Chapter 14
• The Scientific Revolution was founded on
the idea of acquiring knowledge through
skepticism, experimentation, and
reasoning based on observed facts.
Questioning Truth and Authority
• The Old View
– The Earth-Centered Universe
• The earth rested at the center of an unchanging universe.
• Undermining the Old View
– Hermetic Doctrine
• All matter contained the divine spirit, which humans ought to
seek to understand.
• It held that the sun was the most important agency for
transmission of the divine spirit, and occupied the center of
the universe.
Questioning Truth and Authority
– Exploration
• Geographic exploration during the Renaissance upset
traditional assumptions
• Overseas voyages stimulated demand for new instruments,
precise measurements for navigation, and encouraged
research, especially in astronomy and mathematics.
– The Printing Press
• The printing press enabled even out-of-favor scholars to
publish their findings, which spread new ideas and
discoveries.
Chapter 14
• European scientists uncovered new
information about the world around them
and different ways of looking at the
universe, and embarked on a search for
knowledge without limits.
Developing a modern Scientific
View
• Astronomy and Physics: From Copernicus to
Newton
– Nicolaus Copernicus
• A polish clergyman – he crossed the Alps to study in an
Italian university.
• He sought a simpler mathematical formulation to explain how
the universe operated.
• He believed that at the center is the sun, circled by the earth
and other planets.
– Tycho Brahe
• He persuaded the king of Denmark to build for him the most
advanced astronomy laboratory in Europe.
Developing a modern Scientific
View
– Tycho Brahe (cont.)
• He recorded thousands of unusually accurate, detailed
observations abouth the planets and stars over a period of 20
years all without a telescope.
– Johannes Kepler
• Believed in an underlying mathematical harmony of mystical
significance to the physical universe.
• He founded the three laws of planetary motion.
– Galileo Galilei
• He formulated the principle of inertia, showing that bodies,
once set into motion, will tend to stay in motion.
Developing a modern Scientific
View
– Isaac Newton
• He developed calculus and investigated the nature of light.
– Newton’s Principia
• He formulated and mathematically described three laws of
motion: inertia, acceleration, and action/reaction.
• The law of universal attraction, or gravitation
Developing a modern Scientific
View
• The Revolution Spreads: Medicine, Anatomy,
and Chemistry
– Paracelsus
• A teacher and wandering practitioner, he treated patients,
experimented with chemicals, recorded his observations, and
developed new theories.
• He encouraged research and experimentation to find natural
remedies for bodily disorders.
– Andreas Vesalius
• Wrote the first comprehensive textbook on the structure of
the human body.
• He dissected cadavers and became the personal physician
to Emperor Charles V.
Developing a modern Scientific
View
– William Harvey
• He dissected hundreds of animals, and discovered that the
human heart worked like a pump, with valves that allowed
blood to circulate through the body.
– Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
• The chief pioneer in the use of the microscope
– Robert Boyle
• He argued that all matter was composed of indestructible
atoms that behaved in predictable ways.
• The Methodology of Science Emerges
Developing a modern Scientific
View
– Francis Bacon
• He believed that science would benefit commerce
and industry and improve the human condition by
giving people unprecedented power over their
environment.
– Rene Descartes
• In 1637, he published his philosophy and scientific
methodology in the Discourse on Method.
• He questioned all forms of authority
• “I think, therefore I am”
Chapter 14
• Scientists relied upon interaction with
colleagues and the support of patrons to
build upon and spread the ideas the ideas
of the Scientific Revolution.
Supporting and Spreading Science
•
•
•
•
Courts and Salons
The Rise of Royal Societies
Religion and the New Science
The New Worldview
– The Copernican-Newtonian Paradigm
• The earth, along with the planets, moved around the sun in
an infinite universe of other similar bodies.
• The natural order consisted of matter in motion, acting
according to mathematically expressible laws.
• Scientific truths came from observing, measuring,
experimenting, and making reasoned conclusions through
the use of sophisticated mathematics.
Chapter 14
• As Europeans applied these scientific
ideas about the acquisition of knowledge
to other disciplines, a new way of thinking
that emphasized reason emerged and
characterized the cultural movement
known as the Enlightenment.
Laying the Foundations for the
Enlightenment
• Science Popularized
– Teaching Science
• In 1761, scientific ideas were being taught to children of the
middle and upper classes.
– Glorifying Newton: Reason and Nature
• Enlightenment thinkers saw this brilliant Englishman as the
great synthesizer of the scientific revolution
– The Psychology of John Locke
• Applied scientific thinking to human psychology
• Pictured the human brain at birth as a blank sheet of paper
that sensory perception and reason filled as a person aged.
Laying the Foundations for the
Enlightenment
• Skepticism and Religion
– Pierre Bayle
• The leading proponent of skepticism in the late
seventeenth century
– David Hume
• He insisted that nothing could be known for sure.
• Reality consisted only of human perceptions
Laying the Foundations for the
Enlightenment
• Broadening Criticism of Authority and Tradition
– Travel Writings of Montesquieu and Voltaire
• Used comparisons of place and time to criticize authority and
tradition during the early decades of the eighteenth century
– History and Progress
• The tools of science and reason enabled people to surpass
their historical predecessors.
• History became a story of human progress, and people living
in the eighteenth century stood on the brink of
unprecedented historical achievements.
Chapter 14
• Using nature as a guide for thought and
society, Enlightenment thinkers came into
conflict with established ideas, religions,
and institutions, and suggested avenues of
reform.
The Enlightenment in Full Stride
• The Philosophes
– Voltaire
• Imprisoned in the Bastille for writing verses that criticized the
crown
– Emilie du Chatelet
• Voltaire lived openly with Chatelet and her husband.
• Chatelet helped Voltaire gain a better understanding of the
sciences and their significance.
• The Encyclopedia
• Battling the Church
The Enlightenment in Full Stride
– Deism
• An impersonal, infinite Divine Being created the universe but
did not interfere with the world of human affairs
• Reforming Society
– Political Thought: Montesquieu and Rousseau
• Montesquieu argued that political institutions should conform
to the climate, customs, beliefs, and economy of a particular
country.
• Rousseau argued that people in the “primitive” state of “noble
savagery” were free, equal, and relatively happy.
– Economic Ideas: The Physiocrats and Adam Smith
• Economics had its own set of natural laws – supply and
demand
The Enlightenment in Full Stride
– Criminology, Penology, and Slavery
• Beccaria thought criminal law should strive to deter crime
and rehabilitate criminals rather than merely punish
wrongdoers
• Abbe Guillaume Raynal argued practices of European and
American colonists were irrational and inhumane
– Education
• Many Enlightenment thinkers based their ideas on the
psychological ideas of John Locke, which emphasized the
power of education to mold the child into the adult.
– The “Woman Question”
• Questioned the inequality of men’s and women’s roles
The Enlightenment in Full Stride
• The Culture and Spread of the
Enlightenment
– Salon Meetings
• Meetings were hosted by wealth Parisian patrons,
usually women of the aristocracy or upper-middle
class
• They gathered regularly to read, listen to, and
debate the ideas of the Enlightenment
– Bookstores
• Bookstores became hotbeds of Enlightenment
ideas