From the Renaissance to
the Scientific Revolution
Presented at
Central University of Finance and
Economics
中央财经大学
Beijing
by
卜若柏
Robert Blohm
Chinese Economics and Management Academy
中国经济与管理研究院
http://www.blohm.cnc.net
June 8, 15 & 22, 2008
2008年6月8日和15日和22日
1
Modern Philosophy Period
 Diminishing authority of the Catholic Church
 Increasing authority of science
 The State
• increasingly replaces the Church as the entity in
control of culture, but
• has less influence on philosophers than the Church
had in the Middle Ages
 As in ancient Greece, kings are replaced by
democracies and tyrants
 Feudal aristocracy
• loses its political and economic importance
• is replaced by the king in alliance with rich merchants
2
who become absorbed into the aristocracy
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Liberal culture emerges, associated with
commerce
 Rejection of ecclesiastical authority
• begins before acceptance of scientific authority: the
Renaissance is too early for science
• is based on classical antiquity: a more distant past
than the early Church or the Middle Ages
3
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Copernicus’ (1543) heliocentric theory of
planetary motion was
• the first irruption of science in the Renaissance
• improved upon only a century later by Kepler and
Galileo who began a long fight between science and
dogma. Authority of science:
 solely by appeal to reason within a set of procedural rules
 not enforced by penalties
 does not attempt to establish a complete system covering
human morality. This does not mean that applications of
science may not be subject to ethical considerations.
4
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Emergence of practical science
• in attempts to change the world
• made science increasingly a technique, and
decreasingly a doctrine about the nature of the world.
• 2 applications: in
 warfare: Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci improved artillery
and fortifications
 machine production by steam and electricity
5
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Growth of individualism because of emancipation
from the Church.
• Scholastic discipline replaced by eclectic imitation of
ancient models
• Nothing of importance produced in philosophy until
the 17th century
• Moral and political anarchy in Italy gave rise to
Machiavelli
• Display of genius in art and literature
6
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Growth of individualism because of emancipation
from the Church. (cont.d)
• Society unstable:
 Reformation
 Counter-Reformation
 Subjugation of Italy by Spain
causing
 end of the good and bad of the Renaissance
 spread of the Renaissance to Northern Europe without the
same anarchy
7
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Growth of individualism because of emancipation
from the Church. (cont.d)
• Persists into the individualism and subjectivism of
modern philosophy, exemplified in
 Descartes, who builds up all knowledge from
• certainty of own existence
• clearness and distinctness
 Leibniz’s singular and autonomous “monads”
 Locke’s agreement or disagreement of ideas:
in psychology “cognitive dissonance/consonance”
 Berkeley’s abolition of matter, whose disorderly
consequence is avoided by his use of God
 Hume’s skepticism
 Kant’s and Fichte’s doctrines and temperaments
 Hegel, the bad aspects of whose philosophy are avoided in
Spinoza
8
 Rousseau’s extension of subjectivity to ethics and politics,
ending in the anarchy of Bakunin
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Technique/technology (control)
• conferred a sense power, social not individual
 leaving individuals much less at the mercy of the
environment
 requiring cooperation of people organized in a single
direction
• requires a well-knit social structure
• is considered ethically neutral. Not so today.
• is a “can do”, not a “what to do”
 in which ends are no longer considered, as only the
skilfulness of the process is valued
 inspires power philosophies, regarding everything non9
human as mere raw-material
Modern Philosophy Period (cont.d)
 Need to combine the solidity of the Roman
Empire with Augustine’s City of God. Anarchy
ended in
• the ancient world by the brute force of the Roman
Empire which could not be idealized
• religion by Catholic doctrine, which ultimately could
not be actualized in practice
10
Italian Renaissance: 15thCentury Recovery of Antiquity
 Petrarch (14th century) was first exemplifier of
the modern outlook
 Fifteenth century cultivated Italians exemplified
the modern outlook
 Only Leonardo and a few others had the respect
for science that characterized innovators since
the 17th century
11
Italian Renaissance:15th-Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 Emancipation from the Church
• Prompted only very partial emancipation from
superstition, especially in the form of astrology
 First effect of emancipation from the Church was not to
make men think rationally but to open their minds to
everything from antiquity
 Magic and witchcraft might be wicked (and were being
persecuted in Germany), but were not thought impossible
 Astrology was prized by freethinkers, with a popularity not
seen since ancient times
• Was morally disastrous. Moral rules were discarded
 Rulers
• acquired their positions by treachery and
• retained it by ruthless cruelty
 Cardinals dining at the coronation of a pope brought their
12
own wine and cupbearers for fear of being poisoned
Italian Renaissance:15th-Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 Had reverence for antiquity
• prompting the same reverence for authority as
medieval philosophers had, but for the authority of
the ancients instead of the Church
• making scholars aware that a variety of opinions had
been held by reputable authorities on almost every
subject
• inciting individual genius to rival Hellenic
achievements with a freedom unknown since
Alexander’s time
 Social instability favored individual development,
while every stable social system that had ever
been devised had hampered the development13 of
exceptional artistic or intellectual merit.
Italian Renaissance:15th-Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 Italy became free from foreign influence after the
death of Emperor Frederick II in the mid 13th
century, for 2 1/2 centuries until invasion by
French King Charles VIII
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples.
• Milan
 led resistance to feudalism
 fell under dominion of the plutocratic Visconti family for
most of the independence period
 until the Sforza family under whom Milan became an object
of Spanish-French rivalry
 until annexation by (Spanish and Holy Roman) Emperor14
Charles V.
Renaissance Italy 1350-1600
15
http://portal.chaminade-stl.com/Portals/87/renaissance%20italy.jpg
Italian Renaissance:15th-Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples. (cont.d)
• Republic of Venice
 was an island never conquered by barbarians
 first regarded itself subject to the Eastern emperors
 had its trade primarily with the East
 by redirecting the 4th Crusade to Western conquest of
Constantinople, improved.its trade which suffered with the
fall of Constantinople to the Turks
 defeated
• politically by
 League of Cambrai formed in defense against Venetian
acquisition of Italian mainland territory for food supply
 loss of independence to Napoleon
• economically by discovery of sea route to India
16
Italian Renaissance:15th Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples. (cont.d)
• Republic of Venice (cont.d)
 evolved politically
• from democracy
• to a close oligarchy
• governed by hereditary Great Council of leading families
• with executive power in a Council of Ten elected by the Great
Council
• the ceremonial head of state the Doge
 elected for life
 with decisive influence
 diplomatically exceedingly astute with ambassadors’
reports that
17
• were remarkably penetrating
• are among the best sources for knowledge of the events they cover
Italian Renaissance:15th Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples. (cont.d)
• Florence
 most civilized city in the world
 chief source of the Renaissance
 nobles supported Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, but
were defeated by the rich merchants
 democratic party of small men eventually
• overcame the rich merchants
• led to tyranny by the Medici family because of family’s wealth
acquired in commerce, mining and other industries, who ruled for
300 years
 Cosimo, first clear Medici ruler
--skill in manipulating elections
18
--no official position
--astute, conciliatory when possible, ruthless when necessary
Italian Renaissance:15th Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples. (cont.d)
• Florence (cont.d)
 democratic party of small men eventually (cont.d)
• led to tyranny by the Medici family because of family’s wealth
acquired in commerce, mining and other industries, who ruled for
300 years (cont.d)
 Lorenzo the Magnificent (grandson)
 18-year interruption to Medici rule, begun by Savonarola’s
puritan revival
--against gaiety and luxury,
--away from free thought and
--towards the piety of a simpler age
 a Medici pope
19
 governed as Grand Dukes of Tuscany until Florence became
poor and unimportant
Italian Renaissance:15th-Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples. (cont.d)
• Papal Domain
 temporal power of the pope
• increased greatly
• by methods that robbed the papacy of spiritual authority
• manifested by victory over the Conciliar Movement that
represented
 the most earnest elements in the Church
 ecclesiastical opinion north of the Alps in opposition to
--Italians (and to a lesser degree Spain) who were earnest
about culture (elegant Latinity)
--Pope Nicholas V, 1st humanist pope, who gave papal offices
to scholars he respected for humanism rather than for piety o
orthodoxy, including Epicurian Lorenzo Valla who became
papal secretary and
----debunked the Donation of Constantine
20
----ridiculed the style of the Vulgate
----accused St Augustine of heresy
Italian Renaissance: 15th Century
Recovery of Antiquity (cont.d)
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples. (cont.d)
• Papal Domain (cont.d)
 temporal power of the pope (cont.d)
• ultimately led to pagan warlike policy and immoral life of some
popes
 Papacy acquired Romagna and Ancona
--originally intended to be a principality for the pope’s son who
together with the pope was
--accused of innumerable murders
 Pagan behavior of the papacy prompted the Reformation
21
Italian Renaissance: 15th Century
Recovery of Antiquity (cont.d)
 5 main states in Italy: Milan (including Genoa),
Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain (including
Rome), and Naples. (cont.d)
• Kingdom of Naples, including Sicily
 former personal kingdom of Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II
• absolute Mohammedan-style enlightened but despotic absolute
monarchy which gave no
• no power to the feudal nobility
 repossessed by the French (on the basis of Frederick’s
Norman mother) with the Church’s support
 French were massacred, and the Kingdom eventually
passed to Alphonso the Magnanimous, a distinguished
22
patron of letters, and later to the Spanish.
Italian Renaissance:15th Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 Italy became diminished by
• Spain which ended the Italian Renaissance by
• defending Milan and Naples from the claims of France, allied with
Florence
• leading the Counter-Reformation
• under Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, causing Rome to be
sacked by a Protestant army, prompting the popes to be religious
again
• unbelievably complex regional power politics where
 there was no feeling for national unity;
 the Italian states intrigued against each other, invoking the
aid of France or Spain;
 minor self-made-tyrant princes allied themselves alternately
with one of the larger States;
 constant wars (except between the Spanish and the
French) were almost bloodless to avoid vocational risk to
mercenary soldiers
• discovery of America, the Sea route to Asia, and
settlement in Macau (澳门) by the Portuguese
23
Italian Renaissance:15th Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 Not a great period of achievement in philosophy
because humanists were too busy acquiring
knowledge of antiquity to produce anything
original
 Achieved preliminaries for the greatness of 17th
century philosophy by
• breaking down the rigid scholastic system which had
become a straight-jacket
• reviving the study of Plato first hand, and
encouraging first-hand study of Aristotle
 hastened by contact with Byzantine scholarship
 while Byzantine ecclesiastics maintained the superiority of
24
Plato to Aristotle at the Council of Ferrara of the temporarily
reunified Eastern and Western Churches
Italian Renaissance: 15th Century
Recovery of Antiquity (cont.d)
 Achieved preliminaries for the greatness of 17th
century philosophy by (cont.d)
• reviving the study of Plato first hand, and
encouraging first-hand study of Aristotle (cont.d)
 promoted by
• Gemistus Pletho, an ardent Greek Platonist of doubtful orthodoxy
• Bessarion, a Greek who became a cardinal
• the Florentine Academy devoted to the study of Plato under
founder Cosimo, and Lorenzo, de Medici. Cosimo died listening to
one of Plato’s dialogues.
• regarding intellectual activity as
 a delightful social adventure
 not a cloistered meditation aiming at the preservation of
25 a
predetermined orthodoxy
Italian Renaissance: 15th Century
Recovery of Antiquity (cont.d)
 Not a popular movement, but a movement of
• a small number of scholars and artists
 some of whom were avowed free-thinkers, and
 most of whom were
• impressed by the wickedness of contemporary popes,
• but glad to be employed by them, and
• therefore not disposed to inaugurate a reformation
 They no longer had the medieval feeling for the subtleties of
theology and so could see no half-way house between the
dilemma of
--people living without vices or without power, or
--clerics living in saintliness or without material benefit,
achievable if you deny purgatory which is what Luther did to
26
keep the rest of the Catholic faith
Italian Renaissance:15th Century Recovery of Antiquity(cont.d)
 Not a popular movement, but a movement of
(cont.d)
• a small number of scholars and artists (cont.d)
 most of whom were (cont.d)
• therefore not disposed to inaugurate a reformation (cont.d)
 Italian unorthodoxy was purely intellectual and did not prompt a
popular movement away from the Church because the
Church’s income was
--only in small part from papal dominions, and consisted in
--mainly tribute from the entire Catholic world because the
pope held the keys to heaven; so, questioning this system
risked
----the impoverishment of Italy and
----loss of Italy’s position in the Western world.
who were encouraged by
• liberal patrons, especially the Medici and the
humanist popes, lacked by Petrarch and Boccacio27in
the 14th century.
Machiavelli
 Florentine. Father a lawyer, neither rich nor poor.
 In his 20s when Savonarola’s miserable end
made a great impression on him: “Armed
prophets have conquered and unarmed ones
have failed”
 Subsequently named to minor post in Florentine
government
 Opposed the Medici and was arrested when they
returned to power, but he was acquitted and lived
in retirement in the country near Florence
 Died the year of Charles V’s troops’ sack of
Rome, which marked the end of the Italian
28
Renaissance
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 A scientific and empirical political philosophy,
based on the anecdotal evidence of his own
experience of affairs
 Determines the means to achieve ends,
regardless of the moral value of the ends
themselves
 Intellectual honesty about potential political
dishonesty
• unprecedented at any other time or place,
• except in Greece among men whose
 theoretical training was by sophists and
 practical training was in the wars of petty states (the
political accompaniment of individual genius)
29
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 The Prince
• Dedicated to Lorenzo II de Medici and written to win
his favor, vainly it turns out
• One-sided view of his doctrine, fully presented in
Discourses: does not mention republics in The Prince
• How principalities are won, held and lost. Many
examples in 15th century Italy:
 few legitimate rulers
 even popes secured election by corrupt means
 no one shocked by cruelties and treacheries that would
disqualify a man in the 18th or 19th century
30
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 The Prince (cont.d)
• Recommends for imitation the skill of his personal
acquaintance, the pope’s son, Caesar Borgia, who
prompted the papal acquisition of Romagna and
Ancona. Borgia’s failure was due only to “the
extraordinary malignity of fortune” due to his
• own illness upon his father’s death, and his
• consequent inability to prevent his bitterest opponent from
succeeding his father.
• Chapter “Of Ecclesiastical Principalities” (written in
consideration that a Medici had just become Pope)
 The only difficulty is to acquire them
 Once acquired, they are defended by ancient religious
customs. The princes do not need armies because they
are upheld by higher causes, “exhalted and maintained by
God”. Compare Stalin’s question: “How many divisions31
does the Pope (Pius XII) have?”
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 The Prince (cont.d)
• Places eminent men in an ethical hierarchy. In order
of preference: founders of religion, of monarchies or
republics, then literary men.
• Bad men:
 Destroyers of religions, subverters of republics or
kingdoms, and enemies of virtue or letters are bad
 Establishers of tyrannies, like Caesar. Brutus, Caesar’s
assassin, was therefore good (in reversal of Dante’s
judgement which does not reflect classical literature)
• Religion serves the prominent purpose of social
cement in the State. Approves of Romans’
pretension to believe in auguries and punish those
32
who disregarded them.
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 The Prince (cont.d)
• Church has done two bad things:
 It has undermined religious belief by its temporal conduct
 Popes’ temporal power and the policy it has inspired have
prevented the unification of Italy.
• Twofold bad influences of the Church
 The nearer people are to it, the less religious they are
 It has inspired Italians to become irreligious and bad
• Cannot therefore admire Caesar Borgia’s purpose,
only his skill. Quasi-artistic admiration of skill, for
example as a military strategist, was at its historical
peak in the Renaissance
• Appeals to the Medici to liberate Italy from the French
33
and Spanish barbarians
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 The Prince (cont.d)
• A ruler will perish if he is always good: he must be as
cunning as a fox and as fierce as a lion.
• A ruler should keep faith when it pays to do so, but
not otherwise
• A ruler should be able to disguise his true character,
taking advantage of men’s readiness to be deceived
to obey their present necessities
• A ruler must therefore appear to have the
conventional virtues, for example seem to be
religious. (No longer possible before people who
have read Machiavelli!)
34
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 Discourses. A commentary on Livy, a chronicler
of Romans
• More republican and more liberal. Like Montesquieu.
• Explicit doctrine of checks and balances: princes,
nobles, and people should all have a part in the
constitution and “then these three powers will keep
each other reciprocally in check.”
 Lycurgus’ Spartan constitution was best for having the best
balance;
 Solon’s was too democratic and thereby led to tyranny;
 The Roman constitution was good owing to the conflict of
Senate and people.
35
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 Discourses. A commentary on Livy, a chronicler
of Romans (cont.d)
• Political liberty requires a certain kind of personal
virtue in the citizens
 Since probity and religion are still common in Germany,
there are many republics.
 Tuscany has preserved its liberty because it contains no
castles or gentlemen.
• The people are wiser (“the voice of God”) and more
constant than princes (contrary to the opinion of Livy
and most other writers).
36
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 Discourses. A commentary on Livy, a chronicler
of Romans (cont.d)
• The Italian Renaissance city-states gave actuality to
Greek and Roman Republican political thought.
 The Neoplatonists, the Arabs and the Schoolmen took little
interest in the political writings of Plato and Aristotle
because the City-State political systems had disappeared
 The love of “liberty” and the theory of checks and balances
come from antiquity
• Power is for those to seize it in free competition.
Unlike in Northern writers as late as Locke, there are
no Christian or biblical grounds for legitimate power
in political argument.
• Preference for popular government is not derived
from any idea of “rights”, but from observation that
37
popular governments are less cruel , unscrupulous
and inconsistent than tyrannies.
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 Three very important political ends: national
independence, security, and a well-ordered
constitution. Best constitution apportions legal
rights among prince, nobles and people in
proportion to their real power: this makes
 revolutions more difficult and stability more likely
 stability more likely, the greater the power given to the
people.
38
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 Effective means are determined by a science of
success, for which there are more examples of
successful sinners than successful saints.
• Power is required to achieve any political end, and
power often depends on opinion.
• So seeming more virtuous than your adversary is
advantageous, and easier if you are virtuous even
before a cynical population.
• Virtue was an important element of the Church’s rise
in power in the later Middle Ages.
39
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 People from a large city are more corruptible in
establishing a republic than mountain people.
Politicians will behave better
• if they depend on a virtuous population
 North of the Alps which was shocked enough to stage the
Reformation
 versus Renaissance Italy’s cynical population
• if their crimes can be made widely known, than if
there is strict censorship under their control.
 Mechanistic versus evolutionary.
• Machiavelli tries to create a community all in one
piece, like Lycurgus and Solon.
• Not evolutionary: community is an organic growth40
that the statesman can affect only to a limited extent.
Machiavelli (cont.d)
 People from a large city are more corruptible in
establishing a republic than mountain people.
Politicians will behave better
• if they depend on a virtuous population
 North of the Alps which was shocked enough to stage the
Reformation
 versus Renaissance Italy’s cynical population
• if their crimes can be made widely known, than if
there is strict censorship under their control.
 Mechanistic versus evolutionary.
• Machiavelli tries to create a community all in one
piece, like Lycurgus and Solon.
• Not evolutionary: community is an organic growth41
that the statesman can affect only to a limited extent.
Renaissance North of the Alps
 later than Italy
 entangled with the Reformation
 brief period (beginning of 16th century), when
new learning spread through England, France,
and Germany
 not anarchic or amoral
• associated with piety and public virtue
• involved applying standards of scholarship to the
Bible
• sought to obtain a more accurate text than the
Vulgate
42
Renaissance North of the Alps (cont.d)
 less brilliant, more solid than the Italian
Renaissance
• less concerned with display of learning
• more anxious to spread learning as widely as
possible
 represented by Erasmus and Sir Thomas More
who were close friends. Both
• were learned, but Erasmus more than More
• despised scholastic philosophy
• aimed at ecclesiastical reform from within: deplored
the protestant schism
43
Renaissance North of the Alps (cont.d)
 represented by Erasmus and Sir Thomas More
who were close friends. Both (cont.d)
• were leaders of thought before Luther
 More martyred afterward
 Erasmus sank into ineffectiveness
• represented
 temper of a pre-revolutionary age of
• demand for moderate reform
• timid men not yet frightened into reaction by extremists
 dislike of everything systematic in theology and philosophy
44
Erasmus
 Dutch, father was a priest with knowledge of
Greek
 Parents died and guardians took his money and
cajoled him to be a monk
 Secretary to Bishop of Cambrai. Travelled.
 Highly accomplished in Latin. Greek slight at
first.
• admired Lorenzo Valla
• regarded Latinity as compatible with true devotion,
like Augustine and St. Jerome (forgetting Jerome’s
45
dream reprimanding him for Latin)
Erasmus (cont.d)
 at University of Paris
• he found no interest
• best days were over with the end of the Conciliar
Movement
• old disputes persisted between
 Thomists and (Duns)Scotists, called the “Ancients”, and
between
 them and Occamists, called “Terminists” or “Moderns”, and
between
 both camps, once reconciled, and humanists making
headway outside university circles
• he hated scholastics
46
Erasmus (cont.d)
 in England
• liked the fashion of kissing girls
• resolved to learn Greek in order to edit St. Jerome
and bring out a new Latin translation of the Greek
Testament, which he accomplished.
• discovered inaccuracies in the Vulgate of later use to
protestants
• gave up trying to learn Hebrew
47
Erasmus (cont.d)
 The Praise of Folly
• is dedicated to Sir Thomas More, in playful reference
to his Latin name “moros” as meaning “fool”
• expresses Protestantism’s eventual rejection of
Hellenic intellectualism in favor of the sentimentalism
of the North (ancient Greeks viewed Northern races
as “spirited” and Southern as “intelligent”)
• is spoken by Folly in her own person
• says there is no marriage without folly, no happiness
without flattery or self-love
• says happiest are those closest to the brutes and
divested of reason, or full of national pride and 48
professional conceit
Erasmus (cont.d)
 The Praise of Folly (cont.d)
• ridicules priests who compute the time of each soul’s
residence in purgatory, and worship of saints and the
Virgin
• attacks monastic orders for having very little religion
in them yet being highly in love with themselves and
reducing religion to minute punctilio
• imagines their self-defense at the Last Judgement
when Christ berates them as “scribes and pharisees”
• notes how these men are feared on earth for the
many secrets they know from the confessional
• criticizes popes’ departure from humility and poverty
by too frequent use of non-spiritual sanctions against
49
enemies
Erasmus (cont.d)
 The Praise of Folly (cont.d)
• promotes an alternative kind of folly in the form of
Christian simplicity
 in rejection of scholastic philosophy and learned doctors
whose Latin was unclassical
 as the first expression of Rousseau’s later claim that
religion comes from the heart, not the head, and that all
elaborate theology is superfluous.
 during second visit to England
• stayed for 5 years, in London and at Cambridge
• influenced the English public school curriculum until
the 20th century,
 in its thorough grounding in Greek and Latin including
translation, verse, and prose composition, including study
of Plato
 avoidance of science which, while intellectually dominant
since the 17th century, was still thought unworthy of the50
attention of a gentleman or a clergyman
Erasmus (cont.d)
 was unashamedly literary
• in sharing the curiosity of Renaissance men in
unusual details, rarities and anomalies
 that were basically literary,
• sought not in the world directly but in old books, Greek or Latin,
considered reliable enough, and
• tolerated as by Montaigne and Shakespeare in a confusion
alongside the decreasingly compatible system of Aristotle’s
physics, Ptolemy’s astronomy, and Galen’s medicine
 but that were scientific in later centuries,
• sought directly in nature by observing savages and strange animals
(as Wilhelm von Humboldt did in North and South America), and
• welcomed as support for system-building to catch up with the facts.
51
Erasmus (cont.d)
 was unashamedly literary (cont.d)
• in Enchiridion militis christiani containing
 advice to illiterate soldiers to learn the Bible, Plato,
Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine
 a vast collection of Latin proverbs (and Greek later added)
to enable people to write idiomatically
• in Colloquies,
 teaching people to speak in Latin about everyday matters
 thereby facilitating communication among students from all
over Western Europe attending the University of Paris in
the only international language.
52
Erasmus (cont.d)
 during the Reformation
• in Julius exclusus
 criticized ecclesiastical abuses and the wickedness of
popes
 described the failure of Pope Julius II to get into heaven
• opposed Luther
 for Luther’s violence and support for war
 in a work savagely attacked by Luther that defended free
will that Luther rejected by following and exaggerating St.
Augustine
• while defending the Catholic side, became
increasingly unimportant because of his timidity in an
age of the new virtue of heroism and the new vice of
53
intolerance
Sir Thomas More
 pious humanist
 removed from Oxford for
• seeking to learn Greek and thereby
• showing sympathy with Italian infidels
 apparently discouraged by Erasmus from joining
an austere monastic order
 followed his father into the legal profession
 as Member of Parliament opposed king’s
demand for new taxes
 returned to legal practice under new King Henry
VIII who knighted More and employed him on54
various embassies
Sir Thomas More (cont.d)
 appointed Chancellor. From that office he
• adopted the unusual practice of refusing all gifts from
litigants
• resigned in opposition to the king’s divorce and
remarriage to whose ceremony he declined an
invitation.
 refused to take the Oath of Supremacy required
under the Act of Supremacy making the king
head of the Church of England.
 convicted of high treason on the basis of dubious
testimony that he said that Parliament could not
55
make the king head of the Church.
Sir Thomas More (cont.d)
 wrote Utopia
• which is named for an imaginary island in the
southern hemisphere where everything is done in the
best possible way
• which is like Plato’s Republic insofar as all things are
held in common on the basis that the public good
cannot flourish where there is private property
• where all towns are on the same plan and all private
houses
 are exactly alike
 have no locks on the doors
 can be entered by everyone
 change occupants every ten years to prevent any feeling
56 of
ownership
Sir Thomas More (cont.d)
 wrote Utopia (cont.d)
• Farms
 contain at least 40 people
 are under the rule of an old and wise master and mistress
• Fashions never change
• Everyone works three hours before dinner and three
hours after, and plays for an hour after supper
• There are early-morning lectures
• There is no production of unnecessary luxuries
otherwise due to the existence of the rich
• Surplus or deficit production is adjusted by changing
57
the length of the working day
Sir Thomas More (cont.d)
 wrote Utopia (cont.d)
• Some men are elected to become men of learning
who
 are exempted from other work or, otherwise,
 provide all government personnel
• It is an indirectly elected representative democracy
headed by a prince elected for life but who can be
deposed for tyranny
• If any family is too large, the surplus children are
moved into another family
• People eat in common halls, with cooking done by
women, the waiting done by the older children, and
the other children “standing by with marvellous
silence” and content to eat only scraps given to them
58
from the table.
Sir Thomas More (cont.d)
 wrote Utopia (cont.d)
• Men and women are sharply punished if not virgin
when they marry
• Bride and groom see each other naked before
marriage
• Divorce is allowed for adultery and sometimes solely
because both parties desire it. The guilty party
cannot remarry.
• Breakers of wedlock are punished by bondage
• Foreign trade is conducted exclusively to get iron.
59
Sir Thomas More (cont.d)
 wrote Utopia (cont.d)
• All learn to fight, but are not obligated to fight and try
to use mercenaries instead, in wars waged for three
reasons
 defend own territory
 deliver the territory of an ally
 free an oppressed nation from tyranny
• It aims at getting other nations in debt and to work off
the debt by supplying mercenaries
• There is no money, and gold is used for chamberpots
and chains, and pearls and diamonds are used as
ornaments for infants
• It gives a reward for killing an enemy prince, higher
for bringing him alive, and even higher if he gives 60
himself up.
Sir Thomas More (cont.d)
 wrote Utopia (cont.d)
• It is too much inclined to view felicity as pleasure
• It has many religions, and only those who believe in
God and immortality are counted citizens and eligible
for a role in public life
• Priests are few, with honor and no power, and may
be women if old and widowed
• Patients with painful incurable diseases are
encouraged to commit suicide
• Many were converted to Christianity because Christ
was opposed to private property
• There is no wanton killing (hunting) of animals
• It has a mild criminal law with no death penalty for
theft.
• According to Russell it would be too dull for lack of61
diversity.
Reformation &CounterReformation: Medievalist Revival
 Represent the rebellion of less civilized nations
against the intellectual domination of Italy
• The Counter-Reformation (conducted by Spain at
the height of Spain’s power) was a revolt only
against the intellectual and moral freedom of
Renaissance Italy: it
 enhanced the pope’s power, while it
 fought the easy-going laxity of the Borgias and the Medici
• The Reformation (conducted mainly by Germany)
was also political and theological: against the pope’s
 authority, and
 tribute to be paid for the power of the keys to heaven
62
Reformation & CounterReformation: Medievalist Revival (cont.d)
 Reformation in England
• is reflected in Shakespeare’s portrayal of villains as
Italians, and
• involved intellectual repudiation of what Italy had
done for civilization
 Reformation leaders Luther and Calvin, and
Counter-Reformation leader St. Ignatius of
Loyola, were medieval in philosophy and led an
intellectually barren 16th century
63
Reformation & CounterReformation: Medievalist Revival (cont.d)
 Luther and Calvin
• reverted to St. Augustine’s teaching on the relation
of the soul to God, but not his teaching on the
Church
• diminished the power of churches by
 abolishing purgatory from which souls of the dead could
be delivered by the ceremony of the mass
 rejecting the doctrine of Indulgences, upon which much of
papal revenue depended
 reinstating the doctrine of predestination which made the
soul’s fate after death wholly independent of the actions of
priests.
64
Reformation & CounterReformation: Medievalist Revival (cont.d)
 Luther and Calvin (cont.d)
• enhanced the power of kings
 Luther agreed to recognize a protestant prince as head of
the Church in his own country, in Germany, Scandinavia,
England and Holland (after revolt from Spain)
 They opposed individualistic Protestants
• like the Anabaptists in Germany whose doctrine spread to Holland
and England
• in conflict between Cromwell and the Long Parliament over
whether the State should decide religious matters
• in wars of religion weariness from which led to growth in the belief
in religious toleration
 that had originated in late medieval German philosopher
Nicholas of Cues, and
 that was a source of the movement toward 18th and 19th
65
century liberalism
Reformation & CounterReformation: Medievalist Revival (cont.d)
 St. Ignatius of Loyola
• founded the Jesuit order
 to counter the rapid success of Protestantism by
prompting Catholic princes to practice relentless
persecution
 on a military model of
• warfare against heresy
• unquestioning obedience to the General of the order
• disciplined, able, devoted, and skilful propagandists
• reestablished terror of the Inquisition in the wake of conquering
Spanish armies, even in Italy after a century of free thought
 famous for missionary zeal in Asia, including China
 popular as confessors because they were more lenient
than other ecclesiastics except towards heresy
66
Reformation & CounterReformation: Medievalist Revival (cont.d)
 St. Ignatius of Loyola (cont.d)
• founded the Jesuit order (cont.d)
 valued for giving the best education obtainable whenever
theology did not intervene
• taught mathematics to Descartes
• brought to China
 Western axiomatic/deductive mathematical method (Euclid)
 but also Aristotle’s logic and cosmology which
--suppressed Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar
system and eventually Newton’s physics and the calculus
--reinforced the Chinese Imperial homocentric model of the
universe
• rejected those elements of St. Augustine’s teaching
that the Protestants emphasized. Loyola believed
 in free will as opposed to predestination
 that salvation was by both faith and good works, not by67
faith alone
Reformation & CounterReformation: Medievalist Revival (cont.d)
 Resulted in abandonment of the medieval hope
of doctrinal unity and the result was
• increased freedom to think for oneself, even about
fundamentals of religion
• ability to escape persecution by living in other
countries of diverse creeds
• decreased interest in theological subjects
• increased interest in secular learning
 especially mathematics and science
 enabling the 17th century to make the most notable
advance since ancient Greek times
68
Romanesque/Baroque Architecture of the Jesuit
Counter-Reformation
“The Jesuit Counter Reformation weapon was Transubstantiation presented in the
most sensual and irresistible form Rome had yet devised.”
By the 1620’s the Jesuits were building their baroque churches not only across Europe
but to the bemusement of Indians in both Americas, and in India, China and Japan.
These opulent mass houses are particularly well exemplified in Prague and Vienna.
When lit, these buildings boast acres of pink and blue marble, gold coving, with
surrealistic, dimension-defying, frescoes, gold cherubs and angels, all directing the eye
to the central unmistakable dazzling gold sunburst of ten, twenty or thirty feet
circumference with its glass centre containing the host. The biggest and most gaudy
monstrances Romanism had ever seen were the definitive badge of the Jesuit’s
Counter Reformation offensive.
‘Try and keep simple folk away from our dazzling shows, our fully lit, incensed, musical
masses in our magical Churches all centering on our breathtaking, golden sunbursts,
Ye Reformers,’ confidently boasted the Jesuits. ‘How can your simple memorial rival
us?’
http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=galileo2
69
Jesuit Church of
the Gesu, Roma
Notre-Dame de
Quebec Cathedral
Santa Susanna,
Roma
CarolusBasilica di Superga, near Torino Borromeuskerk,
Antwerp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_architecture
Les Invalides,
Paris
Sanctuary of Our
Lady of Melliena,
Malta
Church of St.
Nicholas, Prague
St. Joseph's Church St. Mary Church
70in
in Klimontów
S'wieta Lipka
Pazaislis Monastery
in Kaunas, Estonia
São Francisco de Assis
in São João del Rei
Convent of Mafra, Portugal
San Francisco de Asís
Church, Lima, 1673
Cathedral of Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Church of St. Michel
in Leuven, Belgium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_architecture
Church of Ss. Sebastian
y Santa Prisca, Taxco,
Mexico
71
South Cathedral, Beijing
East Cathedral, Beijing
Southern Church
http://www.www.thebeijingcenter.org/documents/Christianityrelated_Sites_in_Beijing.doc
When the Jesuits came to China, they first secured their foothold in Beijing. According to Chinese custom of making
important architectures face southward, most Catholic churches in Beijing face south
The oldest Catholic Church inside Beijing, the Southern Cathedral, Nan Tang
(南堂), or Xuanwumen Church, also known as the Cathedral of the
Eastern Church
Immaculate Conception (宣武门天主堂), is located at 181 Qianmen West
Located east of central Wangfujing Street, it is called the
Street in the Xuanwumen district. The church was first erected in the middle
Catholic East Church, Dong Tang, or St. Joseph’s
of the 16th century in the late Ming Dynasty. When the Italian missionary
Cathedral. The East Church is built on land granted in the
Matteo Ricci came to China during the reign of Ming Emperor Wanli the
12th year (1655) of Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty
emperor provided him with a residence which stood slightly west of the
cathedral. Matteo Ricci first built a small scripture hall (宣武门礼拜堂) on to two Jesuit priests Father Magallanes and Ludovico
the site in 1605, in Chinese style with a small cross atop the entrance. The
Buglio by the imperial family. It began as a small church
chapel was rebuilt as a church in 1650 by order of Qing Emperor Shunzhi for known as the Second Church of Beijing. Later the church
German Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell. The new church received the was ruined in earthquakes and wars several times. It was
honour of a Ceremonial gateway with the words 钦宗天道 (Respect the
rebuilt in 1904. The Beijing Municipal Government set
Teachings of the Way of Heaven). Emperor Shunzhi visited the church no
aside RMB 130 million yuan for the restoration of the
less than twenty four times, bestowing upon it a stone stela with the words
72
church in 1980. Unlike the other churches, it faces west.
'built by Imperial Order' inscribed upon it and still standing on the site.
(http://en.beijing2008.cn/spectators/beijing/religion/index.shtml)
(http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_aboutchina/2003http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_the_Immaculate_Conception_in_Beijing
09/24/content_25554.htm)
Jesuits in Beijing
The Jesuits arrived in China under the auspices of the Portuguese padroado which tried to involve them in
promoting the colonial and imperialistic designs of Portugal while planting the Roman Catholic Church in China. To
offset such pressure French king Louis XIV sent a mission of five Jesuit "mathematicians" to China in an attempt
to break the Portuguese predominance. But the Jesuits [were originally possessed by a loftier] dream - the
creation of a Sino-Christian civilization that would match the Roman-Christian civilization of the West.
[The Jesuits had a two-fold strategy for evangelizing China:]
(1) Matteo Ricci had discovered through his studies of Confucius that the Chinese originally had a monotheistic
concept of a Supreme Being. Ricci felt that it would be possible to "prove that the Christian doctrines were already
laid down in the classical works of the Chinese people, albeit in disguise". He saw that this new type of approach
would require a special dispensation from the Pope. This was granted. Indeed, the Jesuits and their followers
were convinced that "the day would come when with one accord all missionaries in China would look in the
ancient texts for traces of primal revelation". He was merely adopting the same approach toward Chinese thought
that the early church fathers had adopted toward Greek Philosophy. Their objective was to identify all the elements
of truth which the Chinese literary heritage had contained, to supplement them with the insights of the Western
understanding of the natural order, and then to introduce what they saw as the wholly distinctive truths of the
Christian Gospel. The Jesuits were very active in transmitting knowledge of Chinese culture to Europe, such as
translating Confucius's works into European languages. Ricci had already started to report on the thoughts of
Confucius, and Fathers Philippe Couplet and Prospero Intorcetta published Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, the
life and works of Confucius in Latin in 1687. It is thought that such works had considerable importance on
European thinkers of the period, particularly those who were interested by the integration of the system of morality
of Confucius into Christianity.
(2) The Jesuits were (nearly) the only missionaries to adopt the strategy of [trading the benefits of teaching and
improving] science [in exchange for opportunity] for evangelization, & no other mission in the world used science
so extensively & systematically as in China. [The Jesuits] made efforts to translate western mathematical and
astronomical works into Chinese & aroused the interest of Chinese scholars in these sciences. They made very
extensive astronomical observation & carried out the first modern cartographic work in China. They also learned to
appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient culture & made them known in Europe. Through their
correspondence European scientists first learned about Chinese science. Competence in mathematics…was a
requirement for selecting Jesuits for the China mission, & most Jesuits followed the curriculum prescribed in the
Ratio Studiorum (1599) in China as well, which states: “Concerning mathematics, the mathematician shall teach,
in this order, the [first] six books of Euclid, arithmetic, the sphere [of Sacrobosco], cosmography, astronomy, the
73
theory of the planets, the Alphonsine Tables, optics, & timekeeping.Only the second year philosophy students
shall hear these lectures, but sometimes, with permission,also the students of dialectics”
Jesuits in Beijing (cont.d)
The Jesuits’ strategy was vindicated. While they fought with the Ming loyalists against the Manchus, the victorious
Manchu elected to receive the new astronomical and calendrical techniques as an indication of their intention to
maintain traditional Confucian rites and rituals as accurately as possible. It is during the Qing dynasty of the
Manchus that the Jesuits appear at court in an official capacity. During the early 17th century, a period of
consolidation of Manchu rule, “predictive competitions” between Chinese, Muslim, and European systems were
organized by Chinese authorities to uncover which methods gave the most consistently correct results. By 1645
Jesuit success in these “competitions” led to widespread reform and modification of traditional Chinese methods.
In the early 18th century, a dispute within the Catholic Church, arose over whether Chinese folk religion rituals and
offerings to the emperor constituted paganism or idolatry. This tension was led to what became known as the "Rites
Controversy," a bitter struggle that broke out after Ricci's death and lasted for over a hundred years. At first the
focal point of dissension was Ricci's contention that the ceremonial rites of Confucianism and ancestor worship
were primarily social and political in nature and could be practiced by converts. The Dominicans charged that they
were idolatrous; all acts of respect to the sage and one's ancestors were nothing less than the worship of demons.
A Dominican carried the case to Rome, where it dragged on and on, largely because no one in the Vatican knew
Chinese culture sufficiently to provide the pope with a ruling. Naturally, the Jesuits appealed to the Chinese
emperor, who endorsed Ricci's position. The timely discovery of the Tang Dynasty Nestorian monument in
1623 enabled the Jesuits to strengthen their position with the court by meeting an objection the Chinese often
expressed - that Christianity was a new religion. They could now point to concrete evidence that a thousand years
earlier the Christian gospel had been proclaimed in China; it was not a new but an old faith. The emperor then
decided to expel all missionaries who failed to support Ricci's position. The Spanish Franciscans, however, did not
retreat without further struggle. Eventually they persuaded Pope Clement XI that the Jesuits were making
dangerous accommodations to Chinese sensibilities. In 1704 they proscribed against the ancient use of the words
Shang Di (supreme emperor) and Tian (heaven) for God, and poorly . Naturally the Jesuits appealed this decision.
[A poorly-prepared papal legate arrogantly asked the Emperor to stop siding with the Jesuits and thereby made all
too obvious two things that] had been decently concealed through the seventeenth century: (a) that Confucianism
and its rituals are incompatible with Christianity (http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/exhibits/dragon_skies/index.htm), and
(b) unlike the priests of other religions in China, Catholic missionaries were obedient agents of a foreign power
whose royal patrons could wield them to subvert imperial authority. This had the effect of making all clergy less
welcome in China. (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/cop.html)] The controversy nevertheless raged on. In 1742
Pope Benedict XIV officially opposed the Jesuits, forbade all worship of ancestors, and terminated further
74
discussion of the issue, [despite the resulting growing persecution of the Church in China and the clergy’s declining
effectiveness there].
Jesuits in Beijing (cont.d)
The Jesuits succeeded in planting a Chinese church that still stood the test of time. “Three of the most important
Chinese Christians, Xu Guangqi 徐光启 (1562━1633) Director of the Ming Imperial Board of Rites, Li Zhizao 李之
藻 (1565━1630), and Yang Tingyun 杨廷筠 (1562━1627) are called the Three Pillars of the Chinese Church. By
1844, Roman Catholics and may have totalled 240,000; in 1901 the figure reached 720,490” [Kenneth Scott,
Christian Missions in China, p.83]. [Ultimately] Jesuit financial policy [may also have contributed to] difficulties
faced by Church [like those in Reformation Europe]. Their missionaries involved themselves in business ventures
of various sorts; they became landlords of income-producing properties, developed the silk industry for Western
trade, and organized money-lending operations on a large scale. [Such practices] eventually generated
misunderstanding and tension between the foreign community and the Chinese people. The Communists held this
against them as late as the mid-twentieth century [despite] Pope John XXIII’s decree in his encyclical Princeps
Pastorum that Ricci had become "the model of missionaries.” in his Sinization policy--a reversal of the Vatican’s
self-defeating interventionist policy in the Rites Controversy of 250 years before
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_China_missions
http://www.www.thebeijingcenter.org/documents/Christianity-related_Sites_in_Beijing.doc
http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/exhibits/dragon_skies/index.htm
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/cop.html
75
Matteo Ricci (left) and Xu Guangqi (徐光启) (right) in the Chinese
edition of Euclid's Elements (几何原本) published in 1607.
76
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_China_missions
Portrait of Johann Adam Schall von Bell
77
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Schall.jpg
Above: Francis Xavier (left), Ignatius of Loyola (right) and Christ at the upper
center. Below: Matteo Ricci (right) and Xu Guangqi (left), all in dialogue towards
the evangelization of China.
78
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kir1_1.jpg
Jesuits in China, top (left to right): Father Matteo Ricci, Father Adam Schaal, Le
Pere Ferdinand Verbiest bottom left: Paul Siu (Xu Guangqi), Colao or Prime
Minister of State; bottom right: Candide Hiu, grand-daughter of Colao Paul Siu.
79
Illustration de la mission chinoise des jésuites. Provenance: Portraits gravés in P. DU HALDE, Description
géographique ? , tome 3. Paris, MAE, Bibliothèque. http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/archives/dossiers/shanghai/prol
In the northwest section of Beijing, surrounded by pine & cypress in what is now the School of the Beijing Municipal
Committee, Zhalan Jesuit cemetery has lain in silence for four-hundred years. Tombstones of famous Jesuit
missionaries, the Italian Matteo Ricci, the German Johann Adam Schall von Bell, the Belgian Ferdinand Verbiest, are
located in a small yard. Stones of other successors are located in a larger yard adjacent.
The cemetery has a 400 year history. In 1611, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci was the first to be buried here on land given by the
Ming Wanli emperor. Ricci was provided with an elaborate state burial. Many other missionaries were buried here after him.
Some of them are famous scientists, artists, musicians, and doctors.
In 1654, the Qing emperor Shunzhi gave a piece of land on the western side of Ricci's tomb to Adam Schall. A small
church was built. The area was repeatedly enlarged.
By 1949, tombs of several hundred Western missionaries had moved here from Tenggong cemetery. At present, there are
63 tombstones extant. They belong to missionaries from different countries: 14 Chinese or Macanese, 14 Portuguese, 10
Italians, 10 Germans, 9 French, 3 Czechs, 2 Belgians, and 1 Slovene.
Ricci Tomb
http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/exhibits/dragon_skies/index.htm
http://www.www.thebeijingcenter.org/documents/Christianity-related_Sites_in_Beijing.doc
80
Matteo Ricci’s technical explanation in Chinese of European astronomy was no doubt written with the help of his
friend Li Chih-tsao, who contributed a preface. Notice the main circle's division into the twelve houses, and their
polar projection. The work contains a preface by Ricci, as well as one by Li Chih-tsao, with a postscript by another
Chinese friend. The prefaces give only the rough date "the end of the Wan-li reign" (i.e. ca. 1610-1620).
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/i-rome_to_china/Jesuits_in_China.html
81
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/i-rome_to_china/images/china09.jpg
Matteo Ricci’s Memory Palace
Matteo Ricci described the “memory palace” technique in his 1596 work, A Treatise On Mnemonics, but he
advanced it only as an aid to passing examinations (a kind of rote) rather than as an instrument of new
composition, though it had traditionally been taught, both in dialectics and in rhetoric, as an instrument of
composition. Ricci was trying to gain favour with the Chinese imperial service, which required a notoriously
difficult entry examination (Spence 1984). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci)
Ricci wrote it in Chinese for the governor of Jiangxi Province. In it he recreated the medieval European idea of a
memory palace -- an edifice you build in your mind and furnish with mnemonic devices. Recollection is a process
of walking through the rooms and associating information with their contents. Those contents must be distinct
and dramatic.
Suppose a modern medical student were to build a memory palace. In one room he might put a policeman on his
horse, leading a manacled prisoner. That triggers the phrase, Some Criminals Have Underestimated Royal
Canadian Mounted Police. The first letters of each word, S, C, H, U, R, C, M, and P, identify the shoulder and arm
bones -- S for scapula, C for clavicle, Humerus, Ulna, Radius, and so on. He can fill his whole building with
bizarre people and things to aid his memory of bones, muscles, and nerves.
The memory palace idea was important before we had millions of the new printed books -- when most knowledge
had to be carried by rote. But printed books were driving out the art of memory and they were bringing in the
Reformation. Now we could write it down, forget it, and look it up when we needed it.
Ricci may've been bringing modern reform to the Catholic Church, but he was also leading the Chinese back to
the interior life of the medieval church, a world where the mind was supposed to operate with minimal instruction
from outside influence. By now, Ricci's flamboyant tricks of memory were falling from favor. Europe was
condemning them as magic and showmanship. But this was China. (http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1226.htm)
82
83
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0140080988.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
Matteo Ricci’s Memory Palace (cont.d)
From the New York Times review of the book The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, by Jonathan D. Spence, the
George Burton Adams Professor of History at Yale University
(http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/spence-ricci.html):
“Four imaginary representations are taken from Ricci's Treatise but they don't entirely fit the Treatise’s title,
because they are not identified with specific artifacts that might be found in a palace. Rather, they remain purely
mental, although they are given concrete spatial locations in the four corners of the Palace's reception hall. Each
image is linked to a particular Chinese ideograph, whose nuances and ambiguities it is meant to explicate; and,
while the system would of course be valuable to Ricci himself in his efforts to learn Chinese, it is hard to see why
the Chinese would need reminding about the meaning of their own language. Apparently, the four images were
meant only to illustrate how the mnemonic system worked. Its attraction for the Chinese lay in the prospect of
their using it to help memorize the Confucian classics they needed to know to pass examinations for the
government bureaucracy.
Ricci associates his 1st image with the Chinese ideograph for war (wu 武 ), and he suggests that the word be
represented in the mind by two warriors, one of them about to strike the other with his spear, while the second
tries to deflect the blow by grasping the first man's wrist. This duality of aggressor and victim is contained in the
ideograph itself, which can be divided into halves, the one meaning ''spear'’ (yi 弋) the other ''prevent’’ (zhi 止).
The image of the two warriors also suggests a curious ambiguity in the psychology of Ricci's Chinese hosts: they
are, he notes, at once given to displays of might and to public beatings (he was himself permanently lamed by a
gang of young rowdies), yet almost womanish in their readiness to flee danger and in their contempt for military
valor.
The 2nd mnemonic image is by far the most elusive of the four: a Moslem woman (nv 女) from Western (xi 西)
China, who, through a complex series of associations (which the modern reader will have trouble remembering!),
is made to represent the idea of fundamental belief (yao 要). These chapters culminate in his fantasy of
converting the Ming Emperor Wanli, and with him the entire Chinese nation.
The 3rd image is suggested by the ideograph for profit (li 利), which Ricci proposes to represent through the
image of a farmer ready to cut his crops (he 禾) with a sickle (dao |]). This suggests Ricci’s consciousness of the
worldly objectives of his European sponsors.
The 4th mnemonic image is of a maidservant holding a child. The image represents the ideograph for goodness
(hao 好), which in turn can be divided into separate ideographs, one meaning ''woman'’ (nv 女), the other ''child”
84
(zi 子). This suggests Ricci’s experience among the Chinese who found the Crucifixion horrifying but responded
warmly to the Virgin.
Matteo Ricci’s Memory Palace (cont.d)
Ricci was much closer to his Ming contemporaries than to us, since the Chinese already had an indigenous
mnemonic tradition that deviated from Ricci's only in its exclusively literary uses. To a certain extent, memory
palaces are no longer necessary because we have such easy access to books (which were rare and expensive
in Ricci's day).
But more important, I believe, we have an entirely different conception of memory. We seek to remember things
not in terms of visual and spatial representations but according to their logical - or, in some cases, psychological connections. Where both Ricci and his Chinese colleagues set great store by their ability to remember things
''backwards and forwards,'' we find such flexibility pointless, indeed, frivolous. Today, for example, one looks in
vain (outside of the movies) for a teacher who tells her students that they should concentrate on memorizing
dates and facts. Instead, students are urged to ''learn how to think'' or to ''identify underlying patterns.'' Our visual
sense, as John Ruskin noted over a century ago, has become impoverished, and our attention to the inner world
of the mind and the feelings correspondingly elaborate. Hence we have no trouble remembering the abstractions
that are the subject of Ricci's images - war, belief, profit, goodness - but the images themselves quickly lose their
specificity. To the extent that we retain them at all, it is because we have managed to associate them with their
respective abstractions.
Naturally, we pride ourselves on this shift from a mechanical to an organic conception of memory, but one of the
benefits of Mr. Spence's book is to suggest that something has been lost in the process. Matteo Ricci's memory,
as it is brought to life in these pages, boasts a sumptuousness and grandeur whose disappearance we have
reason to regret. We may have too glibly abandoned his richly appointed and lavishly detailed palace for the
sleek, efficient, but ultimately sterile world of conceptual condominiums.”
85
China Preface dated 1612
This elegant and finely engraved Chinese book
on Western hydraulics by the Jesuit Sabatino
de Ursis reveals both the importation of specific
techniques and constructions to China and the
eagerness with which many Chinese accepted
European technical learning. The list of
sponsors, a preface by a well-known convert
who was the most skilled of all his peers in
mathematics, and the textual breaks before
Christian appellations are all evidence of the
warm reception that Western technology
received. Shown here is a traditional European
force pump.
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/irome_to_china/Jesuits_in_China.html
86
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/i-rome_to_china/images/china08.jpg
Ancient Observatory (Guanxiangtai 观象台)
Initially built in the Ming Dynasty (around AD. 1442), Ancient Observatory is one of the oldest observatories in the
world. In the early 17th century, the Jesuits, led by Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and followed by Adam Schall von
Bell, impressed the emperor and the imperial astronomers with their scientific knowledge, particularly the
accuracy of their predictions of eclipses. The Belgian Jesuit Father Verbiest (1623-88) was appointed to the
Imperial Astronomical Bureau (Qintianjian 钦天监), where he designed a set of astronomical instruments in 1674;
now 8 of them still sit on the observatory platform.
87
http://www.www.thebeijingcenter.org/documents/Christianity-related_Sites_in_Beijing.doc
China Visit of Jesuit Cardinal Godfried Danneels (Primate of Belgium),
Four Belgian Bishops and the Board members of the Ferdinand Verbiest
Foundation Being Ancient Observatory, April 13, 2008
Visiting the Old Observatory where Verbiest was director
The Ferdinand Verbiest Institute
is a Belgium-based institute
hosted by the Catholic University
of Leuven and committed to the
dialogue between Europe and
China.
The Institute was named after
the Belgian Jesuit-astronomer at
the Chinese court, Ferdinand
Verbiest. Faithful to the
inspiration of its patron, the
Institute combines scholarly
exchange with an active interest
in the Church of China.
Historical research on the
Belgian presence in China has
been the red thread through the
Institute's research programme
since its foundation in 1982.
http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/verbi
est/index.html
http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/verbiest/Archives/20080424_Cardinal_Danneels_photos_English.html#
In 2005 Cardinal Danneels made his first China visit as guest of the Chinese government. But he had to cut short
his visit due to the demise of Pope John Paul II. Chinese authorities asked when the cardinal would come back to
complete his visit. The program for this second visit was discussed in early 2008 and differed significantly from
the first. The cardinal would this time come to China not only as leader of the Church of Belgium but also as
chairman of the F. Verbiest Foundation which has cooperated with the Church in China for 25 years. The
Foundation sponsors projects of academic research and missionary cooperation through the Verbiest Institute at
Leuven University. Board members of the Foundation traveled along together with four Belgian bishops; in total
88 a
delegation of eleven. It was agreed that the cardinal would give a lecture at the Academy of Social Sciences on
“Dialogue between science and ethics”.
http://www.usccb.net/church-updates/VerbiestUpdate-0408.pdf
An aerial view
of the Imperial
Observatory in
Beijing, from the
Museum's
original set of
illustrations
detailing the
form and
construction of
its instruments.
It was printed
from
woodblocks in
China around
1674 on a total
of one hundred
and five
separate sheets
of paper
approximately
390 x 460mm in
size.
The bipartite arc
from the Imperial
Observatory in
Beijing, depicted
within a typically
Chinese scene.
Compare with
Image 28.
http://www.mhs.ox
.ac.uk/tycho/catfm
.htm?beijing
The zodiacal
armillary from
the Beijing
observatory the most
complex and
impractical of
instruments for
measurement,
originally
described in
Ptolemy's
Almagest and
tried but
condemned by
Tycho and not
attempted by
Hevelius.
Compare with
Image 26.
Beijing's
altazimuth
quadrant - an
instrument
modelled
directly on
the Tychonic
precedent
(see Image
27) but with
eastern
decoration.
89
Image 26
Image 27
Image 28
An equatorial armillary
instrument from Tycho's
observatory as illustrated in his
Astronomiæ instauratæ
mechanica (Wandesburg,
1598). Compare with Beijing
image.
A large quadrant from Tycho's
observatory as illustrated in
his Astronomiæ instauratæ
mechanica (Wandesburg,
1598). Compare with Beijing
image.http://www.mhs.ox.ac.u
k/tycho/catfm.htm
The 'arcus bipartitus' from
Tycho's observatory as illustrated
in his Astronomiæ instauratæ
mechanica (Wandesburg, 1598).
Compare with the instrument
90
made for the Beijing observatory
(Beijing Image)
The steam engine manufactured by Ferdinand Verbiest at the Qing Court in 1672.
91
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SteamMachineOfVerbiestIn1678.jpg
The Chinese Jesuit Michael Alphonsius
Shen Fu-Tsung visited France and
Britain in 1684-1685 and was presented
to king Louis XIV on September 15, 1684,
and also met with king James II. This
became the first recorded instance of a
Chinese man visiting Britain. King
James II was so delighted by this visit
that he had this portrait made, and had it
hung in his bedroom, & it was titled "The
Chinese Convert" by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
French Jesuits sent Arcadio Huang to present to Rome
examples of perfectly Christianized Chinese, in order to
reinforce the Jesuits' position in the Rites controversy.
Huang initiated the learning of Chinese language in
France and settled permanently in Paris as a "Chinese
interpreter to the Sun King”. He is also said to have
become the king's librarian in charge of cataloging
Chinese books in the Royal library. Huang encountered
Montesquieu, with whom he had many discussions about
Chinese customs. Huang is said to have been
Montesquieu's inspiration for the narrative device in his
Persian Letters, in which the narrative is made from the
point of view of an Asian who discusses the customs of the
West.
92
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Shen_Fo-tsung.jpg
Confucius Sinarum Philosophus ("Life and works of Confucius"), by Father Philippe
Couplet and Father Prospero Intorcetta, 1687.
93
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LifeAndWorksOfConfucius1687.jpg
The French Jesuit Joseph-Marie Amiot (1718-1793) was official translator of
Western languages for Emperor Qianlong and one of the last of the Jesuits in
China of the old mission which ended when the Jesuit Order was disbanded for 40
years by the pope and never recovered its position in China.
94
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/JosephMarieAmiot.JPG/466px-JosephMarieAmiot.JPG
The Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan, or Garden of Perfect Brightness), now sits
isolated from the main Summer Palace, but was a collection of princely gardens fused
into the main mass by the Qing Qianlong emperor in the mid-18th century. He
commissioned Jesuits at his court (Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione and the French Catholic
priest Michael Benoist) to design and construct a set of European-style buildings in one
corner, which they likened to Versailles. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, the
British and French expeditionary forces looted the Old Summer Palace. The British
general Lord Elgin purposely ordered to set fire to the huge complex which burned to the
ground. It took 3,500 British troops to set the entire place ablaze and took three whole
days to burn.
http://www.www.thebeijingcenter.org/documents/Christianity-related_Sites_in_Beijing.doc
95
Old Summer Palace
96
Ruins of European Garden
97
A Jesuit Painter at the Imperial Chinese Court:
Giuseppe Castiglione and the Conquests of the Emperor
Castiglione arrived in China in 1715 and remained there until his death in 1766, adopting
the Chinese name of Shihning. He was buried in European Missionary Graveyard in
Fuchengmen in Beijing. As an Italian Jesuit brother, Castiglione was the center of a
group of foreign missionary priests and brothers housed at the imperial court as advisers
on Western art, technology, and science. Castiglione was able to create a synthesis of
Eastern and Western techniques by combining traditional Chinese watercolor
techniques with Western methods of perspective and chiaroscuro. This ability made him
one of the most valued of the missionary artists serving the dynasty. He painted for three
Manchu emperors and his depictions of their hunts and battles provide a valuable visual
record of the times. He was particularly known for his paintings of horses. In addition to
training Chinese artists in Western techniques, during his 50 years at the Chinese court
he collaborated on architectural plans for both buildings and European-style gardens,
decorated murals. He painted enameled metalwork, still-life paintings, portraits, as well
as creating works in oils on silk and paper. He was the most successful of the European
artists in developing a style that pleased the imperial taste with its adaptation of Western
conventions of shadings and depiction of volume and space to the courtly subject
matter.
http://www.clevelandart.org/educef/asianodyssey08/pdf/MikEmpMS.pdf
98
Among the most beautiful and distinctive paintings created by the gifted Jesuit artist and architect
Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) during his sojourn in China was ‘Kazath Tribute Horses’ (Hasake
gongma), which portrays a kowtowing Kazak leading tribute horses to the Qianlong emperor (r.
1736-96) amid rustic furnishings at the Chengde imperial summer retreat.1 For several generations
of students and scholars of Chinese history, this picture represented the essence of China’s foreign
relations during the imperial era: woolen-robed nomads offering horses and other pastoral products
as ‘tribute’ (gong) to the Chinese court in return for lavish gifts. The image of ‘barbarians’
expressing their recognition of ‘the supreme virtue of the Chinese Son of Heaven’ in kneeling and
prostrated postures, or in Chinese terms, performing the koutou consisting of 3 kneels and 9 bows
(sangui jiukou), has been enduring. Western language accounts of embassies written by eighteenth
century visitors to China such as Lord Macartney, reinforced earlier Jesuit-authored and Dutch VOC
representatives’ descriptions of court ritual and ceremony cast in regimental distances and timing.
‘Kazaks presenting horses in tribute’ (cat. 23. Musée Guimet, Paris): Continues next page. Bron:
Cécile and Michel Beurdeley, Giuseppe Castiglione, A Jesuit painter at the court of the Chinese
99
Emperors (London: Lund Humphries 1971) 104-105.
http://www.leidschrift.nl/artikelen/jaargang18/18-3/08%20ZURNDORFER.pdf
On the 26th day of the fifth moon of the thirtieth year of his empire - 3 July 1765 to be
precise - Ch'ien-lung promulgated a decree translated at the time as follows: 'I wish the
sixteen prints of the victories that I won in the conquest of the kingdom of Chumgar and
the neighbouring Mahommedan countries, which I had painted by Lamxinim and the
other European painter who are in my service in the city of Peking, to be sent to Europe
where the best artists in copper shall be chosen so that they may render each of these
prints perfectly in all its parts on plates of copper.’ Thus engraving, another great
expression of European art, interested the Emperor no less than painting. He had seen
engravings of battles executed after the originals of the German painter Rugendas
(1666-1742) and this had given him the idea of immortalizing his recent victories in
Upper Asia.
The final conquest was followed, in April 1760, by a grandiose ceremony in the course of
which Generals Chao-hui and Fu-te, victors in this campaign, were heaped with
honours. Ch'ien-lung instructed the Court painters, and especially the Jesuit
missionaries, to paint their portraits at the same time as a series of battle scenes
destined to decorate the central hall of the Tzu-kuang-ko on the east bank of the central
lake in Peking. It was in this hall, installed in 1760, that Emperor Ch'ien-lung used to
receive tributary princes and European ambassadors.Amiot, in his biography of Father
Attiret, states that 'during the whole time that this war lasted, as soon as the troops of
the Empire had won a few victories, the order was immediately given to the painters to
depict them.
According to the scholar Paul Pelliot the drawings to be engraved from, sixteen in
number, reproduced on a reduced scale the mural paintings in the palace. The latter had
been executed by Giuseppe Castiglione, Jean-Denis Attiret, Ignatius Sickelpart and a
barefoot Augustinian, Father Jean Damasckne, who in 1788 became Bishop of Peking.
100
http://www.battle-of-qurman.com.cn/literature/Beurdeley-Castiglione-1972.pdf
But once the decree had been promulgated conflicts of influence divided England and
France, each country wishing to attract attention to its own merits. As the final decision
rested with the viceroy of Canton, the superior of the French Jesuits of Canton, Father
Le Febvre, sent one of his mandarin friends to see him. This mandarin, 'a declared
protector of the French, succeeded in convincing the viceroy that the arts were more
cultivated in France than in any other country in Europe and that engraving especially
was carried there to the highest point of perfection'. *
The importance of this order was not solely of an artistic nature. It was thought that it
would also direct China's interest to France and enable precious advantages from both
the commercial and the religious point of view to be obtained. The Dutch, the
Portuguese and above all the English constituted rivals from whom it was good, on any
occasion whatever, to distinguish oneself.
Charles-Nicolas Cochin, of the Acadkmie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, was
immediately charged with getting the work started. Everything was done to ensure
complete success. France's prestige was at stake. The Emperor had been so satisfied
with the engravings executed in France that he had fresh prints made from the plates in
China, by Chinese disciples of Castiglione.
Apart from the copies for the royal family and the King's library, Henri-Leonard Bertin,
deputy of the department of the Compagnie des Indes and a great collector who never
lost sight of his interests, did not fail to reserve a complete set for his private collection.
One set in a wooden coffer decorated with a five-clawed Imperial dragon, and another
bound with the arms of France, are in the Bibliothique Nationale, a third is in the
Bibliothique Alazarine, a fourth in the Musee Guimet and a fifth incomplete set of fifteen
prints is in the possession of the Musee de Fontainebleau. Finally, Louis XVI presented
a set to his Minister Necker, which is preserved in the chateau de Coppet, Switzerland.
101
http://www.battle-of-qurman.com.cn/literature/Beurdeley-Castiglione-1972.pdf
102
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World
 Descartes: one of the creators of 17th century
science
 Copernicus (16th century), Galileo, Kepler &
Newton were the immediate creators
 Copernicus
• Polish ecclesiastic who
 taught mathematics in Rome for a few years, then
 returned to be canon of a church in Poland where he
 combated the Germans and
 reformed the currency
103
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Copernicus (cont.d)
• wrote De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium which
 put forward the heliocentric explanation as a hypothesis
 escaped official Catholic condemnation until the time of
Galileo a century later when the Church had become less
liberal under the Jesuits and the renewed Inquisition
 was ancient Greek in spirit for being Pythagorean and
aesthetic: assumes all celestial motions must be circular
and uniform
 included epicycles although orbital centers are near the sun
 marred its own simplicity for not having the sun exactly in
the center
 indicated awareness of Pythagorean doctrines but not 104
of
Aristarchus’ heliocentric theory
Copernicus’ Heliocentric Solar System vs. Ptolemy's Geocentric Model
Both models employed perfect circular motion with epicycles, equants ...
The Copernican model
The Ptolemiac model
105
http://cass.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/History.html
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Copernicus (cont.d)
• wrote De Revolutionibus Orbium Coel. which (cont.d)
 by dethroning the earth from its geometrical pre-eminence,
robbed man of the cosmic importance assigned to him in
Christian theology
 according to Copernicus’ sincere professed orthodoxy, did
not contradict the Bible.
 suffered from two immediate weaknesses:
• non-observation of stellar parallax until the 19th century when
Horizontally
stationary
Earth’s
surface rotating
observed only in the case of a few of the nearest stars
• Until Galileo’s law of inertia a century later, the Aristotelian static
concept of existence allowed for the earth’s rotation from west to
east only if a body dropped from a height falls to a point slightly to
the west of a point vertically below the body’s starting point
 no one was compelled by any known facts to adopt
106
 was not outright refuted by any known facts and therefore
still a plausible hypothesis as Copernicus called it
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Copernicus (cont.d)
• possessed the two merits found together in the
founders of modern science and only in Aristarchus
before that:
 immense patience in observation
• This had belonged to the later astronomers of antiquity
• Copernicus knew all that could be known with the instruments
existing in his day
 great boldness in framing hypotheses
• had belonged to the earliest Greek philosophers
• Copernicus perceived that diurnal rotation of the earth was a more
economical hypothesis than revolution of all the celestial spheres
 So was the earth’s annual revolution, but to less a degree
 Simplicity is the only gain from Copernicus’ hypothesis in107
the
modern context of relativity of motion
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Copernicus (cont.d)
• had the two great merits of recognizing that:
 what had been believed since ancient times might be false
 test of scientific truth is
• patient collection of facts, combined with
• bold guessing as to laws binding the facts together
• was rejected by Protestant clergy
 in Luther’s dismissal of Copernicus as an “upstart
astrologer”
 in Calvin’s affirmation that
• the world is stabilized and so cannot be moved
• Copernicus’ authority cannot be placed above the Holy Ghost’s
 who had less power than Catholic clergy because the key
benefit of protestantism was not heresy, but schism which
led to
• national churches not strong enough to control the lay government
108
and, thus
• more liberty of speculation in Protestant than in Catholic countries.
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Tycho Brahe
• provided two possible compromise/hybrid theories
between Copernicus (heliocentrism) and Ptolemy
(geocentrism):
 sun and moon go around the earth, but the other planets
go around the sun, or
 sun, moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter go around the earth,
and Mercury and Venus go around the sun
• had 2 reasons for rejecting pure geocentrism:
 appearance of a new star
• far enough away to have no daily parallax,
• in the face of Aristotle’s view that
 everything above the moon is unchanging, and
 change and decay are confined to the sublunary sphere
109
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Tycho Brahe (cont.d)
• had 2 reasons for rejecting pure geocentrism: (cont.d)
 observation of comets
• also found to be distant,
• in the face of Aristotle’s view confining change to the sublunary
sphere
• was an observer, not a theorist, under the patronage
first of the King of Denmark, and afterward of the Holy
Roman Emperor
• made a star catalog and noted the positions of the
planets throughout many years
• perfected observation instruments, but used no
telescope
• was the first to correctly estimate the relative
distances of the moon and the sun from the earth
110
• employed as his assistant Kepler to whom Tycho’s
observations proved invaluable
Tycho Brache’s two hybrid geoheliocentric solar-system models
Pure helioocentric model of the solar system Pure geocentric model of the solar system
Tycho was doubtful of a pure geocentric model and attempted to formulate two compromise
geocentric models shown below
+ : earth
o : sun
: moon
111
http://www.abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec03.html
Tycho Brache estimates of relative distances to sun and moon
He showed that the Sun was much farther than the Moon from the Earth, using simple
trigonometry of the angle between the Moon and the Sun at 1st Quarter.
http://www.abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec03.html
112
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Kepler
• was an example of what is achievable by patience
without much in the way of genius
• was influenced by Pythagoreanism which inclined
him to follow Plato’s Timeus in attaching cosmic
significance to the five regular solids which he used
to suggest hypotheses
• was a good Protestant
• was inclined to sun worship which inclined him to the
heliocentric hypothesis
113
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Kepler (cont.d)
• discovered his three laws of planetary motion:
 1. The planets describe eliptic orbits of which the sun
occupies one of the 2 foci.
• At first provable only in the case of Mars
• Violated the aesthetic bias for circular celestial motion that
governed astronomy since Pythagoras: since heavenly bodies
moved freely, without being pushed or pulled, their motion was supposed to be “natural” and there was nothing natural about an ellipse.
 2. The line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal
areas in equal times of orbit.
• In other words, at successive positions of a planet at equal intervals
of time, then the areas traced by the radius from the sun over those
intervals must be equal.
• The planet therefore moves fastest when it is nearest to the sun and
slowest when it is farthest from the sun. Hurrying at one time and
dawdling at another had been supposed unbecoming of a stately
114
planet.
• At first provable only in the case of Mars.
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Kepler
• discovered his three laws of planetary motion: (cont.d)
 3. The square of the period of revolution of a planet is
proportional to the cube of its average distance from the
sun. This law
• is important for comparing the movement of two different planets.
• turned out to be an application of Newton’s law of the inverse
square for gravitation
• found that as observation grew more exact
 No system of epicycles exactly fit the facts
 Kepler’s hypothesis was far more closely in accord with the
recorded positions of Mars than was Ptolemy’s
115
• sent books and documents to Matteo Ricci in Beijing
Kepler’s 3 Laws of Planetary Motion
1st law: Planets move on ellipses of which the Sun is at one of the foci
2nd law: [Time(D-C) = Time(B-A)]  [Area(CSD) = Area(ASB)]
p is any planet;
rp3
3rd law:
, where r is the planet’s average distance to the sun;

c
T is the length of the planet’s year;
Tp2
c is a constant
http://www.abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec03.html
116
b
a
c
a+b=c
c
Average (a)  Average (b) 
2
t
t
c : major axis
c
: semimajor axis
2
For 2 applets animating a system of 2 bodies’ in eliptical motion around
foci go to: http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html
117
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Galileo
• was the greatest of the founders of modern science
after Newton
• was the founder of the physics of dynamics which
 in the spirit of Heraclitus, assumes the Law of Inertia:
everything is already, naturally in unchanging
unidirectional motion, not stationary.
• Heavenly bodies had been assumed to be ever moving naturally in
Horizontally
stationary
Earth’s
surface rotating
Horizontally moving
faster than earth’s
surface
circles, viewed to be the only natural direction of perpetual motion.
• Terrestrial bodies were assumed to gradually cease to move
(assumed to assume a static position) if left by themselves
• Since everything on earth is rotating with the earth at the same
speed, Copernicus’ problem is solved: the falling body is not
horizontally static while the rest of the earth is moving horizontally.
 Accordingly it falls to the point vertically below the body’s
starting point, not to the west of it.
 Actually it should fall to the east of it because, at a higher
elevation, the body’s horizontal speed is slightly faster than
118
what is at ground level, but the effect is too slight to be
measurable.
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Galileo (cont.d)
• was the founder of the physics of dynamics which(cont.d)
 regards unidirectional unchanging motion as “first order”,
“first derivative”, “velocity”, “change-in-distance divided by
change-in-time”
 regards apparent motion as “second order”, “second
derivative”, “acceleration”, “deceleration”, “turning rate”,
“change-in-(velocity &/or direction) divided by
change-in-time”
 “force” is defined as (cause of) “change-in-(velocity &/or
direction) of motion, divided by change-in-time”. This also
became Newton’s First Law of Motion.
• was first to establish the Law of Falling Bodies: “The
acceleration of (= force on) a free-falling body is
constant regardless of weight, except for any
resistance by air.” Was not completely proved until
119
the air-pump was invented (12 years after Galileo’s
death) to create a vacuum.
Motion
S  cT 2
Instantaneous
Velocity
dS
 2cT
dT
d2 S
 2c
2
dT
Constant
acceleration
S : distance
T : Time
c : a constant
120
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Animation/galileo.falling.html
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Galileo (cont.d)
• studied projectiles for his Medici patron and
discovered that:
 rather than move ever more slowly horizontally and then
drop suddenly, a projectile fired horizontally would (apart
from air resistance) move at constant horizontal velocity
and at the same time a vertical velocity increasing at a
constant rate according to the law of falling bodies
 the path of motion of such a projectile is a parabola
 multiple forces combine according to the Parallelogram
D
Law:


B
AD
AB

A
AC
C



AB  AC  AD
121
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Galileo (cont.d)
• made a telescope after hearing that a Dutchman
had invented it (18 years after the microscope), and
was the first to use it for scientific purposes, to
 discover the Milky Way consists of a multitude of separate
stars
 observe the phases of Venus that Copernicus knew were
implied by his theory and that refuted Ptolemy’s
 discover the 4 satellites of Jupiter that
• Galileo found obey Kepler’s laws
• changed the number of heavenly bodies from the magical number
of 7 to 11 which has no mystical properties and this
• caused traditionalists to denounce the telescope and refuse to
look through it, and
• caused professors of philosophy to try to conjure away Jupiter’s
122
moons, using “logic-chopping arguments as though they were
magical incantations”
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Galileo (cont.d)
• invented the thermometer, his student invented the
barometer, and Galileo greatly improved clocks
• was condemned by the Inquisition
 first privately, then publicly when he recanted and
promised never again to maintain that the earth rotates or
revolves, and
 that put an end to science in Italy, and
 he was rehabilitated only in 2000, in a formal apology by
Pope John Paul II.
123
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton
• flourished because the protestant clergy who would
do harm to science were unable to gain control of
the State
• established 3 laws of motion, the first 2 of which are
due to Galileo
• proved that Kepler’s 3 laws are equivalent to a law
stating that every planet at every moment has an
acceleration toward the sun that varies inversely
with the square of the distance from the sun.
Accordingly,
 acceleration towards the earth and the sun explains the
moon’s motion
 acceleration of falling bodies on the earth’s surface is
governed by the same inverse-square law that governs124
the moon’s motion.
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• adopted Galileo’s definition of “force” as (the cause
of) change of motion (i.e. acceleration).
• enunciated his Law of Universal Gravitation:
“Every body attracts every other with a force
 directly proportional to the product of their masses and
 inversely proportional to the square of the distance
between them”
• used his Law of Universal Gravitation to deduce
everything in planetary theory
• eventually became another Aristotle, imposing an
insuperable barrier to progress until (1825) a
century after his death when men freed themselves
of his authority sufficiently to do important original125
work.
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Three laws of motion
 First law. (Galileo’s) Law of Inertia: a body’s velocity is constant unless an external force (“momentum”) acts on it.
 Second law. Momentum is defined as ma,
• where m is mass, a is acceleration,
• contrary to Aristotle’s static universe where “force” F = df mv
• consistent with Galileo’s Law of Falling Bodies, where a is constant
 Third law. Conservation of momentum:
• Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction, i.e.
• m1a1 = -m2a2
• The total momentum of the universe is conserved: interactions just
redistribute it.
126
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Law of Universal Gravitation
F : gravitation
Gm 1m 2
 F
G
:
gravitation
constant
2
R
m1 : mass of body 1
m2 : mass of body 2
R : distance between bodies 1 & 2
 Special case of
W : weight ~ momentum
Galileo’s Falling Body:
G : gravitation constant
GMEm
ME : mass of Earth
W
R2
m : mass of falling body
R : radius of earth 127
GME
a
: constant
2
a : acceleration
R
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
R3
• Newton’s generalization of Kepler’s Third Law 2  c
P
to any 2-body system.
3
2

(m1  m2 )R  c P

iff m1d1  m2 d2 at center of mass of the system
d1  d2  R
& where m1 : mass of body 1
m2 : mass of body 2
P : period of one revolution
R : average distance between bodies
1&2
c : a constant
d1 : distance from body 1 to center of
mass of the system
d2 : distance from body 2 to center of128
mass of the system :
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
3
R
• Newton’s generalization of Kepler’s Third Law
c
2
P
to any 2-body system. (cont.d)
 If m1 = m2 , then
d1 = d2
with rotation around a common equidistant center of mass,
as in a binary star, a pulsar
 For 2 applets animating a system of 2 bodies’ in eliptical
motion around foci go to:
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/binaries/visual/keplermodframe.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html
129
Orbits for Binary Systems
In reality, binary star systems are governed by Kepler's laws, as modified by Newton to
account for the effect of the center of mass. Then each star executes an elliptical orbit
such that at any instant the two stars are on opposite sides of the center of mass. The
orbits generally are as depicted in the following figure.
130
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/binaries/visual.html
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
R3
• Reduction back to 2  c of Newton’s generalization
P
of Kepler’s Third Law .
If m1 is the sun (very big) such that m1 >> m2
m1 >> m3 , then
m1  m2  m1  m3

(m1  m2 )R32 cP22
and so

3
2

(m1  m3 )R3 c P3
R 32 P22
 2
3
R 3 P3
Kepler’s Third Law
131
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
R3
• Reduction back to 2  c of Newton’s generalization
P . (cont.d)
of Kepler’s Third Law
If m1 is the sun (very big) such that m1 >> m2
m1 >> m3 (cont.d)
c
m2
 Then
, and so
0, c
m1
m1
 m1 m2  3

R  cP2

 m1 m1 
 Since
R 3  cP 2 Kepler’s Third Law
d1m1  d2m2 at center of mass of the system
m2
d1 
d2  0
m1
Then the sun is almost motionless at the center at the132
center of mass of a 2-body system
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law in Andrew T Hyman “A
simple Cartesian treatment of planetary motion”
European Journal of Physics 14 (1990) 145-147,
posted at
http://www.blohm.cnc.net/philosophy/newtonEU.pdf
 “The task of demonstrating the relationship between the
laws of Kepler and Newton was 'the major scientific
problem of the [seventeenth] century' (Cohen, I. 1982
Physics, ed P Tipler, New York Worth).”
 The following detailed mathematical demonstration is only
mentioned, but not shown, in Hyman’s accordingly short
paper.
133
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
e is eccentricity
R
R/e
0e
0<e<1
e1
1<e
a circle
an ellipse
a parabola
a hyperbola
The Sun is at the origin and
the planet’s directrix is a
straight line perpendicular to
the x-axis at a distance D/e
from the Sun. [D is the
planet’s distance from the
sun when the planet crosses
the y-axis] and is called the
‘semi-latus-rectum’ of the 134
conic section
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
=
_
(1) Kepler’s First Law of Motion:
elliptical motion
(2) Kepler’s Second Law of Motion:
fixed proportionality of angular
area to time-elapse
135
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
(3) Kepler’s Third Law of Motion:
fixed proportion of square of
revolution period t to cube of
average distance R = a to focus
for all orbits around that focus.
C2/D = K
Derivation of (3) from characteristics a, b, C, D of ellipse:
Area 2  2 a 2 b 2
 2b 2
2
2
2
period 2
t2
t2
C
C
C
 3  3 


3
3
3
D
average _ dis tan ce
a
a
a
R
1e 2
 D
 
C 
 2  K *   
.
 df K 
D
 C
  K*
2
2
2

D2

1e 2
2
 2D
C

 2  K*
D
C
1e 2
2





Derivations used of a & b in terms of D136
&e:
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of a in terms of D & e , used in derivation of (3):
y
R x 
x2
x1
R  x1  D  ex1
1  e x1  D
D
x1 
1e
D  e x2
1  e  x2  D
2
D
x2 
1e
1
D1  e   D1  e 
D
x1  x2  

 a : semi-major axis
2
2
21  e 1  e 
1e
 R : average dis-
tance of ellipse
from
137
2 alternative derivations of b in terms of D & e , used in derivation of (3):
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
1st of 2 alternative derivations of b in terms of D & e , used in derivation of (3):
e e
D
D
D

D

x a


2
2
1e 1e
1e
1  e 1  e 
1e
De
 De

1  e 2 1  e  1  e 2
2

b R a=R D
1e
x
x
a
x < 0




De 2
e2 

R  D  ex  D  e x  D 
 D 1 
2
2 
1e
 1e 
semi-minor axis b :
2
2
2


e
e
2
e
e


2

b  R 2  x 2  D  1 


D
1


e
1


2 
2
2
1e
1e 2
 1e   1e 
2
2

2e 2
e2
e2
1e 2 e 2
D
 D 1

 D 1
D

2
2
2
2
1e
1e
1e
1e
1e 2



2
138

Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
2nd of 2 alternative derivations of b in terms of D & e , used in derivation of (3):
semi-minor axis: b  R 2  x 2 

2
2


D

a
a2 
D 

D


2 
1

e
 

2
D2

e
1  e 
D 1  e  D 1  e 
D e  D 1  e   2


1e 

1e 

e 1  e 
 D 1  e   D 1  e   2 D 1  e 


e 1  e 
D  2  2  e 
D
D 1  e  1  1  e   2 


e 1  e 
1e
e 1  e 
b R a=R D
1e
x
x
a
e2
2
2
2 2
2
2
2
2
2
2 2
2 2
2 2
2 2
2
2
2
2 2
2

2
2
2
2
2 2
2
2 2
2
2
139
2
2 2
2
2

Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Newton’s law of planetary acceleration/gravitation g 
Differentiation of Kepler’s First Law (1):
(1)
=
dx
dy
dx
dy
y
x y
dx 2 dt
dt  dt
dt
e
 
dt 2
R
x2  y2
Gm1m2
:
2
R
x
(4)
Differentiation of Kepler’s Second Law (2):
_
dy ydx xdy ydx xdy
y 



C
dt 2dt 2dt 2dt 2dt
ydx xdy

 2C
dt
dt
(2)
(5)
140
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Newton’s law of planetary acceleration/gravitation g 
from (4):
y
Gm1m2
(cont.d):
R2
dy
dx
dx
 eR  x
dt
dt
dt
dy  eR dx x dx


dt
y dt y dt
dx 
dy  1
  2C  x 
dt 
dt  y
substituting these in (5):
C
2
dx 2C eRx dx x 2 dx
2Cy
2Cy
2Cy (6)
y

 2
 2




eRx x 2 y 2  eRx  x 2 R 2  eRx RD
dt
y
y dt y dt
1 2  2
141
y
y
from (5):
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Newton’s law of planetary acceleration/gravitation g 
from (4):
x
Gm1m2
(cont.d):
R2
dx
dx
dy
 eR  y
dt
dt
dt
dx
 y dy


dt x  eR dt
dy
2C y dx


dt
x
x dt
substituting these in (5):
dy
2C y y dy
2C
2C
2C x 2  eRx




  32

2
2
2
2
xy
dt
x x x  eR dt
x  eRx  xy


y
x 2

x 1  2
x  eRx
x  eRx 

2Cx
2CeR
2Cx
2CeR
2Cx 2Ce
142
(7)
 2
 2




R  eRx R  eRx
RR  ex  RR  ex 
RD
D
from (5):


Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Gm m
Derivation of Newton’s law of planetary acceleration/gravitation
g
1 2
2
(cont.d):
R
d 2x d 2 y
Calculating partial acceleration ( 2 , 2 ) by 2 equations in 22 unknowns:
dt dt
d x
d2y
Differentiating (5) [which was derived from Kepler’s 2nd law]: y
 x 2  0 (8)
2
dy
dx
dt
dt
Intermediate derivation:
x
y
dt
dy
dR dy x 2  y 2  y 2 dt
R y
2
2
dt
2
x

y
dt
dt 
R2
x2  y2
dy 2
dx
dy
x  y 2  xy  y 2
dt
dt 
 dt
R3



dx
 dy
x x 
dt
 dt
R3

y

Differentiating (6) [which was derived from Kepler’s 1st & 2nd laws] &
applying (9) & Kepler’s 3rd law:
 y
dy
dR
d
 
R y
2
d x 2C  R  2C dt
dt  2C


dt 2
D dt
D
R2
D
dx
 dy
x x 
dt
 dt
R3
(9)
(10)

y
143
  2C x 2C    4 Kx
D
R3
R3
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Gm m
1 2
Derivation of Newton’s law of planetary acceleration/gravitation g 
(cont.d):
2
R
d 2x d 2 y
Calculating partial acceleration ( 2 , 2 ) by 2 equations in 2 unknowns:
dt dt
2
2
d
y
y
d
x y
Kx 
Ky
By (8) & (10):



4


4

2
2
3 
dt
x dt
x
R 
R3

2

d
R
Calculating total acceleration
by (10) & (11): R  x  y y
2
dt


2
2
2
d R d x d y  4 Kx  4 Ky  4 K ( x  y )  4 KR  4 K
 2  2 


 3  2
2
3
3
3
dt
dt
dt
R
R
R
R
R
(11)

R
x
 g (12)
Proportional to solar mass m1, & planetary mass m2 very small 144
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Kepler’s laws (1), (2), (3) as special cases of Newton’s law of
gravitation (12). Proving [(12)  (1)  (2)  (3)] :
Proving [(12)  (3)] :
(12) decomposes into (11) & (10): [(12)  (10)  (11)]
(3) used in derivation of (10):  [(10)  (3)]
 [(12)  (3)]
Proving [(12)  (2)] :
(12) decomposes into (11) & (10): [(12)  (10)  (11)]
(8) used in derivation of (11):  [(11)  (8)]
(8) is derivative of (5)   (8)  (5) :  [(8)  (5)]
(5) is derivative of (2)
 [(12)  (2)]
  
  (5)  (2) :
 [(5)  (2)]
145
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Kepler’s laws (1), (2), (3) as special cases of Newton’s law of
gravitation (12). Proving [(12)  (1)  (2)  (3)] (cont.):
Proving [(12)  (1)] :
y
Solving for R :
d y
x  dy
dy 
2Cx
dx

x

2
C

y




Substitute (5) for y
in (9): dt R R 3
dt 
R3
 dt
dt
d  y
 2Cx d 2 x
3
Substitute (10) for R in (13), then integrate:     
dt  R 
 4 Kx dt 2
2
y
C dx

A
R 2 K dt
(13)
(14)
146
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Kepler’s laws (1), (2), (3) as special cases of Newton’s law of
gravitation (12). Proving [(12)  (1)  (2)  (3)] (cont.):
Proving [(12)  (1)] (cont.d):
x
Solving for R :
Interchange x & y in (9) and substitute (5) into (9) to get:
d  x  y  dx
dy  2Cy

y

x
 
 3
(15)
3 
dt  R  R  dt
dt  R
2
d
x

2
Cy
d
y


Substitute (11) for R3 in (15), then integrate:     
dt  R 
 4 Ky dt 2
2
x
C dy

B
R 2 K dt
(16)
147
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Kepler’s laws (1), (2), (3) as special cases of Newton’s law of
gravitation (12). Proving [(12)  (1)  (2)  (3)] (cont.):
Proving [(12)  (1)] (cont.d):
dx  y
 2K
dy 
x  2K
   A
 B 
Plug (14) & (16) into (5) to get (1):
(14’);
(16’)
dt
R
C
dt 
R C


2
x  2K
y
 2K

C
 x B  
 2C
Substitute (14’) & (16’) into (5): y  A 
R C
R
 C

x  2C 2
y
 
y  A  x B   
R  2K
R
 
y2
x2 C 2
 Ay  Bx 

R
R
K
2
C
x2  y 2 R2
(17)
 Ay  Bx 

R
K
R
R148
2
C
 Bx  Ay  R  0
(17) is a conic section of eccentricity e  A2  B 2 with directrix
K
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Kepler’s laws (1), (2), (3) as special cases of Newton’s law of
gravitation (12). Proving [(12)  (1)  (2)  (3)] (cont.):
Proving [(12)  (1)] (cont.d):
Plug (14) & (16) into (5) to get (1) (cont.d):
(1) as a special case of (17): (3) 
D  Bx  Ay  R
(17’)
[(17’) & A=0]  (1)
 [(12)  (1)]
directrix: D  ex  0
distance from origin/focus x0 , y0
D
x

to directrix:
e
149
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Newton (cont.d)
• Proof that Kepler’s laws are a special case of
Newton’s Gravitation law … (cont.d)
Derivation of Kepler’s laws (1), (2), (3) as special cases of Newton’s law of
gravitation (12). Proving [(12)  (1)  (2)  (3)] (cont.):
Proof of logical transitivity rule [a  b]  [b  c]  [a  c] used in
proving [(12)  (1)  (2)  (3)] :
[a  b]  [a  b]  a  b
[ b  c]  [b  c]  b  c
[a  b]  [b  c]  a  b  c
a  b  c  a  c
a  c  a  c  a  c
150
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Other developments
• Gilbert’s great book on the magnet
• Harvey’s discovery of circulation of the blood
• Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of spermatoza and
protozoa (unicellular organisms), and even bacteria
• Boyle’s Law that in a given quantity of gas at a given
temperature, pressure is inversely proportional to
volume.
• Napier’s invention of logarithms
• Development of coordinate geometry, mainly by
Descartes
• Invention of the differential and integral calculus by
Newton and Leibniz independently of each other,151the
instrument for almost all higher mathematics
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Other developments (cont.d)
• Complete transformation in the outlook of educated
men away from witchcraft trials and viewing comets
as portents
 After publication of Newton’s Principia, it was known that
he and Haley had calculated the orbits of certain comets
which behaved as obediently as planets to the law of
gravitation
 The reign of law had established its hold on men’s
imaginations and made such things as magic and sorcery
incredible
152
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results
• Removal of animism from physics
 Greek animism
• For ancient Greeks the power of movement was a sign of life
• Common sense observation suggested that animals move
themselves while dead matter moves only when impelled by an
external force
• One of the soul’s functions according to Aristotle was to move the
animal’s body
• Ancient Greeks regarded the sun and planets as either gods or
regulated and moved by gods. Only Anaxagoras, Democritus and
the Epicurians thought otherwise
• Aristotle’s 47 or 55 unmoved movers were divine spirits, the
ultimate source of all the motion in the heavens. Left to itself any
inanimate body would soon become motionless; otherwise soul
needed to operate on matter
153
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results (cont.d)
• Removal of animism from physics (cont.d)
 The First Law of Motion changed this
• Lifeless matter will continue moving forever unless stopped by
some external cause
• External causes of change in motion are themselves material
• The solar system keeps going by its own laws, no outside
interference needed
• Even if the world had a beginning in time when God originally set
the universe working and decreed the law of gravitation,
everything went on by itself without further need of divine
intervention
154
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results (cont.d)
• Removal of purpose from science and the universe,
and of man as that purpose
 In the Medieval world
• the earth was the center of the heavens
• everything had a purpose concerned with man
• since Aristotle, purpose formed an intimate part of the conception
of science
 In the Newtonian world
• the earth was a minor part of a
• not specially distinguished star, and
• purpose was thrust out of scientific procedure, and could no longer
enter into scientific explanations.
155
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results (cont.d)
• Revival of human pride
 In the ancient world, where
• mankind had been obsessed with a sense of sin
• humility before God was both right and prudent, for God would
punish pride
• calamities and comets plagued the gloomy centuries and it was
felt that only greater and greater humility would avert these real or
threatened events
156
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results (cont.d)
• Revival of human pride (cont.d)
 in the 17th century, where
• it became impossible to remain humble when men were achieving
•
•
•
•
•
scientific and technical triumphs
“Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid at night. God said ‘Let Newton
be’, and all was light.”
the Tartars had been confined to Asia and the Turks stopped
being a menace.
comets had been humbled by Haley
Western Europeans controlled the Americas, were powerful in
India and Africa, respected in China, and feared in Japan
men felt themselves to be fine fellows, not the miserable sinners
they proclaimed themselves to be on Sundays
157
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results (cont.d)
• Departure of modern theoretical physics from the
Newtonian system
 The concept of “force”, prominent in the 17th century, is
superfluous. It is the (cause of) change in motion in the
Galilean and Newtonian worlds. Force is conceived
imaginatively as what we experience when we push or
pull.
• So, an objection to gravitation was that it was a “force” acting at a
distance needing what Newton thought was some medium by
which it was transmitted.
• The equations themselves do not need force, which is a mere
“physical” interpretation of an observable relation between
acceleration and relative position.
 To “interpret” that relation as due to the intermediacy of force
adds nothing to our knowledge
 Observation shows that planets have at all times an
acceleration towards the sun which varies inversely to the
square of their distance from it.
 The modern physicist states formulae that determine
158
accelerations without need of the concept of force which is the
faint ghost of the vitalist view.
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results (cont.d)
• Departure of modern theoretical physics from the
Newtonian system (cont.d)
 The concept of “force”, prominent in the 17th century, is
superfluous. It is the (cause of) change in motion in the
Galilean and Newtonian worlds. Force is conceived
imaginatively as what we experience when we push or
pull. (cont.d)
• Until the coming of quantum mechanics prompted some
modifications, the purport of Newton’s first two laws has been to
state the laws of dynamics in terms of accelerations.
• When the law of gravitation was amended by Einstein, it remained
a law dealing with accelerations.
• While the Conservation of Energy is a law dealing with velocities, it
is still accelerations that have to be used in calculations using it.
159
Rise of Modern Science: 17th Century Inaugurates Modern World(cont.d)
 Philosophical results (cont.d)
• Departure of modern theoretical physics from the
Newtonian system (cont.d)
 Abandonment of absolute space and time.
• Newton believed in space composed of points, and time
composed of instants, existing independently of the bodies
occupying them.
• If all motion is relative, the difference between the hypothesis that
the earth rotates and the hypothesis that the earth revolves is
purely verbal.
 But the question of absolute rotation still presents difficulties. If
the heavens revolve, then the stars move faster than light, and
that is considered impossible and therefore a reason for
rejecting the hypothesis.
 Most physicists accept the view that motion and space are
160
purely relative.
Foucault's pendulum was the first dynamic proof of the earth’s rotation in an easy-to-see experiment, and it created a sensation
in both the learned and everyday worlds. Animation of a Foucault pendulum, with the rotation rate greatly exaggerated. The green
trace shows the path of the pendulum bob over the ground, and the blue trace shows the path in a frame of reference rotating with
the plane of the pendulum. Animation of a Foucault pendulum, with the rotation rate greatly exaggerated. The green trace shows the
path of the pendulum bob over the ground, and the blue trace shows the path in a frame of reference rotating with the plane of the
pendulum. At either the North Pole or South Pole, the plane of oscillation of a pendulum remains fixed with respect to the fixed stars
while Earth rotates underneath it, taking one sidereal day to complete a rotation. So relative to Earth, the plane of oscillation of a
pendulum at the North or South Pole undergoes a full clockwise or counterclockwise rotation during one day, respectively. When a
Foucault pendulum is suspended on the equator, the plane of oscillation remains fixed relative to Earth. At other latitudes, the plane
of oscillation precesses relative to Earth, but slower than at the pole
Foucault’s pendulum demonstration of the earth’s rotation
Change of direction of the plane of swing
of the pendulum in angle per sidereal day
as a function of latitude. The pendulum
rotates in the anticlockwise (positive)
direction on the southern hemisphere and
in the clockwise (negative) direction on the
A Foucault pendulum at the north northern hemisphere. The only points
pole. The pendulum swings in the where the pendulum returns to its original
same plane as the Earth rotates
orientation after one day are the poles and
beneath it.
the equator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum
Animation of a Foucault pendulum
showing the direction of rotation on
the southern hemisphere. The rate
of rotation is greatly exaggerated. A
real Foucault pendulum, released
from rest, does not pass directly
over its equilibrium position as the
one in the animation does.
161
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co
mmons/a/a1/Foucault_pendulum_animat
ed.gif
Jesuits’ Grand Scientific Compromise in Beijing
Out of concern for orthodoxy both at the Vatican and in Beijing, Jesuits hid the heliocentric hypothesis of
the solar system from their translations of and commentaries on European astronomy, and just provided
means and techniques for more accurate observations and calculations for calendars and forecasts, and
ultimately divulged the heliocentric hypothesis as a mere heuristic device to arrive at accurate
calculations but at the cost of making European astronomy appear inconsistent with itself.
When the Jesuits first arrived in the late 1500’s, their cosmological basis was the Ptolemaic system as taught at
the Collegio Romano, but when they were commissioned to reform the Chinese calendar in 1629 they replaced it
with the Tychonic system. Tycho Brahe’s exceptionally accurate data represented a major achievement in
astronomical science, and on the basis of his observations Kepler determined the laws of planetary motion and
from these laws Newton derived the law of gravity.
The Jesuit introduction of European astronomical mathematics, calculating instruments, and plane and spherical
geometry was highly applicable to the adaptable nature of Chinese astronomy, and was enhanced by accurate
Chinese observations of stellar phenomena, novae, comets, and so on, dating back more than a millennium. The
pace with which these importations were accepted was due not only to their immediate and apparent usefulness,
but also to the existence of common astronomical techniques based on a “kernel” of common conceptions of
space and time, understood by both Chinese and Europeans. Science historian Jean-Claude Martzloff lists four
mutually acceptable propositions for Sino-Jesuit scientific exchange:
•Space and time were both deemed quantifiable on the basis of measurement and cataloging of celestial
positions.
•Eclipses of the sun and moon, ephemeredes of the sun, moon, and planets, solstices and equinoxes, and other
celestial phenomena, were considered mathematically predictable from computational techniques, using readymade computations (tables) and particular algorithmic prescriptions free from the hold of astrology.
•Criterion of validation of predictions hinged on the agreement between the result of predictive computations and
observation.
•The perfectibility of predictive systems, i.e. the possibility of reducing the margin of error between theoretical
162
predictions and real observations, was generally granted by the most influential astronomers.
Jesuits’ Grand Scientific Compromise in Beijing (cont.d)
Here are just a few of the many astronomical treatises and tables that were produced by the Jesuits. The Tianwen
lue 天文略 (Epitome of Questions on the Heavens, 1615) by Manuel Dias, which describe Galileo’s invention of
the telescope and the observations he reported; the Yuanjing shuo 远镜说 (Explanation of the Telescope, 1626) by
Adam Schall, containing the first account of the Tychonic world system, and the Cetian yueshuo 测天约说 (Brief
Explanation of the Measurement of the Heavens, 1628), which further discussed the system; Giacomo Rho’s
Celiang quanyi 测量全义 (Full Meaning of Mensuration, 1631), devoted to Tycho’s astronomical instruments;
celestial atlases such as the Chidao nanbei liang zongxing tu 赤道南北两总星图 (General Star Map of the
Northern and Southern Hemispheres Divided by the Equator, 1634); Jean-Francois Foucquet’s Lifa wenda 历法问
答 (Dialogue on Astronomy, 1712-16), introduced Copernican theory and elliptical orbits after 1757 when this was
allowed by the Church.
The reliance on foreign scientists to run the Bureau of Astronomy at the Imperial Board of Rites, let alone ones
who preached a heterodox sect, garnered bitter opposition. In 1657 Wu Mingxuan 吴明 (who had headed the
abolished Islamic section of the Bureau of Astronomy http://www.admin.ias.edu/hssem/pingyi.html), accused the
Bureau’s director, Johann Adam Schall von Bell, of faulty predictions. This accusation was dismissed, but in 1664
the anti-Christian, anti-Jesuit minister and businessman, Yang Guangxian 杨光先 re-instated Wu’s accusation of
Schall to the Board of Rites, specifically that Schall had deliberately chosen an inauspicious date for the funeral of
a Manchu prince, and succeeded in bringing the case to trial. Yang was no astronomer, and attacked Schall, his
assistants, and Western methods in general as contrary to the Confucian orthodoxy, an attack reminiscent of
those against Galileo and heliocentrism in 1632. (And as in Galileo’s case, little heed was paid to the fact that the
new system worked correctly).
The upshot of the trial was that Schall and several Chinese assistants were ordered to be executed by the Board
of Punishments, and Verbiest, Buglio, and Magalhaes sent into exile. Fate intervened when on the morning of
their execution the very next day, a huge earthquake struck north China, an event interpreted as a sign that the
sentence was unjust. Schall and the Jesuits were pardoned, and their methods officially confirmed. Tragically, the
163 of
Jesuits’ Chinese assistants were executed nonetheless. The incident is an illustration of the precarious position
anyone serving at court. (http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/exhibits/dragon_skies/index.htm)
Jesuits’ Grand Scientific Compromise in Beijing (cont.d)
From Nathan Sivin (Prof. Emeritus of Chinese Culture and History of Science, Univ. of Pennsylvania), Science in
Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Brookfield (Vermont) & Aldershot (UK): Variorum, Ashgate
Publishing, 1995, chapter 4 (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/cop.html):
”Historians generally claim that Chinese rejected the early fruits of modern science because of some intellectual or
linguistic failing, or a metaphysical indisposition. To the contrary, those best prepared to judge were quite
receptive. What matters more, certain key issues were so garbled in the process of transmission that no Chinese
could have comprehended them.
Jesuit missionaries, who alone were in a position to introduce contemporary scientific ideas into China before the
nineteenth century, were not permitted to discuss the concept of a sun-centered planetary system after 1616.
Because they wanted to honor Copernicus they characterized his world system in misleading ways. When a Jesuit
was free to correctly describe it in 1760, Chinese scientists rejected the heliocentric system because it
contradicted earlier statements about Copernicus. No European writer resolved their doubts by admitting that
some of the earlier assertions distorting Copernicus had been untrue.
The Jesuits were also unable to discuss the wider repercussions of the Scientific Revolution, in particular Galileo's
central idea that the only firm basis for knowledge of nature was the work of scientists themselves. The Church's
injunction of 1616 against the teaching of heliocentricism was meant to reject this notion. To the very end of the
Jesuit scientific effort in China, the rivalry between cosmologies was represented as between one astronomical
innovator and another for the most convenient and accurate methods of calculation, rather than between the
Scholastic philosopher and the mathematical and experimental scientist for the most fruitful approach to physical
reality. The character of early modern science was concealed from Chinese scientists, who depended on the
Jesuit writings. Many Chinese scientists were brilliant by any standard. As is easily seen from their responses to
the European science they knew, they would have been quite capable of comprehending modern science if their
introduction to it had not been both contradictory and trivial.
164
Jesuits’ Grand Scientific Compromise in Beijing (cont.d)
For most Chinese readers of the Jesuit astronomical treatises before the mid-eighteenth century, Copernicus'
historical position was clear. He was a vague but estimable figure of the Middle Ages whose work had been made
obsolete by Tycho Brahe. This consensus appears, for instance, in the Queries on Mathematical Astronomy (Li
hsueh i wen, 1693) of Mei Wen-ting (1633-1721), the most influential writer of his time on the subject. While
arguing that Western astronomy was as much a result of historical development as the Chinese art was, Mei
noted: "With the coming of Copernicus, there were some revisions to Ptolemy's methods. With the coming of
Tycho there was a great transformation of Copernicus' methods. The methods were now on the whole complete,
but the making of the telescope happened still later, and led through the accumulation of observations to
enhanced precision.
The heliostatic world model finally received a hearing in China from Michel Benoist (1715-1774), a very competent
astronomer. … Benoist was able to write on Copernican cosmology because the Church's formal ban on
discussion of heliocentricism ended in 1757. [Newtonian physics had to wait for yet one more century before being
introduced to China by protestant missionaries.] ... [But this only made the clergy even less welcome after the
poorly-prepared papal legate’s conduct during “the Rites Controversy” in 1706 and 1707 of asking] the Emperor to
stop siding with the Jesuits and making all too obvious [two things that ] had been decently concealed through the
seventeenth century: [(a) that Confucianism and its rituals are incompatible with Christianity
(http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/exhibits/dragon_skies/index.htm), and (b)] unlike the priests of other religions in China,
the missionaries were obedient agents of a foreign power whose royal patrons could wield them to subvert
imperial authority. [So, in the mean time, …] Benoist built fountains and ornamental waterworks to keep the
Emperor amused. …
165
Jesuits’ Grand Scientific Compromise in Beijing (cont.d)
Benoist did not attempt to prove the superiority of heliostatic cosmology. He simply asserted that it was the
only system in current use, its ultimate authority deriving from ‘more precise conformity to calculation.’ The ...
arguments ... were not meant to prove the Copernican doctrine, but merely to show that its conflict with
common sense and everyday observation is only apparent. Although Benoist was free to maintain that the
concept of a solar system was mathematically superior, he did not assert that it was physically true. … The
monarch (Ch'ien-lung) greeted Benoist's explication of the earth's motion with these words: ‘In Europe you
have your way of explaining the celestial phenomena. As for us, we have ours too, without making the earth
rotate.’ [Chinese calendrical astronomy thus remained a collection of computational techniques: the Chinese
approach to analysis of irregularities in the celestial motions only asserted ‘what it is appropriate for them to
be, and not why they are what they are.] If Ch'ien-lung was as usual smug and unimaginative [stating in his
letters that Western methods merely reflected refinement of earlier Chinese technique
(http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/exhibits/dragon_skies/index.htm)], the Chinese members of the Directorate of
Astronomy (who for centuries had been mostly careerists rather than expert astronomers) saw Copernicanism
merely as a threat to their undemanding sinecures. As Benoist put it in 1767, ‘our Chinese mathematicians do
not approve of all these changes. They have often heard of the movement of the earth. The tables that our
missionaries have given them, and that they use in their calculations, are founded upon this system. But
although they make use of the consequences, they still have not admitted the principle. Perhaps they fear
that, this hypothesis once favorably received by the emperor, they might be obliged to adopt it themselves.’ ...
Not until the mid-nineteenth century, when Protestant missionaries’ translated modern textbooks and used
them to train professional astronomers who had no stake in the old society, did Chinese have an opportunity
to accept post-Newtonian cosmology as one of the foundations of science.” As cited at Beijing Ancient
Observatory, Li Shanlan 李善兰 (1815-82) was the first to make Western astronomy widely known in China by
publishing in 1859 a Chinese translation, in cooperation with protestant missionary, Alexander Wylie, of Sir
166
John Herschel’s Outlines of Astronomy and by publishing Talking about the Skies in 18 volumes.
Unawareness of Newton weakened China militarily and
industrially & was due to the Qing emperors’ rejection of
Kepler’s heliocentric “theory” known to the Jesuits.
In Brett D. Steele and Tamera Dorland, Eds. The Heirs of Archimedes: Science and the Art of War through the
Age of Enlightenment [Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2005] Steele’s concluding essay on … “Military
‘progress’ and Newtonian science in the age of Enlightenment” … essentially [counters] Ken Alder’s 1997 book on
the alleged technological shortcomings of the reform ideas of the French artillery theorist, Jean-Baptiste
Gribeauval (1715-1789) [Ken Alder, Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997)] … Steele argues that historians must judge technical applications at
the time in terms of eighteenth-century rational mechanics, experimental physics, and military practice … Steele
provides an overview of the impact of Newtonian physics on the high-level mathematics of ballistics theory
(principally differential and non-linear differential equations) and the ensuing incorporation of these new ideas into
the curriculum of military schools, especially on the subject of artillery. Central to this process was the work of
Benjamin Robins (1707-1751), a mathematical disciple of Newton, and the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler
(1707-1783). Gribeauval’s ideas thus proved very derivative, though nonetheless significant, in advancing the
place of Newtonian science and the calculus in formal military education. Steele [claims] that this
“intellectualization of artillery technology in terms of the” mechanical philosophy of the Scientific Revolution
[resulted in] Western military domination in the modern era [& thereby] resurrects old chestnuts about Oriental
backwardness. http://www.h-france.net/vol5reviews/wolfe4.html
In their book Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851 [Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004], Margaret C. Jacob and Larry Stewart examine the profound
transformation that began in 1687. From the year when Newton published his Principia to the Crystal Palace
Exhibition of 1851, science gradually became central to Western thought and economic development. The book
aims at a general audience and examines how, despite powerful opposition on the Continent, a Newtonian
understanding gained acceptance and practical application. By the mid-eighteenth century the new science had
achieved ascendancy, and the race was on to apply Newtonian mechanics to industry and manufacturing. Jacob
and Stewart show that there was nothing preordained or inevitable about the centrality awarded to science. "It is
easy to forget that science might have been stillborn, or remained the esoteric knowledge of court elites. Instead,
for better and for worse, science became a centerpiece of Western culture.“
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http://books.google.com/books?id=3qEVCg44RoAC&dq=newtonian+physics+industry+military&ie=ISO-88591&output=html&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0
Chinese Astronomy & Mathematics Characterized by a Philosophical Aversion to 1st Principles
[Chinese astronomers] had a large mass of observational data, yet never used it to deduce mathematical theories
about the movement of planets and comets similar to what Kepler, Newton and others did in Europe. Newton's
Principia was written a few generations after the introduction of the telescope, which makes it seductively simple
to believe that the theory of universal gravity was somehow the logical conclusion of telescopic astronomy. Yet this
is not at all the case. What would have happened if the telescope had been invented in China? Would we then
have had a Chinese Newton? This is impossible to say for certain, of course, but I doubt it. Chinese culture never
placed much emphasis on law, either in human form, as in secular Roman law, natural law or divine law. If the
Chinese had invented the telescope, I suspect they would have used it to study comets, craters on the Moon etc.,
which would clearly have been valuable, no doubt. Any culture that used telescopes would have generated new
knowledge with the device, but not necessarily a law of universal gravity.
In his excellent book Cosmos, John North points out that in China, where astronomy was intimately connected
with government and civil administration, interest in cosmological matters was not markedly scientific in the
Western sense of the word and did not develop any great deductive system of a character such as we meet in
Aristotle or Ptolemy. Page 136: "The great scholar we know as Confucius (551 BC-478 BC) did nothing to help
this situation – if in fact it needed help. Primarily a political reformer who wished to ensure that the human world
mirrored the harmony of the natural world, he wrote a chapter on their relation, but it was soon lost, and a number
of stories told of him give him a reputation for having no great interest in the heavens as such….The all-pervading
Chinese view of nature as animistic, as inhabited by spirits or souls, gave to their astronomy a character not
unknown in the West, but at a scholarly level made it markedly less well structured.” He adds on page 139 that
"Unlike Platonic and Aristotelian thought, Chinese thought was not overtly philosophical, but rather, it was
historical. Joseph Needham, a well-known authority on the history of science in China, has suggested that the
reason for this is that Chinese religion had no lawgiver in human guise, so that the Chinese did not naturally think
in terms of laws of nature.“
The Imperial bureaucracy was hampered by many obstacles to the free and unfettered pursuit of scientific
knowledge, especially due to excessive secrecy and regulation in the study of mathematics and astronomy. By
making this study a state secret, Chinese authorities drastically reduced the number of scholars who could,
legitimately or otherwise, study astronomy. This restriction greatly reduced the availability of the best and latest
astronomical instruments and observational data. The Rise of Early Modern Science, second edition, by Toby E.
Huff, page 313: "The fact remains that virtually every move made by the astronomical staff had to be approved by
the emperor before anything could be done, before modifications in instrumentation or traditional recoding
procedures could be put into effect. It is not surprising, therefore, that despite the existence of a bureau of
astronomers staffed by superior Muslim astronomers (since 1368), Arab astronomy (based as it was on Euclid and
Ptolemy) had no major impact on Chinese astronomy, so that three hundred years later when the Jesuits arrived
in China, it appeared that Chinese astronomy had never had any contact with Euclid's geometry and
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Ptolemy's Almagest.
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25642-western-civilization-science-newton-china

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



Francis Bacon
was precursor of British experimentalism
was founder of modern inductive method
was logical systematizer of scientific procedure
was son of Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
entered Parliament at age 25
was advisor to king’s Prime Minister until the
Prime Minister fell so far out of favor that
continued loyalty would have been treasonable
 was never completely in the favor of Queen
Elizabeth I
 under King James acquired his father’s office of
169
Keeper of the Great Seal
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 was Lord Chancellor for 2 years until tried for
accepting bribes from litigants
• Every judge accepted payments
 often from both sides
 enabling the judge to show virtue by not being influenced by
them
• He pleaded it never influenced his decisions
• He was banished from public life, spending the rest of
his days writing important books
 was morally an average man
 died of a chill caught while experimenting on
refrigeration by stuffing a chicken full of snow 170
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 wrote The Advancement of Learning which
• popularized the saying “Knowledge is power”
• proposed to give mastery over nature by means of
scientific discoveries and inventions
• urged keeping philosophy separated from theology,
while
 saying philosophy should depend only on reason
 accepting orthodox religion, and
 believing religion could prove the existence of God, but
• the rest of theology is known only by revelation, and
• indeed faith triumphs greatest when the dogma appears most
absurd to the unaided reason, and
 accepting the Averroist doctrine of “double truth”, of reason
on the one hand and of revelation on the other,condemned
by the Church because the triumph of the faith (over
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reasoned doctrine, for example) was a dangerous device
to
the orthodox
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 wrote The Advancement of Learning which (cont.d)
• offered a better method of induction than induction by
simple enumeration:
 Characteristics experimentally coextensive with a given
characteristic serve to (lawfully) define it.
• Confirmation as extension is widened, or other qualities get
included, into general laws.
• This is classificationist, taxonomical, non-mathematical, nonmechanistic.
 An observation decisive between two theories is a
“prerogative” (falsifying) instance
 But on balance the method is confirmationist,
constructionist, for seeking ever greater scope and
uncritical data-inclusion, and not refutationist for especially
seeking/valuing the rare, critical, singular piece of data that
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disproves, deconstructs a general hypothesis
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 wrote The Advancement of Learning which (cont.d)
• despised the (too narrow/rigid) syllogism for being
deduction and
 undervalued mathematics for presumably involving no
experimental “observation”, and
 was therefore hostile to Aristotle, but for deductivism and
teleology, but not for taxonomism and
 therefore embraced Democritus for atomism and multiplicity
• rejected teleology in favor of explanation exclusively
from efficient (immediate) causes
• interested in the arranging the observational data on
which science is supposed to be based, in the
manner
 neither of spiders who spin (generate)
 nor of ants who merely accumulate
 but of bees who arrange
173
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 wrote The Advancement of Learning which (cont.d)
• proposed four “Idols”, or bad habits of the mind,
possibly modeled after Roger Bacon’s 4 causes of
ignorance in his Opus Majus
 Francis Bacon considered Roger Bacon an exceptional
figure among the Schoolmen for setting aside the scholastic
disputations of his times and engaging in the mechanical
understanding of the secrets of nature (according to
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/roger-bacon/)
Roger Bacon’s 4 Causes
 Francis Bacon’s 4 Idols, of the:
.
of Ignorance
Tribe
Cave
Marketplace (tyranny of words)
Theater (received systems of thought)
Opinions of unlearned crowd
Own apparent wisdom
Influence of custom
Unsuited authority
174
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 rejected the Copernican hypothesis
• for which Copernicus advanced no strong empirical
arguments
• but for which Kepler advanced solid theory, then
empirical support,
 but trial and error of theory first, not induction
 theory inspired not by data, but by Plato’s geometry of the
5 solids.
 admired Gilbert whose science of magnetism
was a product of inductive method
 was unaware of work on the human body’s
circulatory system by his own physician Harvey,
who
• published it after Bacon died, and who
• had no high opinion of Bacon
175
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 in his inductive method committed the error of
ignoring the generative role of hypothesis
• Orderly arrangement/classification of data doesn’t
itself fully generate/reflect a matching orderly
arrangement of concepts in a hypothesis
• No rule has ever been found for automatic
extraction/production of hypotheses from data
• Multiplicity of facts can be baffling: hypothesis is
necessary for selecting the relevant facts
• Data mining
 can handle multiplicity but proposes only correlations
(“simple enumeration”) without selecting which of the
variables are explanatory
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 doesn’t select which multiplicity of data is gathered
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 in his inductive method committed the error of
ignoring the generative role of hypothesis (cont.d)
• A testable consequence is often several deductive
mathematical steps away from the hypothesis and
 only that consequence’s refutation disproves the hypothesis
(thanks to especially valuable and infrequent refuting data),
but
 the testable consequence’s truth does not confirm the
hypothesis, only evidences it (in confirming data, less
valuable for being so abundant).
177
Francis Bacon (cont.d)
 in his inductive method committed the error of
ignoring the generative role of hypothesis (cont.d)
• John Stuart Mill in his “four” canons (same number as
Francis Bacon’s Idols, or Roger Bacon’s causes of
ignorance) of inductive method assumed the
hypothesis of causality, and therefore the designation
of “explanatory” versus “explained” variables. Method
of
 agreement (in one instance): coincidence of occurrence
 difference (in one instance): coincidence of non-occurrence
of one with occurrence of the other
 agreement & difference (in multiple instances)
 subtraction/elimination of known correlateds: to determine
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the relation among the remainder of variables