7'32: Prophets of a Scientific Civilization: Bacon and Descartes

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7.32 Prophets of a Scientific Civilization
Bacon and Descartes

• Chapter 7 The Scientific View of the World

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Scientific Revolution
Descartes Discourse on Method
Montaignes Essays
Johann Keplers Rudolphine Tables
Tycho Brahes Observations
1543 1572 1580 1620 1627 1632 1637 1687
Galileos Discourse Concerning the Two Chief
Systems
Bacons Norganum Organum
Copernicus On the Revolutions of Heavenly Orbs
(1543)
Newtons Principia
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Changes in Intellectual Environment

• Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation man
• past knowledge as the most reliable source of
  wisdom
• Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas
• Geocentric (Ptolemaic) world
• 8-10 crystal (hierarchical spheres
• 4 elements/ 4 humours
• Great Chain of Being
• Hierarchical link from God down to insects
• abstract wisdom would help man turn away from the
  corruptibility of the earth

• Enlightenment man
• rejected ancient authority
• relied on their own observable intellects
• Modern Science
• A fusion of experimental observation
  mathematics
• Heliocentric world
• Sun-centered
• World Machine
• Universe was demystified worked like a
  mechanical clock (predictable understandable,
  orderly and harmonious
• saw knowledge as useless unless it could be put
  to use the relief of mans estate

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Science before the Seventeenth Century

• Can we mark the advent of science with Leonardo?
• Anatomy, astronomy, engineer
• dissected over 30 bodies
• conceived of circulation of the blood
• movement of the earth around the sun
• designed submarines, airplanes
• BUT didnt publish anything
• Isolated genius and did not transmit his ideas to
  others
• SCIENCE depends on the transmission of ideas

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The Skeptics

• Skepticism is the doctrine that knowledge is not
  possible, either about some particular topic,
  e.g. religion or the natural world or mathematics
  -- or in general
• From the Greek philosophers who questioned
  Socrates ideas on beauty
• Doubting frame of mind, held that no certain
  knowledge is possible for human beings, all
  beliefs are only customs
• Montaigne (1533-92)
• French Renaissance thinker
• Essays (1580)
• Studies himself (thoughts, habits, beliefs) to
  better understand mankind
• Que sais-je? What do I know? Answer Nothing
• Positive about skepticism challenge and
  question everything and be tolerant, broadminded
• Negative fatalism, Oh well

Michel de Montaigne
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Bacon and Descartes 1620 to 1640

• Fathers of Scientific Revolution
• Go beyond skeptics
• Truth
• is not postulated from the start and then worked
  within a paradigm
• It is something found at the end of long process
  or investigation, experiment, observation
• How is truth attained?
• inductive reasoning
• proceeding from the particular to the general,
  from concrete to abstract
• This ice is cold.
• All ice is cold.
• deductive-
• start with general information and infer specific
• All apples are fruit.
• All fruits grow on trees.
• Therefore all apples grow on trees.
• True and reliable knowledge exists and can be
  employed to the benefit of humans

In the Center is a bust of the Society's Founder
- Charles II Left is William Brouncker- The
first President On the Right is Francis Bacon the
Inspiration of the Royal Society
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Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

• Novum Organum (New Instrument) (1620)
• The New Atlantis (1627)
• championed empiricism-
• knowledge based on observation and experience
• wanted people to rid themselves of
  preconceptions, traditional ideas and look with
  fresh eyes, use their senses
• portrayed a scientific utopia society based on
  the results of science
• Inhabitants enjoyed a perfect society through
  knowledge and control of nature
• Usefulness of knowledge became main element of
  Baconian tradition
• It can be used for practical purposes
• ex. Weapon are more accurate (science of
  ballistics)
• Called on scientist to share their knowledge by
  recording their experiments and to rid themselves
  of superstition and religion in science (he
  called philosophy)
• Fails to recognize importance of mathematics
• It proceeds deductively from axioms to theorems
• Science is both inductive and deductive

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Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• All knowledge of past should be discarded
• Considered the inventor of coordinate geometry
• Any algebraic formula could be plotted as a curve
  in space and any curve in space could be
  converted into an algebraic term
• Knowledge is worthy if it is useful to mankind

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Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• Discourse on Method (1637)
• Proposed the principle of systematic doubt
• 1st rule was never to receive anything as a
  truth which he did not clearly know to be such
• after doubting everything he realized his mere
  process of thought confirmed his own existence (I
  think, therefore I am) (Cogito ergo sum)
• used this as his starting point and began to
  reconstruct the universe, the existence of God
• could not be empirically verified but he believed
  that nature is so small that it eludes our senses
  anyway

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Descartes Influence

• Although his system of thought did not reveal any
  new discoveries it did help disprove errors of
  ancients
• Stress on math to pursue science proved
  invaluable
• Cartesian Dualism-God created two kinds of
  reality
• Thinking Substance-
• Mind, spirit, consciousness
• subjective experience
• Extended Substance-
• matter, everything outside the mind
• Objective experience

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Descartes Influence

• Mind belonged to man alone
• Everything else was matter and operated according
  to physical laws
• everything else was a machine
• therefore the entire universe could be understood
  without the help of religion
• apparent attribute to matter (sound, light,
  taste) were subjective impressions of the mind
  and not subject to science
• The natural world can be controlled!