New
thinking about science (“natural philosophy”) slightly anticipated the rise
of the new ideas in statecraft that were the focus of previous lectures
(Mercantilist, “politique” and Absolutist concepts). And these new modes of scientific reasoning had an important
influence on thinking about the power of kings and the State.
But
new ways of looking at science also influenced the social and political
theorists of the Enlightenment, whose arguments would challenge and help to
undermine the power claims of Europe’s Kings .
Coffin
identifies 3 major changes associated with the Scientific Revolution of the
1500s and 1600s:
1)
the shift
to seeing the Sun (and not the Earth) as the center of the universe;
2)
the
development of a mathematically-based physics to explain how this
re-conceptualized universe works;
3)
and the
working out of a “scientific method” that could be used both to describe and
to predict the behavior of the natural world.
I
would stress even more than Coffin that these developments helped shift the
“center” of attention of European thought away from religion:
the Earth was pushed from the center of Universe, and with it, God was
pushed from the center of thinking about nature.
That
is not the same thing as saying that the scientific revolution was
“atheistic,” nor even principally “secular”—Copernicus, Kepler,
Galileo, Newton and other major figures in the new science were deeply religious
people who believed that they were describing God’s grand plan.
But
by exposing the workings of nature as following rules—“laws”—that people
can figure out and understand, the new science helped to re-imagine God as (to
use Newton’s metaphor) a great clock maker, who made the clock (the universe)
so that it would work according to certain rules, then set the clock running and
stood back to watch it run.
Also,
one of the principles of the new science was that understanding the laws that
govern nature can help you understand how to manipulate and transform the
natural world more effectively (here is the link between science and
technology).
Two
things to keep in mind:
A)
The “big” steps in the scientific revolution did not “just happen”--it
had roots; also, it did not happen all at once—it was a long, drawn out series
of many accumulated discoveries and theories.
B)
Scientific thinking did not (and has not) completely replaced magically thinking
and other forms of non-scientific “reasoning.”
Again,
we need to understand that the “scientific revolution” is related to ideas
we have talked about already and ideas we will discuss next:
Link
to mercantilism and absolutism: Once
the basic “method” of scientific thinking began to establish itself among
the educated elite and wielders of power in Europe, it helped promote the
“rationalist” “reason of
state” ideas that we discussed earlier.
Link
to the Enlightenment: New science
thinking also led to the idea that human society, like nature, followed laws
that could be observed, defined, and explained. Enlightenment thinkers, building from the scientific
approach, concluded that if you can use knowledge of nature to improve on
nature, then you could also use knowledge of mankind to improve society.
Background: The scientific revolution did not “come out of nowhere”
In the 1700s Enlightenment thinkers had imagined the medieval world as steeped in ignorance (they thought that between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance the world had lost all of the culture of the ancient Romans and Greeks); for a long time historians were influenced by this view, and treated the Scientific Revolution as a very sudden and dramatic break with all medieval thought.
But
in the late 20th century, historians “pushed back” the origins of
scientific into the late middle ages, as far back as the 1100s, when Catholic
clerics and artists both began giving attention to “rediscovered” classical
texts and learning.
According
to medieval thinkers who combined Classical and Christian ideas, the universe
was hierarchical (like the society of the era): they often described it as a giant ladder from Hell, to
Earth, to Heaven. They believed
that Earth stood motionless at the center of the universe; seven planets
(counting the Moon and the Sun) revolved around the Earth in perfect circular
orbits and at uniform speeds, each on its own crystal sphere; the stars moved
around the Earth on an 8th crystal sphere;
a 9th Heavenly sphere lay beyond the stars; an outermost 10th
sphere, the Empyrean, surrounded everything else and was the location of God and
the angels.
In
this conception of nature, everything on Earth was made of 4 elements that
constantly mixed together and changed: earth,
water, air, and fire; everything in the other, heavenly spheres was made of
“ether”—a perfect, pure, incorruptible and unchanging element that could
not be found on earth. This
conception of nature fit both with the ancient teachings of Aristotle and with
the theology of the Church.
Early
examples of “new” thinking: As
early as the 1300s, some European philosophers began to argue that there was a
difference between the study of nature and the study of theology—that humans
could not know the mind of God (although “reveled” truth and faith could
bring man closer to God), but man could learn the laws that govern nature.
In
the late 1300s and early 1400s, Renaissance scholars studying the Classical
world helped to revive interest in the mathematical (especially geometric) works
of the Egyptian Hermes and the Greeks Archimedes, Pythagoras and Ptolemy (who
had used math to explain why the “odd” orbits of the planets did not behave
as Aristotle had said they should).
Along
with this new interest in mathematics, Renaissance craftsmen began applying
mathematics to new technologies, such as lens grinding (for optics), which made
possible the new science of Astronomy. It was in the new study of Astronomy that
science had its most significant early breakthroughs—although few of them had
immediate impact.
The Science that led the way: new ideas about Astronomy in the 1500s and early 1600s:
At
the dawn of the 1500s, Nicholas Copernicus used mathematics to determine that
the Sun was not a planet and that the Earth was a planet—and that the earth
and the planets orbited around the Sun. He
did not publish his conclusions until the 1540s. The implications of this idea, that the Earth revolved around
the sun (which is where we get the word “Revolution”), were huge:
it implied that God had not put MAN at the center of the universe,
either.
In
the three generations after Copernicus, other astronomers punched more holes in
Aristotle’s universe, observing new stars (which meant that the heavens were
NOT unchanging), determining that planets orbited in ellipses (not
perfect circles) each at its own speed (not at a fixed speed).
Most
famously, in the early 1600s Galileo Galilei combined the use of a telescope to
collect new observational data with the use of mathematics to explain that data:
with these methods, he documented craters on the moon and other evidence
that the heavens were not made of perfectly smooth, unchanging, un-corruptible
ether; moons orbiting Jupiter, which further “de-throned” the Earth as the
only center of the universe; his observations and calculations supported
Copernicus—the earth moved around the sun and not visa versa.
Added
together on top of previous new findings (of Copernicus, Brahe, and Keppler),
Galileo’s claims constituted an attack at the very basis of the Catholic
Church’s established Aristotle-based conception of nature.
As we all know, this brought Galileo into conflict with the Church, and
he eventually “recanted.”
But by combining observation (data gathering), the use of mathematics to develop a theory to explain the data, and experimentation to test his theories, Galileo had not only helped to shatter the old conjunction of “religious truth” and “science”—he had helped to create the modern Scientific Method.
Science and Epistemology: Bacon and Descartes
What
we call “Science” was understood in the Early Modern era to be a branch of
Philosophy—natural philosophy. But
new scientific discoveries also led to much rethinking in the branch of
Philosophy known as “Epistemology”—the study of how we know what we know.
Two
major schools of thinking about the methods of Natural Philosophy (science) and
Epistemology emerged in the 1600s. One
of these is generally associated with England, and is often called as
“Empiricism” or inductive method; the other, which held more sway on the
continent, is often called “Cartesian” or deductive method.
As
Coffin explains, in the early 1600s English philosopher Sir Frances Bacon argued
that humans learn of the world by collecting information through their senses
(by observation). They then use
their intellect to draw logical conclusions to explain the “data” that they
gather through observation.
This
is called “Empiricism” because it holds that uncovering truth requires the
collection of “empirical” evidence (rather than pure reason or pure logic);
the method of “lining up the physical facts” to reach a conclusion is called
“induction” or inductive reasoning.
Bacon
and his followers argued that such a method would lead to the discovery of
“useful” and “practical” knowledge that would help humans control and
shape their environment.
Bacon’s
views were elaborated by a series of other British philosophers:
in regard to Epistemology, the most important was John Locke, who we most
often think of as a political philosopher (e.g., his “contract theory” of
government). In 1690, in his
“Essay on Human Understanding,” Locke argued that human beings are born
“blank slates,” with no “innate” ideas; all we know, all we learn, is
derived from experience, from the senses. This view of knowledge, which was closely tied to an approach
to answering scientific questions, would also prove extremely influential to new
thinking about “social science.”
In
contrast to the approach of Bacon and the Empiricists was the view of French
philosopher René Descartes, who
also lived and wrote in the early 1600s. Descartes
argued that our understanding of the world came through application of
reason—pure logic.
In
his essay “A Discourse on Method” (1637), Descartes argued that all ideas
must be subjected to critical examination (instead of taking any idea as a
“given”), that this examination must be based upon reason, and that it
required establishing a “first principle”—a the thing that he could know
with certainty—from which other arguments could be built. Descartes’ first principle was that he himself existed.
As Descartes put it, “I think, therefore I am.”
From
that starting point, he argued, one could “reason outward” to determine
other principles on the basis of pure logic and mathematics.
For Descartes, this meant that science could be freed from other
philosophical concerns, such as morality: instead,
it would be the realm of things that can be calculated.
Descartes approach to problem solving is often described as “deductive
reasoning.”
The
difference between the Cartesian and Empiricist method can be put simply:
The Cartesians argued that truths could be
established through mathematics/logical calculations, and that the observed
world would behave in the ways described by the math—their aim was to find the
logical laws that governed systems;
The Baconians/Empiricists argued that you must begin
with observations of reality (observational and experimental data), then use
reason and math to describe and explain what had been observed—their aim was
describing and explaining that which was observed.
A New Metaphor and a New Scientific Community
One
of the many things that the Cartesians and the Empiricists had in common is that
most used a new metaphor to describe nature: the machine.
The
metaphors that philosophers used to describe man, nature, and society previous
to the scientific revolution tended to be hierarchical and
“organic”—society, for instance, was described in terms of
patriarchal family relations (the state as a family), and the universe was
described in a similar fashion.
In
the mid-to-late 1600s, the metaphor became the machine—each element of nature,
according to many “natural philosophers” could be understood as a machine
with particular functions, and all these machines behaved according to
(followed) the same fundamental laws of nature.
Descartes, for instance, saw humans as “machines with reason.”
Robert Hooke described the orbits of the planets as “machine like.”
William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood, for instance,
was based upon the idea that the heart works like a machine—a pump.
According
to the most important scientist of the period, Isaac Newton, described God as a
great and mysterious machine builder, who for reasons beyond the grasp of man
had designed the universe to work according to certain “laws” then set the
machine in motion.
And,
as I have suggested, the language used to describe the State also became
“mechanistic” by the early 1700s (see notes on week 1 and week 2 lectures).
In
addition to a new metaphor, the new natural philosophers also had in common a
new kind of scientific community. Scientists
who worked in Universities as well as non-university researchers now shared
their discoveries through the meetings and publications of various “scientific
academies,” like the Royal Society in England created in the 1660s, the French
Royal Academy of Sciences formed a few years later, and then similar societies
in Prussia, in northern Italy, and in Russia (Peter the Great’s Russian
Imperial Academy of Sciences was founded in 1725).
These
academies had several important functions that changed the nature of science.
First, they established a strong link between the State and new science, since
the State was often the sponsor of their research activities and publications.
(In a sense, they were early examples of the modern research “think
tank.”)
Second, they provided a new process for judging the quality of
research—scientists who presented their research to the academies for
discussion and publication had to produce their “proof”—their evidence and
their calculations—which would be reviewed by other experts on the topic.
This is the way that modern scholarship is evaluated.
Third, their publications and meetings became venues for the popularization of
scientific discoveries to a broader audience.
And finally, they created interlocking “communities” of scientists, who
shared discoveries across national borders (which is crucial if science is going
to thrive).
In
some regards these scientific societies were the grandfathers of the
“Salons” of the 1700s, the gathering places where educated people met to
discuss the ideas of the Enlightenment—certainly the communities of scientists
can be seen as part of the expanding “public sphere” of the early modern
era.
Putting all the bits of the New Science together—Newton
Coffin’s excellent summary of the life and work of Isaac Newton explains that Newton fused the Empiricists concern for observation and experimentation with the Cartesian’s mastery of pure mathematics. Perhaps the best example of Newton’s method of using reason and mathematics to explain the laws that govern observed phenomenon was his invention of Calculus, so that he would have a form of mathematics that allowed him to work on the problem of explaining the planets’ irregular elliptical orbits (his results finally killed off any idea that the Earth was the center of the universe).
That’s
right—you have Isaac Newton to blame for your Calculus homework.
Newton,
as you have read, published crucial research on topics ranging from Optics to
Astronomy. (And spent most of his
time studying topics that we now consider un-scientific, like alchemy and
theology.)
But
his most important “discoveries” concerned the laws that govern motion and
gravity.
Newton’s
three laws regarding motion are fundamental to the way that we understand the
physical world:
1)
Inertia:
a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by a force; a body
in rectilinear motion will remain in motion along the same path and a the same
velocity unless acted upon by a force.
2)
A given
force produces a measurable change in a body’s velocity, and any change in a
body’s velocity is proportional to the force acting upon it.
3)
For every
action or force there is an equal and opposite reaction or force.
These
three laws, Newton argued, explain how gravity works—every particle of mater
in the universe, regardless of how small or large exerts an attractive force on
every other particle in the universe. The
strength of that force is inverse to (increases or decrease based upon) the
square of the distance between the two particle (the distance multiplied by
itself), and proportional to their masses.
(Here
is an example: Jupiter has a much
greater mass than the Earth, and therefor has much “greater” gravitational
pull. But because our Moon is so
close to the Earth and so far from Jupiter, the force on the Moon of Earth’s
gravity is greater than is the force of Jupiter’s gravity. That’s why our mood orbits the Earth, and does not orbit
Jupiter....)
Newton
argued—and provided both mathematical and observational proof—that these
laws applied to everything in the universe.
Why does an apple that fall to the ground?
Gravity
means that the apple, which has a small mass, is pulled toward the earth, which
has a large mass [the earth is pulled to the apple, too, but because of the
proportions of the two masses, the pull exerted by the apple is so small as to
be un-noticed]. Why do the Earth
and other planets orbit the Sun? Because
of gravity.
Again,
Newton’s universe was a giant complex machine with all of the components
working according to the same laws of motion and gravity, which could be
explained by mathematics.
Conclusions:
New thinking about science had dramatic applications and implications that helped change European (and world) life.
Perhaps
the most obvious implications were “practical”—the new science gave humans
new tools for understanding how nature works and for creating technologies that
allow us to alter or control nature. As
Coffin points out, Newton’s laws helped engineers design machines (bridges,
buildings, etc.), helped predict tides, draw maps, etc.
But
there is another, less obvious impact: it
introduced a method of solving problems that has changed the way that we think
about society as well as nature. The
new scientific method combined the collection of evidence with the application
of reason to solve problems—you collect data, propose an argument that
explains that data, construct a mathematical or logical proof of that argument
and expose the explanation to experimental tests for verification.
A successful theory (scientists call them Laws) will allow you to predict
how a phenomenon will behave.
From
this Scientific Revolution—this revolution in thinking—it was not such a
great leap to wondering—can we establish the laws that govern how human
societies behave (can we understand social sciences), and if we can reveal these
laws, can we then use them to make human life better? This was the question posed by the Enlightenment.
In
the 1700s, many (but not all!) of Europe’s philosophers, scholars, and social
thinkers, were strongly influenced by a body of ideas that people at the time
and since have described as “the Enlightenment.”
What
Enlightenment thinkers had in common was that they (like Descartes) believed in
“systematic doubt”—that everything must be subjected to the critical light
of reason, and that no ideas or opinions or traditions should be accepted
without first proving their accuracy and worth.
Most
Enlightenment thinkers saw themselves as rejecting the “medieval” view of
the world: they believed that
reason was the path to Truth, which could not be reached by theology (or divine revelation, or the guidance of priests).
They also rejected the Christian view that people were inherently depraved. Humans have reason, they argued, and human behavior follows laws just as nature follows laws.
CONTINUED
NEXT WEEK