Philosophy Summaries - Scientific Revolution
A brief summary of the thoughts of the more prominent philosophers of the Scientic Revolution
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The Renaissance, which began in Italy in the 14th Century, saw a renewal of interest in the writings of the classical period as an alternative to the religious dogma of the church. Out of the renaissance came the Scientific Revolution, roughly the period from 1543 to around 1700, a time when thinkers, mostly in Europe, started to base their understanding of the world on observation and reason rather than ancient scriptures.
1543 marked the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric cosmology. Later prominent scientists and thinkers included Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton among others.
During medieval times, the church had been generally supportive of what little scientific investigation had occurred, and in fact the pope was initially very interested in and supportive of Corpernicus' ideas. But the reformation had begun at roughly the same time and one of the complaints against the Catholic Church by reformers like Martin Luther was that the church was too lax in countering ideas which were not in strict accord with the bible.
In reponse, the Catholic Church started to take a more conservative approach to new ideas. In 1600 they burnt Bruno at the stake for suggesting that the stars might be other suns with their own solar systems and life rather than lights hung on the firmament, and shortly afterwards they put Galileo under permanent house arrest for agreeing with Copernicus after seeing with a telescope that there were celestial bodies which orbited Jupiter rather than Earth.
Francis Bacon, 1561-1626
Francis Bacon was the first in a series of thinkers known as British Empiricists, who saw all knowledge as coming ultimately from sensory experience.
He saw science as a means of improving the quality of people's lives. To him, science was the process of coming up with more and more general rules which can be used to describe and predict the universe. These general rules had to be tested by looking for exceptions before being accepted, and this led to the emphasis on experimentation.
Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679
The British thinker Thomas Hobbes was a physicalist, considering that man and animals are purely physical. However, he did believe that humans and other animals had spirits, imperceptible physical entities which move through the body carrying information, in much the same way the nervous system is consiidered to carry information nowadays. He also believed that a god and beings like angels exist, though they are non-phyical and that all we as humans can know about God is that he exists and was the creator of the universe.
Hobbes also believed that science is capable of explaining anything about the physical world and universe.
His thinking has been criticised for its imprecision and lack of rigorous definitions, but, being in accord with the thoughts of many others at the time, it was widely accepted.
Rene Descartes, 1596-1650
Unlike Francis Bacon who saw science as a means of improving the quality of life, Descartes saw it more as a means to gaining knowledge and understanding of the world. Still, some philosophers were sceptical about the possibility distinguishing genuine knowledge of the world from illusion.
Descartes decided to use the approach of doubting everything that could be doubted and seeing what was left. He imagined an evil demon who could fool him into believing things that aren't true. One thought which could not possibly be an illusion was the fact that he existed. It wouldn't be possible to be fooled about this if he didn't exist. This led to his famous assertion, Cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. The only other thing of which he could be certain was that he was a thinking being.
Philosophers since Descartes have argued over whther his conclusion that he exists is valid.
Descartes is also known for his proposition that humans are made of two distint substances, one being material and making up the body, the other immaterial and forming the mind. Though distinct they are capable of interacting so that the mind can affect the body and vice versa. This belief became known as Cartesian dualism.
He also did the initial devlopment of the coordinate system for specifying position, a system which became known as the Cartesian Coordinate system.
Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662
Pascal's best-known book is his Pensees. This is a collection of notes on Christian theology. It's aim was to counter a developing tendency towards scepticism which caused people to leave the church. He blames imagination for this tendency, seeing it as leading to error, whereas reason leads to truth.
Pascal's Wager is a reasoned argument that deciding to believe is a better option than deciding not to believe, even if one is not convinced of the existence of God. The wager involves weighing up the possible profit and loss of a wager on God's existence. He points out that deciding to believe risks a little freedom in this life, but makes possible the huge benefit of eternity in heaven rather than eternity in hell. On the other hand deciding not to believe makes possible a little freedom in this life while allowing the possibility of an eternity in hell rather than eternity in heaven.
The wager relies on concepts of probability which Pascal also pioneered.
Benedictus Spinoza, 1632-1677
Spinoza defined substance as that which can be understood by knowing its nature alone, as opposed to other things which can be known only in terms of their relationship with other things. Thus there can only be one substance because, if there were two, understanding one would entail understanding its relationship to the other. This position is referred to as substance monism, in contrast with Descartes' dualism. Spinoza'a single substance has at least two attributes: extension (size) and thought. This explains how minds and bodies can interact, but it also implies that inanimate things like rocks have minds.
Spinoza saw the world as being God rather than a creation of God. He saw the existence and essence of the world as being explained by the existence and essence of God.
John Locke, 1632-1704
Locke was a British empiricist, believing that all knowledge comes ultimately from observation using the senses and that we are not born with any innate knowledge. He used a process called abduction, which means finding the best explanation for things given the available observational information. He felt that the best explanation of the world was the corpuscular theory, by which all matter is made of sub-microscopic particles - basically the atoms of Democritus.
Gottfried Leibniz, 1646-1716
Leibniz was a German rationalist. He believed that everything in the universe has an associated "notion" that contains everything that is true about that thing and its relation to other things. By following these connections, it is in theory possible to discover everything about the universe by reason alone producing "truths of reason". However, because the human mind can only grasp a small number of truths, we have to also rely on experience which produces "truths of fact".
Only subjects like mathematics can be discovered by humans purely by reason. But, because Gof has infinite reasoning power, he can know the whole universe at once.
Leibniz is probably better known as a mathematician than a philosopher, inventing calculus at the same time as Newton, though independently of him.
George Berkeley, 1685-1753
George Berkeley was born in Ireland. He was an idealist, meaning he believed nothing exists unless it perceives or is perceived. Only perceiving mind and perceptions are real. He accepted that objects still exist when no human is there to observe them because God always sees everything.
Things can only happen through an act of will by a mind. But, again, God's mind causes things to happen beyond human control. However, the world that exists for a human mind is not the same as the world that exists for God.
Berkeley also famously criticised Newton's calculus for relying on infinitessimals, which he called "ghosts of departed quantities". He didn't argue that it gave wrong answers, just that its logic wasn't sound.