Chapter 14

1. Chapter 14 • The Scientific Revolution was founded on the idea of acquiring knowledge through skepticism, experimentation, and reasoning based on observed facts.

2. Questioning Truth and Authority • The Old View • The Earth-Centered Universe • The earth rested at the center of an unchanging universe. • Undermining the Old View • Hermetic Doctrine • All matter contained the divine spirit, which humans ought to seek to understand. • It held that the sun was the most important agency for transmission of the divine spirit, and occupied the center of the universe.

3. Questioning Truth and Authority • Exploration • Geographic exploration during the Renaissance upset traditional assumptions • Overseas voyages stimulated demand for new instruments, precise measurements for navigation, and encouraged research, especially in astronomy and mathematics. • The Printing Press • The printing press enabled even out-of-favor scholars to publish their findings, which spread new ideas and discoveries.

4. Chapter 14 • European scientists uncovered new information about the world around them and different ways of looking at the universe, and embarked on a search for knowledge without limits.

5. Developing a modern Scientific View • Astronomy and Physics: From Copernicus to Newton • Nicolaus Copernicus • A polish clergyman – he crossed the Alps to study in an Italian university. • He sought a simpler mathematical formulation to explain how the universe operated. • He believed that at the center is the sun, circled by the earth and other planets. • Tycho Brahe • He persuaded the king of Denmark to build for him the most advanced astronomy laboratory in Europe.

6. Developing a modern Scientific View • Tycho Brahe (cont.) • He recorded thousands of unusually accurate, detailed observations abouth the planets and stars over a period of 20 years all without a telescope. • Johannes Kepler • Believed in an underlying mathematical harmony of mystical significance to the physical universe. • He founded the three laws of planetary motion. • Galileo Galilei • He formulated the principle of inertia, showing that bodies, once set into motion, will tend to stay in motion.

7. Developing a modern Scientific View • Isaac Newton • He developed calculus and investigated the nature of light. • Newton’s Principia • He formulated and mathematically described three laws of motion: inertia, acceleration, and action/reaction. • The law of universal attraction, or gravitation

8. Developing a modern Scientific View • The Revolution Spreads: Medicine, Anatomy, and Chemistry • Paracelsus • A teacher and wandering practitioner, he treated patients, experimented with chemicals, recorded his observations, and developed new theories. • He encouraged research and experimentation to find natural remedies for bodily disorders. • Andreas Vesalius • Wrote the first comprehensive textbook on the structure of the human body. • He dissected cadavers and became the personal physician to Emperor Charles V.

9. Developing a modern Scientific View • William Harvey • He dissected hundreds of animals, and discovered that the human heart worked like a pump, with valves that allowed blood to circulate through the body. • Antonie van Leeuwenhoek • The chief pioneer in the use of the microscope • Robert Boyle • He argued that all matter was composed of indestructible atoms that behaved in predictable ways. • The Methodology of Science Emerges

10. Developing a modern Scientific View • Francis Bacon • He believed that science would benefit commerce and industry and improve the human condition by giving people unprecedented power over their environment. • Rene Descartes • In 1637, he published his philosophy and scientific methodology in the Discourse on Method. • He questioned all forms of authority • “I think, therefore I am”

11. Chapter 14 • Scientists relied upon interaction with colleagues and the support of patrons to build upon and spread the ideas the ideas of the Scientific Revolution.

12. Supporting and Spreading Science • Courts and Salons • The Rise of Royal Societies • Religion and the New Science • The New Worldview • The Copernican-Newtonian Paradigm • The earth, along with the planets, moved around the sun in an infinite universe of other similar bodies. • The natural order consisted of matter in motion, acting according to mathematically expressible laws. • Scientific truths came from observing, measuring, experimenting, and making reasoned conclusions through the use of sophisticated mathematics.

13. Chapter 14 • As Europeans applied these scientific ideas about the acquisition of knowledge to other disciplines, a new way of thinking that emphasized reason emerged and characterized the cultural movement known as the Enlightenment.

14. Laying the Foundations for the Enlightenment • Science Popularized • Teaching Science • In 1761, scientific ideas were being taught to children of the middle and upper classes. • Glorifying Newton: Reason and Nature • Enlightenment thinkers saw this brilliant Englishman as the great synthesizer of the scientific revolution • The Psychology of John Locke • Applied scientific thinking to human psychology • Pictured the human brain at birth as a blank sheet of paper that sensory perception and reason filled as a person aged.

15. Laying the Foundations for the Enlightenment • Skepticism and Religion • Pierre Bayle • The leading proponent of skepticism in the late seventeenth century • David Hume • He insisted that nothing could be known for sure. • Reality consisted only of human perceptions

16. Laying the Foundations for the Enlightenment • Broadening Criticism of Authority and Tradition • Travel Writings of Montesquieu and Voltaire • Used comparisons of place and time to criticize authority and tradition during the early decades of the eighteenth century • History and Progress • The tools of science and reason enabled people to surpass their historical predecessors. • History became a story of human progress, and people living in the eighteenth century stood on the brink of unprecedented historical achievements.

17. Chapter 14 • Using nature as a guide for thought and society, Enlightenment thinkers came into conflict with established ideas, religions, and institutions, and suggested avenues of reform.

18. The Enlightenment in Full Stride • The Philosophes • Voltaire • Imprisoned in the Bastille for writing verses that criticized the crown • Emilie du Chatelet • Voltaire lived openly with Chatelet and her husband. • Chatelet helped Voltaire gain a better understanding of the sciences and their significance. • The Encyclopedia • Battling the Church

19. The Enlightenment in Full Stride • Deism • An impersonal, infinite Divine Being created the universe but did not interfere with the world of human affairs • Reforming Society • Political Thought: Montesquieu and Rousseau • Montesquieu argued that political institutions should conform to the climate, customs, beliefs, and economy of a particular country. • Rousseau argued that people in the “primitive” state of “noble savagery” were free, equal, and relatively happy. • Economic Ideas: The Physiocrats and Adam Smith • Economics had its own set of natural laws – supply and demand

20. The Enlightenment in Full Stride • Criminology, Penology, and Slavery • Beccaria thought criminal law should strive to deter crime and rehabilitate criminals rather than merely punish wrongdoers • Abbe Guillaume Raynal argued practices of European and American colonists were irrational and inhumane • Education • Many Enlightenment thinkers based their ideas on the psychological ideas of John Locke, which emphasized the power of education to mold the child into the adult. • The “Woman Question” • Questioned the inequality of men’s and women’s roles

21. The Enlightenment in Full Stride • The Culture and Spread of the Enlightenment • Salon Meetings • Meetings were hosted by wealth Parisian patrons, usually women of the aristocracy or upper-middle class • They gathered regularly to read, listen to, and debate the ideas of the Enlightenment • Bookstores • Bookstores became hotbeds of Enlightenment ideas