Scientific Revolution Facts - Scientists, People
Francis Bacon:
Lord chancellor of England
Wrote Novum Organum (instrument) of 1620, science could not advance unless it departed entirely from the inherited errs of the past and established “progressive stages of certainty”
Used Empirical knowledge and inductive methods
Thought collective scientific research and observation would produce useful knowledge and result in bettering the human lot
Novum Organum was intrepid ships venture out beyond the Pillars of Hercules in to a fathomless sea in pursuit of unknown but great thing to come.
Scientific Method:
Shift from over-reverence for past
Practical orientation, not abstract
Non-magical: rational approach
Thought to be the only valid means for pursuing research in all areas of human inquiry.
Heliocentrism:
Theory of science
Copernicus theory
Copernicus:
Polish astronomer
Made 1st major break from ancient Greek science
“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”
Theorized that the sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe.
Descartes:
French philosopher (1596-1650)
Rationalist and champion of mathematics
Wrote discourse on method (1637)
In book, the first and second rules
“Never to receive anything as a truth which he did not clearly know to be such”
“I think, therefore I am”
Contribute to the discrediting of all the faulty science of the ancients.
His view was Mind belonged to man alone, and all else was matter
Linnaeus:
Swedish botanist Karl von Limmé, commonly known by his Latin name
He formulated the basic system of plant and animal classification that remains in use today.
“Linnaean order” animal, vegetable, and mineral; within the first two there are classes “genera” and species.
Newton:
Greatest scientist of all time
Unattractive personality “secretive, petty and vindictive”
He showed that light behaves differently when filtered through different media, and hence offered an interpretation of light as a stream of particles that solidly established optics as an empirical branch of physics
Discovered Calculus
Principia Mathematica (mathematical principles of natural philosophy):
Newton’s supreme accomplishment lay in his formulation of the law of universal gravitation
Combined Copernican astronomy with Galileo’s physics
Arrived to a single law
“Every particle of matter in the universe attract ever other particle with the force varying inversely”
This law was employed immediately to predict the ebb and flow of tides
“The most stupendous single achievement of the human mind”
Italian physicist and astronomer
Developed the theory of inertia and described the laws that dictate the movement of falling bodies
He public support of Copernicus disturbed Catholic clergymen and theologians
The church condemned Copernicus disturbed Copernican theory in 1616 and forced Galileo to renounce many of his ideas in 1632.
Enlightenment
Deism:
Religious outlook, which assumed that God existed but having once created a perfect universe, no longer took an active interest in it.
God was thought of as a “divine clockmaker”
John Locke:
(1632-1704) Extremely influential theory of knowledge
Essay concerning human understanding (1690) stated that the human mind at birth is a “blank tablet” upon which nothing is inscribed: not until the infant experiences life that the infant begin have senses.
The Philosophes:
Meaning philosopher
France was the dominant country in 18th century Europe and was the center of the enlightenment movement
A little misleading because with the exception of Hume and Immanuel Kan, most were publicists who aimed to reform society by popularizing the new scientific interpretation of the universe and apply the “scientific method”
Prince of the philosophers was the Frenchman Francois Marie Arouet, who called himself Voltaire
Encyclopedia:
Written and main contributor was Denis Diderot
Meant to combine all the most advanced contemporary philosophical, scientific, and technical knowledge, with article written by all the leading philosophers of the day.
First appeared between 1751 and 1772
7 large volumes and 11 more illustrative plates
Diderot threw his nose up at religion, in which caused controversy
Condorcet:
“Last of the Philosophes”
Brilliant mathematician
Best known as the most extreme enlightenment exponent of the idea of progress
Wrote outline of the progress of the human mind (1794). The book stated progress in the past had not been uninterrupted. Human’s life span will be increased and become more health with the improvement of medicine.
Wrote sketch of the progress of the human mind, which traces human progress in 10 stages from the dawn of history to the France revolutionary war.
Died after coming out of hiding during French revolutionary war
Wealth of Nations:
Classic expression of “lasissez-faire” economics*.
Strongly opposed to any governmental intervention in economic affairs
Believed in allowing individuals to pursue their own interests without competition from state-owned enterprises or legal restraints.
Believed in economic growth
Free competition
*Laissez Faire was a term coined by the French meaning Let to do. Adam Smith, a Scots, wrote that Laissez Faire should be applied to economics. The individual interests would benefit the whole economy as if an invisible hand was in charge, like the trickle down effect of Reagonomics. Individual self interests would keep the economy going if the individual does well then prosperity will spread. Significance of this is how modern day economy works
Classicism:
The dominate art style in France
Louis 8th was determined to make sure that France cultivated its own characteristic national style for reasons of state. Preferences tended toward the grand and sober, the symmetrical qualities of classicism seemed to complement best the highly symmetrical natural order.
Montesquieu:
French political thinker
Wrote The spirits of Laws (1748)
Sought to discover the ways in which differing environments and historical and religious traditions influence governmental institutions.
External conditions force humans to behave in different ways and that there is nothing they can do about this
Tabula Rasa:
Latin word meaning “Blank Tablet” from John Locke point of view