From Magic to Science or The Ancients & The Moderns The Scientific Revolution 16 th and 17 th Centuries

How do we explain change?  Your car won’t start: what do you do?  You get sick: what do you do?

Medieval Cosmology  Earth is fixed, unchanging, center of universe  Heavens surround earth; Moon and stars move in fixed patterns set by God  Genesis describes creation  Task for people: explain change, I.E., Any deviation from ‘normal’

Sources of Medieval World View  Bible  Scholastic Theology (Aquinas)  The ‘Ancients’: –Aristotle –Church Fathers

The Medieval Order or The Great Chain of Being  God  Pope and Kings  Priests and Nobles  Men  Women  Children  Animals  Plants  Rocks

Explaining Change: Medieval Style  God’s intervention: deus ex machina –Storms ruin crops; you get sick: God is angry –Harvest is plentiful; you have lots of children: God is pleased

Explaining Change: Medieval Style  Magic: some occult force –You don’t have children: you are bewitched –Your house burns down: someone put a curse on you –You get sick: your enemy is a witch

Scientific Revolution brings a new way of thinking about the world around us and our relationship to the world.

Structure of Scientific Revolution  People start asking questions and make discoveries which raise problems for the existing world view.  As more and more discoveries challenge the accepted cosmology, more people ask more questions.  Finally, someone synthesizes all the pieces into a new world view.  See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

16 th & 17 th Century Questioners  Methodology: –Francis Bacon ( ): Observe & Experiment Develop Hypothesis Test: More Observation & Experiments –William Harvey ( ) Anatomical Studies demonstrate circulation of blood

Challenges to the Old Cosmology  Reliance on Observation Causes Trouble: –Galileo (Italian, ) Observations confirmed heliocentric universe Arrested and ordered to recant What’s the problem?

A New Philosophy  Descartes (French, ) –Radical Doubt –“Cogito, ergo sum”:“I think, therefore I am.” –Impact of this insight?

New Understanding of Human Mind  John Locke, English,  Essay Concerning Human Understanding  Human Mind is a tabula rasa at birth  We learn by experience  Impact of this concept?

By 1690:  New Method: Scientific Method  Trust in Sense Knowledge  Heliocentric Cosmology  New Philosophy  New Understanding of Human Body  New Understanding of Human Mind

Synthesis: Isaac Newton  English,  Mathematician and Alchemist  Principia  Solved the problem of motion:  World is not static but constantly in motion!  Describes gravity  Impact?

Newton’s World:  A giant machine whose parts work together  God: the maker of the machine