Rationalism
• The belief that one can arrive at
the truth by using one’s reason
rather than relying on
– authority of the past
– religious faith
– institutions
Rationalism began in Europe
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with the great rationalist philosophers
and scientists. Some of whom were:
1543--Nicolas Copernicus:
Rethinks our place in the solar system
1642-1727--Sir Isaac Newton:
Discovers the laws of gravity
1637--Rene Descartes:
“I think therefore I am.”
1632-1704 – John Locke:
“the right to Life, Liberty and Property”
•During the Middle Ages, people and the
Church thought that the Earth was the
center of the universe
•They thought that God purposely
placed the Earth at the center of the
universe
•Nicolaus Copernicus changed this old
view of the universe
•He figured out that the Sun is the center of
the universe (heliocentric), and that the earth
and all other planets revolve around the sun
Hello, I am Copernicus. Why was
my new idea a problem?
If Copernicus is right –
The Church must be
wrong
My name is Galileo Galilei.
I was fascinated by the planets,
just like Copernicus. I developed
a telescope, and saw that
Copernicus was right!
• If the Church is proven wrong on this issue –
people might question all Church Teaching – even
the authority of the Church itself!
•(It was panic thinking)
It is the year 1633 and the Italian scientist,
Galileo Galilei faces a life or death dilemma!
The Catholic court put him on trial
because the idea that the earth
revolves around the sun was
dangerous to the Catholic Church!
•He had to either deny his ideas, or be put to death!
If he denied the ideas of Copernicus, the church
would punish him, but not put him to death.
•What do you think Galileo did? What would you do?
•Galileo said that he denies what
Copernicus taught. In court, he stated:
“With sincere heart, I detest the errors
of Copernicus and every other error
contrary to the holy church”.
*** Was Galileo lying or telling the
truth?
•Galileo was not put to death, but he was
never a free man again.
It’s interesting that …
In 1992, Pope John Paul II officially
acknowledged that Galileo was right about
the earth revolving around the sun. The
Pope concluded that church leaders were
wrong to put Galileo on trial. The Pope
also said that the church at the time was
acting in good faith and was only working
within the knowledge of their own time.
The Age of Reason emphasised:
• reason over the imagination
• the social over the personal
• the common interest over the
individual
• Reason is the dominating
characteristic both of nature and
human nature
• nature is governed by fixed,
unchanging laws
Age of Reason
• Growth of rational science
• Culture venerates rationality,
consciousness
• Represents educated (white, male) mind
as
– rational, scientific, critical, objective
• Others (women, non-white) represented
as
– irrational, emotional, superstitious,
corporeal
• Dualism is a basis of much Western
thought
Impact of the Age of Reason
on the Church
• It was the first widely-read,
systematic attacks on concept of
religion in the west
• Tension between faith & reason
• Some ridiculed religion & miracles
• Some saw religion as the root of all
evil
Religion and the Rational Mind
• DEISM
“God makes it possible for all people
at all times to discover natural laws
through the God-given faculty of
reason.”
Benjamin Franklin
The deists
• The largest movement among
philosophes
• Believed only those Christian
doctrines which met the test of
reason
– Denied miracles, Resurrection,
original sin, divine revelation
(Bible)
The deists & God
• God as “great clockmaker”
– Non-participatory after the
Creation
– So no purpose to prayer!
• Christ as a great moral teacher
– But not the Son of God!
Influence on Social thought
• The guiding principles:
– Reason can find eternal laws
governing human relationships.
– Injustice is the result of our
ignorance of these laws.
• Utilitarianism
– Jeremy Bentham (d. 1832)
“The greatest good for the
greatest number of people”
Rene Descartes
“Stay-in-Bed Scholar”
“Gentleman, Soldier, and Mathematician”
Born on March 31, 1596
Died on February 11, 1650
Childhood
• As a child was very weak and was
always sick.
• He had been picked on by bullies
for it.
• He was inspired to do math by his
mother.
• Little did he know he would be
affected by not doing math as a
child.
Accomplishments
• He graduated from the University
of Poitiers.
• He changed math by discovering
the X and Y axis.
• He wrote the book SEEKING THE
TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES. (1637)
• Descartes did not revise geometry;
he created it.
•Descartes was a scientist, mathematician and I think,
philosopher
therefore,
•He used a lot of logic in his findings
•He doubted everything in life, unless it was
proven by reason
•The only thing he was sure of and that he
felt he could prove, was his existence.
•He came up with a quote:
I am
Rene Descartes
(Cartesian Dualism)
• “I think therefore I am”
– Body and mind are separate
• body takes up space
• mind occupies no space
– Justifies other dualisms:
• People vs. Nature
• Culture vs. Nature
• Mind vs. Body
Descartes
• Venerates the
rational mind
– vs. bodily urges
• Body and universe
– become a machine
– something to be
mapped, explored,
dissected by rational
science
Newton was another important scientist
from the scientific revolution.
I discovered the law
of gravity!
This law said that all
motion was controlled
by the same force.
Isaac Newton
• 1642 to 1727;
• Lived during the last European
plagues, the Baroque period in
music, and the beginning of the
Age of Reason.
• Thinkers who came after saw
Newton’s Laws as a description of a
Mechanical Universe.
Newton’s First Law of Motion:
• An object in motion in a straight
line at a constant speed (or at rest)
stays in motion in a straight line
and constant speed unless acted
upon by an external force.
• Radical departure from previous
ideas of Aristotle who believed
objects moved because of their
own natural tendencies
Newton’s Third Law
• The Karma of Physics
• For every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction.
• The action/reaction pairs occur at a
single point. (you feel something
you push on with a force equal to
your pushing.)
Isaac Newton
• The great mathematician and physicist
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) discovered
the law of gravitation and successfully
explained the workings of the physical
universe.
• But to the romantic artist William Blake
this was not enough:
• Newton had left out
God as well as the
emotional and
spiritual elements
from his theories.
William Blake:
Personification of Man
Limited by Reason
1805
The popularisation of science
• Newton’s Principia
hard to understand
• To understand
scientific thought
processes is to
understand reason
• Popularisers made
science accessible
John Locke
(1632-1704)
Biography
• B. 1632, son of a small property-owner and
lawyer
• Oxford, 1652-67
• Studied church-state issues, chemistry and
medicine, new mechanical philosophy
• Involvement in politics through Lord Ashley,
whom he treated for a liver abscess
• Plotted to assassinate King Charles II and his
Catholic brother, later James II
• Exile in Holland, 1683-89
• 1689: 3 major works published
Major works and themes:
A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)
- Argues for religious toleration;
- Except for atheists, “who deny the Being of a
God” and thus cannot be trusted to keep their
promises (e.g. in contracts).
Context:
- Religious wars and persecution in England
(‘Test’ Acts) and on the Continent.
Innate Ideas
• Philosophers such as Plato & Descartes,
maintained that we are born with some of the
ideas which we have.
• For Plato, all of our ideas are innate, even
though a certain amount of experience may be
required to grasp them clearly.
• According to this theory we have innate ideas
of such things as God, freedom, immortality,
substance, and of some moral truths, eg. that
deliberately harming an innocent person is
wrong.
• Locke seriously disagreed with this.
Locke’s Basic “Theory of Knowledge”
• Human being = tabula rasa (blank slate)
• receives sense-impressions
• some of these transformed by Mind into
Ideas
• Ideas represented in language by words
• However, no Ideas are innate
• Mind operates (through gradual learning
process) without reference to any
received authority (of Church, State or
others)
Locke’s Ideas
• Model of photographic-type images
(“ideas”) left in the mind by senseimpressions:
• primary qualities: inherent in objects
themselves (size, shape, number)
• secondary qualities: those we assign
(color, taste, sound) to senseimpressions, e.g. vibration produces
sound; however, the sound we hear is
not the vibration itself, but its effect on
our hearing apparatus.
Complex Ideas
• Sense-data of primary qualities (PQs)
and secondary qualities (SQs), produce
ideas in the mind:
• Ideas are mental results of sense-data
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Sense-perceptions
Bodily sensations
Mental images
Thoughts and concepts
Some basic info about
Charles Darwin
The following, on Darwin, is gleaned from a presentation by
David Pannell
University of Western Australia
Lifeline
Born 1809
 Study (Edinburgh and Cambridge)
1825-1831
 Voyage of the Beagle 1831-36
 Retired to Down 1842
 The Origin of Species
1859
 Died 1882
Darwin’s home at Down, near London

Darwin’s achievements

Transformed biological science
 Both style and content
 Still the cornerstone of biology
 Now the cutting edge of psychology

Transformed attitudes of humanity to
our place in the universe
Not just an evolutionist
Not even a biologist to start with
 Collected beetles for fun
 Studied geology more seriously
 Considered himself a geologist
throughout the Beagle voyage and for
some time after
 Famous for working out how coral
atolls are formed

His books (not just on
evolution)



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


Beagle voyage
Coral reefs
Volcanic islands
Geology of South
America
Barnacles
Species
Man






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Emotions
Climbing plants
Domestication
Cross and self
fertilisation
Orchids
Worms
Autobiography
Contribution to style of science
Pre-Darwin, science was done in
homage to God
 Was primarily descriptive
 Deduction and theorising was
disparaged as “speculation”
 Darwin used detailed observation to
explore much larger questions - helped
change scientific methods

Natural selection
Developed theory in complete isolation
 In face of violent opposition
 With no knowledge of genetics
 With no knowledge of DNA
 With no observations of natural
selection actually occurring

Not first to propose evolution

French tradition
 Jean-Baptiste Lamark
 Etienne Geoffroy St Hilaire
Erasmus Darwin (Grandfather)
 Robert Grant (Mentor)
 Was expounded in a popular book
(“Vestiges”) 15 years before “Origin”

Darwin was mis-credited
Died famous for evolution (which was
not his idea)
 Natural selection not widely accepted,
even among his supporters
 Darwin remained convinced
 Only 40-50 years later did scientists
appreciate his foresight.

The Beagle
Only 90 foot long, but carrying 74 people.
Joining the Beagle Voyage
Not paid for 5 years on Beagle.
 Actually, he had to pay!
 Was lucky to get on

 replaced someone who was
shot in a duel
 his father opposed him going
Mainly asked because of his class, to
keep Captain Fitzroy company
 It was the making of him

Galapogos, 1835
Portrayed as a “Eureka” experience.
 Actually, was hugely homesick
 Did not recognise significance until
back in England, 1837.

 Worked out theory much later.
 First inkling of natural selection in 1838.

Turtles & finches were key evidence
 On boat home, ate turtles, dumped shells
 Thought finches different species; didn’t
even label them properly
The Beagle in Sydney Harbour
Anguish

Social class
 Respectability
 Evolution subversive - against his class

Religious considerations
 especially worried about hurting wife
Emma who grieved for his soul
Scientific prejudice against
“speculation”
 “Like confessing a murder.”

Illness
Sea sickness
 Problems throughout life

 violent shivering, vomiting, exhaustion,
palpitations, hands trembling, head
swimming, sleeplessness, headaches,
flatulance, stomach problems, ringing of
ears, fainting, copious palid urine
In 1841 could work “an hour or two a
couple of days a week.”
 Chaga’s disease or just nervous?

Slow to publish: Why so long?
Anguish
 Illness
 Slow development of ideas
 Detailed analysis, collection of a
wealth of evidence

 pigeons
 barnacles
Barnacles

Started out as a brief study.
 Took 8 years (from 1948).
 Huge 2 volume treatise overhauling entire
sub-class.

Dominated his kids lives
 One of his kids asked a friend, “Where
does your dad do his barnacles?”

Established him as a biological
specialist, not just a geologist
 Royal Society Medal
Courage
On Beagle voyage, rode hundreds of
miles through bandit areas and war
zones in South America
 Worked through his illnesses.
 Was willing to publish “Origins”
despite the risks

Wealth
Father a wealthy doctor
 Reduced his enthusiasm to get a job as
a doctor or clergyman
 Wealth bought time and resources
 Made money from investments (land
and railway stocks), not from books

Religion

Started out on path to clergy
 “The Darwins had produced lawyers and
military men, but Charles lacked the selfdiscipline. There was, however, a safety
net to stop second sons becoming
wastrels: the Church of England. An
aimless son with a penchant for field
sports would fit in nicely.” (Desmond &
Moore)
Signed 39 articles of faith
 A naturalist parson?

Religious conflict

Samuel Wilberforce vs T.H.Huxley
Years
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it from
Wilberforce
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Many religious leaders
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 Science served religion,
itstofindings
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were taken as revelations
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 Buried in Westminster
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affirm my
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 The Times: “Theape!”
Abbey needed Darwin
more than Darwin needed the Abbey.”