The ‘Scientific Revolution’
How to Make Macaroni, 15th century
Sicilian Macaroni. Make a dough of the whitest flour, one egg white and rosewater-- and should you be preparing two plates of it, put in only two or three egg yolks... these macaroni should dry in the sun and can be kept for two or three years; cook them in water or a good meat broth, and garnish them with grated cheese when you set them out on plates with fresh butter and mild spices. Boil them gently for an hour. Neapolitan Recipe Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS Bühler 19 (15th c.)
What is the… ‘Scientific Revolution’?
It’s pretty messy!!....
An historical ‘period’?
An event?
A cultural movement?
Where does it take place?
Who does it involve?
What shapes and defines it?
Depends on who you ask…..
[AGAIN!!! does this slide look familiar?!]
‘Scientific Revolution’ or New Science? Or… or?
‘Scientific Revolution’ – was it a revolution? Was there no science before?
Is ‘science’ new, or is it being done in a ‘new’ way?
What’s the big deal then?
The ‘Scientific Revolution’?
An historical ‘period’? An event?
If and Intellectual and Cultural movement –
When does it start, and where? How? Who is involved?
‘start dates’?
co-exists and overlaps with ‘late medieval’ AND ‘early modern’? – maybe….
When depends on where and who and how
Correspondence and letter writing – printing press, makes changes more uniform
Like renaissance, reformation, and early modern, it is a construct - but also has historical configurations.
Is there more than one?
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
'Science' undergoes 'paradigm shifts' instead of linear and continuous progression
These shifts open up new approaches, methods, and understandings that scientists wouldn't consider valid beforehand
Paradigm shifts as kinds of periodic revoltuions where the nature of inquiry is suddenly transformed
Paradigm as Disciplinary Matrix
Symbolic generalizations: e.g. Newton's laws of motion
Metaphysical presumptions. e.g., Atoms as "billiard balls", or light as a wave, or light as particles.
Values: e.g., the accuracy of prediction
Exemplars: Textbook or laboratory examples
Two Kinds of Science
Normal Science: practiced within a single paradigm
Revolutionary Science: a shift between paradigms, upsets 'normal' science
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
But… Kuhn is controversial – does his ideas of revolutions exist? [remember the Fall of the Roman empire? When did it ‘fall’?
What does ‘fall’ mean? A decline or a transformation?]
Was there a Scientific Revolution that replaced pre-scientific thinking about nature and society and thus marked the transition to modernity?
Which developments, if any, are truly revolutionary?
If there aren’t any – is it a revolution then?
Is there an overall pattern of scientific development?
If so, is it basically one of creative displacement, as Kuhn originally claimed?
Do all revolutions have the same structure and function?
What of diverse forms of rupture, discontinuity, or rapid change in science? Are there great leaps forward?
What do these ideas mean for ‘scientific progress’?
What is ‘science’? Medieval ‘Scientia’
All Universal knowledge – often theological; ‘Form’ – ideas in God’s mind
Natural Philosophy as expression of Theology
Known by deduction (general to specific)
Textual Authorities
Empirical knowledge proves authority
OBJECT: contemplation of divine purpose in the world
VOCABULARY: organic, qualitative
E.g. hot, cold, wet dry; heavy, light…
METHOD: logic, confirmed and illustrated by experience
Early Modern ‘New Science’
Particular knowledge
Natural Philosophy shows God’s creation, as a ‘Book of Nature’, no one ‘theology’
Known by induction (specific to general)
Driven by Observation and eventually experimentation
Authority is human sentience
Empirical knowledge evaluates authority
OBJECT: observation of order in natural world
VOCABULARY: mechanical and mathematical (quantitative)
Galileo: “I hold that nothing exists in external bodies but size, shape, quantity and motion.”
METHOD: hypotheses tested by experiments.
Places to Explore
Creatures & Earth itself: Flora and Fauna
The New World(s)
Europe
The Stars & Cosmos
Moon
Sun
Solar System & its organization
The Human Body & Mind
Medicine – Anatomy & Physiology
Knowledge & Theories of the Mind
Imagination & Invention!
The Transformation of the European World-View, c. 1543-c. 1700
1. What was “science” c. 1543 ?
a. Medieval ‘natural philosophy’
b. Renaissance currents
c. The impact of the New World
2. The “Scientific Revolution” story
a. Copernicus and Copernicanism
b. The Mechanical Philosophy, and Descartes
3. New places and publics for science
a. Gardens, anatomy theatres, collections
b. Bacon and the reform of learning
The geocentric Cosmos (Ptolemy, Aristotle) • Sun rotates
around the earth!
Ptolemy: Egypt, c. 83-161 AD for astronomy, astrology, geography
Renaissance Occultism: • the Hermetic tradition • Neoplatonism • alchemy • Paracelsus macrocosm & microcosm
Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi ... historia (1617)
G. F. de Oviedo, Historia general de las Indias (1535)
Nic. B. de Monardes, Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales (1565-)
B. de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (ms, 1545-90)
José de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590)
1543: Copernicus 1473-1543: b. Torun, Poland Catholic canon astronomer, work on coinage, calendars heliocentrism c. 1510-14 De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium, libri VI [Six books on the revolutions of the heavenly spheres] (Nuremberg, 1543) dedicated to Pope Paul III
The Copernican Hypothesis:
heliocentric cosmos (first suggested by the Ancient Greek Aristarchos of Samos)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Mathematics professor at University of Pisa (1589-), then Padua (1592-) 1610: The Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius) 1616: first “trial” w. Holy Office 1630: Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems 1633: second trial & condemnation
Galileo’s findings
Mountains on the Moon
Satellites of Jupiter
Phases of Venus
Breaks down the difference between heavenly (superlunar) and earthly (sublunar) spheres: the same physics can apply to both
Evidence for truth of Copernican system?
Use of detailed observational report
Can we trust the telescope?
Why was Copernicanism less of a problem in 1543?
Theory of solar system
Pre-Counter-Reformation Church accepted that Bible used “popular” images of universe
Truth claims
in print, Copernicus did not say his model was true, but only that it produced the best results (for Calendars, e.g.)
preface by Osiander: “Saving the phenomena”
Why did Galileo get in trouble?
Theory of theory
Telescope made virtual experience of heavens possible
Galileo argues that Copernicus’ model is necessarily true.
Biblical issues
Counter-Reformation church more concerned to police heresy?
The mechanical philosophy
From René Descartes, Discours de la méthode ... & Essais (1637)
Galileo (1564-1642) René Descartes (1596-1650) Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) Robert Boyle (1627-1691) Christian Huygens (1629-95) Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
What makes the cosmos, world, and animals move and interact?
… cosmos, human beings, and natural world is made of matter in motion
Atoms and particles, all interacting with fixed natural laws, like a ‘machine’
Allows production of generalized theories that can quantify many different types of interaction
Descartes: the vortices (tourbillons) of swirling particles in space that propel heavenly bodies through collisions (not gravity!) (Descartes, Principia, 1644)
Isaac Newton, 1642-1727 The Principia: The mathematical principles of natural philosophy (1687) Optics (1704)
Johannes Kepler New theories of vision and optics in
Astronomiae Pars Optica (1604)
Break with medieval optics…
But continuity or rather a rupture with tradition?
Properties of light
Planetary orbits are elliptical
William Harvey, 1578-1657
Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (1628) first complete theory of the
circulation of blood pushed throughout the
body by the heart's contractions
Ole Worm (Olaus Wormius) 1588-1655 Museum Wormianum, seu Historia rerum rariorum... (Leiden, 1655) The cabinet
New places
New places … Patrons Rulers sponsor exploration and collection to demonstrate their God-given authority over the natural world in their domains – Knowledge is power 1657: Accademia
del Cimento, Florence
1660: Royal Society, London
1666: Académie royale des sciences, Paris Seb. Le Clerc, Louis XIV visiting the Académie Royale des Sciences
Galileo, courtier?
Galileo needs funding
Moves to Florence:
from university to court
& from mathematics to philosophy
Medicis continue patronage
Medicean ‘stars’ – ie moons of Jupiter
Demonstration of intellectual ‘power’ and prestige
Rudolph II - Emperor
Tyco Brahe & Johannes Kepler
New instruments, new phenomena
the telescope 1609 thermometer 1617/38 barometer 1640s the air-pump 1650s the microscope 1660s
Air pump, from R. Boyle, New experiments physico-mechanicall (Oxford, 1660).
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) statesman, philosopher (Lord Chancellor of England 1618-21) Great Instauration 1620 Advancement of Learning New Organon New Atlantis (fragment, unpublished) 1620-26
Bacon, Instauratio magna (1620), title page “Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientiae” (Many will pass through, and knowledge will be increased) -- Daniel 12:4 How is the making of scientific knowledge portrayed in the New Atlantis? Is “Salomon’s House” a blueprint for the scientific academies of the 17th century?
Bacon & Scientific Method Knowledge is a rich storehouse for the glory of
the Creator and the relief of man's estate
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
On a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures, is the work and aim of Human Power. Of a given nature to discover the form, or true specific difference, or nature-engendering nature, or source of emanation (for these are the terms which come nearest to a description of the thing), is the work and aim of Human Knowledge
Novum Organum (1623)
The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible,
The New Atlantis, p. 480
Inductive reasoning
Differs from medieval – which
‘leaps’ from specifics to
general, known universal
terms without introspection on
the nature of induction and
observation
The goal of induction is to
guide the mind towards the
discovery of forms
Comparing, Contrasting,
Suggesting, and Excluding
Significance of the New Science
The existence and nature of scientific revolutions is a topic that raises a host of fundamental questions about the sciences and how to interpret them intersects most of the major issues that have concerned philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science
The 'Scientific Revolution' from Copernicus to Newton has been attractive because it fits the Enlightenment picture of the transition from feudalism to modernity and the vision of rational, objective sciences and technologies that lead society along the path of progress
Seeing the new science as a primarily an epistemological shift in practices and methods - in human knowledge - allows a richer awareness of what early modern 'scientists' maintained, adapted, and dismissed.
Terms Copernicus Teleoscope Heliocentric Scientia Anatomy Theatre Cabinet of Curiosities
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