6B Who Did Science Saturday December 08 2012 8 23 PM Who was actually thinking about and doing the work of natural philosophy and science Aristocrats Beyond personalities what was the significance of who they were for contemporaries and us today They were significant because they were the first to go outside of what was sociably accepted religion and gods to explain nature and only use reasoning of what they could observe in the world around them to answer the question why Only using reasoning and things they could prove by fact could be accepted This lead the way for people to challenge the beliefs of the Catholic Church and to want to understand exactly how the cosmos formed moved and where humans lied in creation It allowed for advancements in medicine because of allowing for dissection and not assuming natural causes as the reasons for death or sickness 6B Page 1 7B Scientific Revolution Saturday December 08 2012 8 23 PM How did the theory and practice of science change in early modern Europe The original shift started in Italian universities in the 15th century The original teachers were concerned with grammar rhetoric and poetics and placed Latin at its core They stressed to their students the importance of the art curriculum versus the Aristotelian philosophy that had previously dominated academia The idea quickly spread across the Alps and by the 1490 s had even touched some parts of Poland Who were its practitioners The practitioners were the academics who believed in the humanistic approach Cicero Regiomontanus Copernicus Andreas Vesalius and Philip Melanchthon were all influential individuals who helped to reinvent old theories and push the movement forward What motivated this change This change was motivated by the humanist belief Humanists believed that teaching humanism was better than the dry logic chopping offered by Aristotelian philosophers By teaching them rhetoric they were providing students with the skills and tricks in delivery required for a statesman Cicero helped to set forth the goals of this idea To what does the rebirth in renaissance refer The rebirth in renaissance referred to a rebirth of classical culture in forms of art religion and language According to the class notes scholars had relied of poor language to accommodate Aristotle In the Renaissance Cicero revived the eloquence of language In accepting this new idea they rejected the period between the time of antiquity and the present period Why was this return to the ancients different from the scholastics or the Romans The return to the ancients was different from the scholastics or the Romans because there was a different power structure than before These new scholars were taking the originals ideas of the ancients and editing them to make them more cohesive with their ideas What was the relationship between exploration colonialism and science Exploration and Colonialism helped to bring forth the new ideas of the renaissance Civil organization of northern Italy the decline of the Holy Roman Empire and adjusting to sea navigation all gave ins for the new scientific thoughts to flourish By updating the existing theories they were able to find latitudes by using the sun and stars accommodate the astrolabe for sea use and teach pilots how to read and understand tables charts The use of science in exploration allowed explorers to profit save lives and benefit humanity as a whole 7B Page 2 8a Mechanical Philosophy Saturday December 08 2012 5 13 PM How did the transition from natural philosophy to science happen Replace skepticism uncertainty of sensed things and human reason with certainty Use mechanical explination Premise it on the perfection of God who would not mislead humans Qualities sensations in mind not reality Only reality is matter and thinking stuff soul was part of thinking stuff therefore immortal Explain movement Originating God Compelled to move because matter is incompressable Invention of the modern telescope and improvements by Galileo allowed for observance of celestial movements better Why did everyone hate Aristotole Practical utility of Descartes model But still rooted in authority of Aristotle Had to respond to Aristotles ideas yet still pays homage to Aristotle s models Needed to maintain God s place What was the Church s role Society of Jesuits est 1540 Established schools that stressed mathematics logic physics and metaphysics Galileo called before Holy Office for defending Copernican doctrine Considered heretical in 1616 Galileo s dialog was banned until 1835 put under house arrest because of it How does Descartes make sense of the world explain motion make room for God Senses are a work of the mind and are only derived from it Used reason to explain the world premised on the separation between the physical world and human mind Accepted the logical consequences of his identification of spatial extension and matter Denied the possibility of a vacuum in nature God is the standard of goodness and because existence is more good than nonexistence god must necessarily exist as a clear and distinct idea 8A Page 3 9A Natural History Saturday December 08 2012 6 40 PM What motivated the effort to catalogue natural history in particular and to establish scientific disciplines more generally Scientific philosophical societal political revolution from mid 1600s until mid 1700s culminating in France s and Haitian s Revolution Inspired by new scientific philisopical thought Immanuel Kant Knowledge through reason David Hume Need empirical assumption for knowledge What were the assumptions behind these systems of description and organization Physical Truth Empirical certitude from inquiry into concrete relations in contrast to abstract of mathematical certainty in abstract sciences What did natural historians newly have at their disposal with which to do their work Species from the new world Newton s Laws Refracting telescope Science Communities and Societies Was the work of natural historians science or were they continuing the legacy of their natural philosophy forebears Used reason to explain the world premised on the separation between the physical world and human mind Broke away from the skepticism of the scholasticism Broke away from natural historians because they attempted to find concrete evidence in order to prove new concepts and ideas or discoveries 9A Page 4 8B Newton Saturday December 08 2012 5 48 PM Why were Newton s theories such a stark shift in natural philosophy