Ch. 16 Flashcards
Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment (mostly evidence)
natural philosophy
Study of the nature, purpose, and functions of the universe
science today and was based on the ideas of Aristotle
Thomas Aquinas
Medieval theologian who synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrines
Aristotle
Greek philosopher; celestial spheres and sublunar world; opposite of inertia; geocentrism
Medieval thought
Ptolemy
Hellenized Egyptian; planets move in small epicycles
Medieval thought
Ptolemy’s Geography
Advances in medieval cartography; latitude, and longitude; only includes Europe, Asia, and Africa (no knowledge of the Pacific Ocean and Americas)
Nicolaus Copernicus
Polish cleric; heliocentrism; astronomer
Publishes his book the year of his death due to fear of ridicule
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Copernican hypothesis; heliocentrism (sun is at the center of the universe)
Destroyed basic ideas of Aristotelian physics
Tycho Brahe
Danish astronomer; agrees with Copernican hypothesis & Ptolemaic ideas’ built sophisticated observatories
Rudolphine Tables
started by Tycho Brahe containing details tables of planetary motion for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II
finished by Kepler
Johannes Kepler
Finishes Brahe’s work; 3 laws of planetary motion (orbits of planets around the sun are elliptical, planets do not move at a uniform speed in their orbits, the time it takes a planet to orbit the Sun is proportional to its distance from the Sun); agrees with Copernicus
Cast horoscopes = prove alchemy and magic are still present even among the educated
Galileo Galilei
Florentine; law of inertia; disproves Aristotle’s ideas; telescope; agrees with Copernicus
Sidereal Messenger
Telescope’s findings; the moon has craters (disproves Aristotle’s ideas of perfect spheres)
Galileo
Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World
Ideas on heliocentrism
Is persecuted for this text and is threatened with torture
Galileo
heliocentrism
The idea that the Sun is at the center of the universe
Threatens understanding of mankind’s place in creation, as stated in Genesis = this is why the church is against these ideas
Isaac Netwon
English scientist; agrees with Copernicus; law of universal gravitation (all objects are attracted to one another and the force of attraction is proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them)
Intensely religious and fascinated by alchemy
Principia
Integrates Copernicus’ astronomy (as corrected by Kepler’s laws) and Galileo and his predecessors’ physics
Netwon
Francisco Hernández
He was the personal physician of King Philip II, who sent him to New Spain to find specimens. Fills 15 volumes with illustrations of 3000 previously unknown plants
cinchona bark
1st effective treatment for malaria
(example of discoveries)
Carl Linnaeus
Swede; devises a formal system of naming and classifying living organisms (still used today)
astrology
Inspired by the belief that the movement of heavenly bodies influenced events on Earth
many astronomers also work as astrologers
magic and alchemy
Strives to understand and control hidden connections perceived among different elements of the natural world.
Alchemists believed base metals could be turned into gold
did not interfere with religion
Francis Bacon
English politician and writer; greatest early propagandist for experimental method (rejects medieval and Aristotelian speculative method; empiricism); inductive method
empiricism
Acquiring evidence through observation and experimentation
Accepted in England
royal society
Founded by Bacon’s followers who met up weekly to conduct experiments and discuss findings
Still exists today
René Descartes
French philosopher; discovers analytic geometry; the quantity of motion in the universe is constant; matter is made up of identical corpuscules that collide together in an endless series of motions; deductive reasoning
“I think therefore I am” - Discourse on the Method
It is necessary to doubt anything that can be doubted; God endowed man with reason for a purpose and rational speculation can provide a path for the truths of creation
Descartes
cartesian dualism
All reality can ultimately be reduced to mid and matter
Galen
Greek physician; body is made up of four humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, blood)
Illness was an imbalance of these humors
Paracelsus
Swiss physician and alchemist; believes illness is caused by chemical imbalances; introduces the use of drugs and chemicals in medicine
Andreas Vesalius
Flemish physician and experimentalist; studies anatomy by dissecting prisoners
On the Structure of the Human Body
Andreas Vasalius, 200 drawings on human anatomy
William Harvey
English royal physician; blood circulation through veins and arteries; explains that the heart works like a pump (also explains the functions of its muscles and valves)
Robert Boyle
His works led to the development of modern chemistry; experiments that discover the basic elements of nature
Boyle’s law: pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to its volume
international scientific community
Closely tied to the state and its agendas, science becomes competitive
Maria Sibylla
Botanical and zoological illustrator
Margaret Cavendish & Anne Conway
Contribute to debates about cartesian dualism
Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia
Descartes praises her and conducts her with intellectual correspondance
environmental determinism
How the enviroment affects you
key ideas of the European enlightenment
Sensibility (religious tolerance), progress, nature, happiness (viewed as a human right), reason, liberty
*Without liberty (freedom of expression) there is no progress
causes of the enlightenment
Age of exploration (european contact with other cultures)
Reformation and Thirty Years’ War (religious certainties come into question)
Scientific revolution
Political opposition to absolutist rule
reason
Rationalism and scientific method can be used to examine and understand all aspects of life
rationalism
Critical way of thinking in which nothing is accepted on faith and everything is submitted to reason
Adopted in France and the Netherlands
Pierre Bayle
Huguenot who takes refuge in France
Historical and Critical Dictionary
Piere Bayle, critically examines the religious beliefs and persecutors of the past; skepticism
Baruch Spinoza
Dutch Jewish philosopher seeks to apply natural philosophy to thinking about human society; a deterministic universe where god and evil are relative and human circumstances are shaped by outside circumstances (not free will)
Excommunicated by the Jewish community in Amsterdam
Anti-Islam (sees it as superstitious and favorable to despotism)
monist
monism
Mind and body are united in one substance
God = nature
of the greatest intellectual inspirations for the enlightenment
Principia and John Locke’s Essay of Concerning Human Understanding