. 1348)—especially the idea that is commonly referred to as Ockham’s razor, which states that the most simplistic explanations are ideal—he may have learned how to succinctly formulate his scientific conjectures. Of Dumbleton’s many scientific theories there is one in particular that is worth mentioning here. By making the assumption that bodies are finite Dumbleton was able to conjecture that contraction or expansion, as in cases of condensation or rarefaction, does not eliminate any parts of a body; rather, a “denumerable number of parts” always exists (Glick, p. 518). Though the idea of molecules was not theorized at this time, Dumbleton’s speculation helped to tame the view that bodies have infinitely divisible parts.