Chapter 11: Naturalism, Scientific Revolution and Transformation of Mentality Flashcards
What are the several historical subperiods named in terms of architecture and arts and what are their homologues in terms of science and philosophy?
Arts: Baroque, Rococo, Classicism, and Neo-Classicism
Science and philosophy: Enlightenment, Naturalistic Revolution, and Scientific Revolution
What are the characteristics of the Baroque style? (4)
- Emerged to counter the simplicity and austerity of the Protestant style
- Baroque ornaments were intended to surprise, shock, impress and provoke awe in observers
- Respected rules of balance, harmony, regularity, and discipline and there it is compared to the pearl with its brilliant beauty and value
- Baroque style churches and palaces are still around as many are preserved (e.g. Versailles)
What are the characteristics of the Rococo style? (2)
- Came after the Baroque style
- Assumes asymmetry, irregularity and a lack of emotional discipline to the point of bringing the work close to kitsch
What are the characteristics of the Classicism style? (1)
- Reintroduced the strict rules of the Greco-Roman harmony of form, perfection, discipline and emotional restraint
Examples in music: Mozart, Haydn
The post-Renaissance time was marked by the emergence of a new Zeitgeist within philosophy, science, medicine, and technology. What was that time called?
The Enlightenment or the Scientific Revolution
What resulted in an enthusiastic interest in scientific and naturalistic description and explanation?
Fast scientific progress
How were scientists, discoverers, and technical inventors treated during the Enlightenment period?
They were invited to give public presentations and were welcomed and treated as heroes
What became fashionable in European countries during the Enlightenment period?
To open salons or private clubs to have meetings with inventors, poets, musicians, and philosophers
What were the organizations created by scholars, independent from universities? (2)
- Learned Societies
- Academies
What were the motives to join learned societies or academies?
Snobbish or genuine but not clear
What did people do during the Enlightenment period in regards to the new social movement?
Everybody pretended to prefer a scientific worldview and maintain a self-image as an enlightened, progressive, modern person
Who would be ennobled by the image of an enlightened person?
The hereditary aristocrats, the nouveau riche bourgeoisie, and poor students
What did the new Zeitgeist pave the way for?
Towards rejecting a spiritual worldview, religious ethics, and theological cosmology
What was the Zeitgeist in regards to authority?
Included a massive mistrust toward any authority whether regal or religious and lead to outbreaks of uncontrollable bloody rebellions of anyone against anything
When did the French Revolution take place?
1789
What were the characteristics of the French Revolution? (5)
- Outbreak of the most primitive instinct of the public, cynically manipulated
- Wild barbaric destruction of culture took place
- Genocide of aristocrats
- Achievements that typified french civilization were destroyed, burned, devastated, stolen, and brutalized
- Death of thousands of poor and naive fighters who thought they were fighting for themselves when in reality they were fighting for the whims of the nouveaux riches
What are a few examples of the new discoveries?
See document
What were the famous medical discoveries of that period?
- The microscope
- Bacteria (its role in causing disease and plagues was not yet understood)
Dr. Edward Jenner (the benefactor of the human race for his vaccine discovery)
Conducted several experiments on cowpox which shed the light on understanding the effect of microbes on the human immune system
What were Dr. Edward Jenner’s observations?
He found out that people that came with cowpox, a relatively mild disease, manifested immunity against the similar, but far more dangerous and fatal smallpox.
He infected volunteers with the cowpox virus to immunize them against smallpox
What is the ethology of the word vaccine?
Vacca = cow
Variolae vaccinae (smallpox of the cow)
What did vaccination mean originally?
Infecting somebody with cowpox by rubbing into the skin the cowpox pustules
Who was impressed by Dr. Edward Jenner’s discovery?
Napoleon Bonaparte who ordered all his soldiers to get vaccinated
French Montgolfier brothers
First manned hot-air balloon flight
Enthusiastically cheered in France, and became popular in other countries as well
James Watt
The stationary steam engine
Travel by train became fashionable way of transportation
The steam engine was also employed in the first electric power plants in the US
History of Electricity
- Thales of Miletus: First written remarks of electricity–rubbing a piece of fur on amber cause an attraction between the two even producing a spark
- William Gilbert: Latin essay “The Magnet”–wrote about the observations of Thales explaining that there is an attraction between the 2 objects (amber attraction or electricus)–he believed that the hand of the compass is attracted to the north pole in the same way
- Luigi Galvani: noted that a frog’s dissected leg would twist when placed between iron and copper calling it animal electricity–today Galvanic skin reactions are one of the critical factors used in modern lie detectors
- Alessandro Volta: invented the battery prototype–immersed zinc and copper in sulphuric acid and an electrolyte–demonstrated to Napoleon
- Michael Faraday: described electromagnetic induction, an electromagnetic generator with moving magnets–invented the first electromagnetic generator with moving magnets
- Thomas Edison: Based on Faraday’s discovery, he discovered the production of direct current (DC)
- Nicola Tesla: Based on Faraday’s discovery, he discovered the production of alternating current (AC)
When did universities in Europe emerge who were they run by?
They emerged in medieval times and were run by the Christian Church
What did scholars who felt uncomfortable in Christian universities chose to do?
To congregate in independent societies of guilds called learned societies (or academies) in the new Zeitgeist of anti-religious naturalism and enlightenment
What were the teaching methods of academies?
Did not like teaching–preferred debate and research
Where did academies start and who funded them?
Started in Italy and spread throughout Europe financially and politically supported by the “enlightened” kings, princes, dukes, or power-hungry bourgeoisie
Empiricism
Greek: emperia = experience
Starting point: the experiences, the observatios
A posteriori conclusion about the class of objects is made AFTER numerous observations
Is based on INDUCTIVE thinking
Example: Numerous swans seen were white. Therefore, all swans are white
From specific to general
Aristotelian tradition:
F. Bacon, J. Loke, G. Berkeley, James Mill, John Stewart Mill
Experience is the source of knowledge
Do not believe in intuition
Individual have no innate knowledge
Rationalism
Latin: ratio = a reason, the why…
Starting point: A general concept or axiom assumed
A priori conclusion about specific object is made, BEFORE seeing it.
Is based on DEDUCTIVE thinking
Example: Since all swans are white, and this bird is a swan; therefore this swan is white
From general to specific
Pythagorean-Platonian tradition:
R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, G. Leibniz, I. Kant
Reason is the source of knowledge
Believe in intuition
Individuals have innate knowledge or concepts
Example of empirical, inductive reasoning
Inductive thinking: from single observations to a generalized hypothesis
2 2 4 6 10 16 26 42 68 110 ???____
Cue: 2 4
What number is next?
H1: The next number is a double value of the previous one. Conclusion: 8
Cue: 2 2 4 6 ?
H2: The next number is a sum of two previous numbers. Conclusion: 10
Cue: 2 2 4 6 10 ?
Confirming observations: 2 2 4 6 10 16 26 42 68 110
Based on consecutively collected data, preliminary hypotheses (H1, H2) are created and eliminated in turn until the final hypothesis is confirmed
Karl Popper
Had doubts about the value of a conclusion based on collected observations
“Even if thousands of swans are white, there is no way to prove that all swans are white”
Scientists don’t set out to prove their theories, but to disprove them by testing them to destruction. It is only by the possibility of being disproved that a theory can be truly called “scientific”
Deductive Thinking Example
a general concept to a conclusion about specific object
A pattern or reasoning
the syllogism includes: a general concept assumed
the major premise,
the minor premise
and the specific conclusion
Knowing that “All birds have two legs”–major premise
Being told that“Aga is a bird”–minor premise
You conclude that“Aga has two legs”–specific conclusion
Specific conclusion is based on deductive a’priori thinking(prior to seeing the bird)
Development of music
Essential tool of statecraft and social status and a significant adornment to religious services
New musical forms were invented: Operas, concertos, sonatas, fugues, preludes, toccatas, and oratorios
New wind and string instruments were now used
Vivaldi
Haendel
Bach
Human psyche in the arts
Music as universal language and path promoting transcendental attunement to the universe’s harmony
René Descartes
Rationalist, assumes the Pythagorean-Platonic belief in essential knowledge being contained in mathematical theorems and models of reality
Rational thinking rather then sensory perception is the preferred tool of cognition
Principal axiom of existence: I think, therefore I am
Other axioms: Innate intuitions of the mind:
Geometry, unity, infinity, perfection, and God
He believed these ideas were put in our heads by God
Only humans have these innate axioms along with free will, rationality and self-awareness
Animals function as an automatic machine without consciousness
Consciousness
Fundamental issue in philosophy and psychology
Means awareness of oneself existing in the world
René Descartes (& view of the universe)
Ontological dualism:
divides the universe into two realities:
1. Res extensa: the material world of objects placed in the space and the physical events placed in the time intervals
HUMAN BODY
- Res cogitans: the spiritual world of the human psyche and divine soul (invisible, yet cognitively comprehensible
HUMAN SOUL
These 2 communicate together through the pineal gland in the brain
René Descartes (& “animal spirits”)
Compared the nerve impulses travelling between senses, the brain, and muscles to an “animal spirit”–pure physical processes
When reflex of removing finger from a hot surface:
1. Agitation of the afferent nerves (caused by burning pain)
2. Agitation of the spinal cord or the brain (in order to pass the sensation of aim to the muscle action)
3. Agitation of the efferent nerve bringing the “animal spirits” to the muscles pulling the finger away
René Descartes (& emotions)
Aware of the complexity of human emotions with the cognitive and visceral components
Primary human emotions: love, hate, desire, wonder, joy, anger, and sadness
- These are mixtures of cognitive components (awareness) ad visceral arousal, manifested in the rapid change in breathing rhythm, blood flow, heartbeat and muscle tensions
-The cognitive and visceral components mix in the brain and result in feelings
Animals do not experience emotions because they lack consciousness
René Descartes (general facts)
- Recommended the supreme controlling role of reason over human passions
- Rational ethics: emphasizes the role of the moral code, freedom of choice, and responsibility as the major faculties of the human mind
- The soul is immortal and belongs to the spiritual reality
- The body is a part of the physical reality and functions like a perfect machine
Blaise Pascale
- Received an excellent education and became a famous mathematician, physicist, philosopher and catholic theologian
- Developed the theory of probability and first calculating machines (which was very expensive at the time)
Physics:
1. Researched the topic of pressure
2. Kilopascal measure
3. Invented the hydraulic press
Augustinian Principles:
1. Profoundly religious philosopher
2. Admired principle of asceticism and introspective dialogue with God
3. Theological essays and letters contained his criticism of the church’s contemporaries and what he called their “misinterpretations” of Jesus’s teaching
4. Pensées: his work where he confronts skepticism vs. stoicism–applied the Socratic method of Aporia
Isaac Newton
- Studied mathematics, astronomy, and optics at Cambridge University
- Principia Mathematica: most famous work–examination of the foundations of mathematics and examination of the light spectrum of prisms
- Newton refused to explain the ontological nature of the gravitational force, instead he tried to measure it and predict its effects only
John Locke
- Believed that all knowledge derives from human sensory, practical experiences and observations
- There is nothing in the mind that doesn’t pass through the senses first
- At the moment of birth, the child’s mind is a “tabula rasa” (blank slate)
- Cup analogy:
– Experiences entering the mind are like tea poured into a cup but the intelligence, the capacity of acquiring and handing learned information is like the volume of the cup. The same principle covers other talents, capacities, and inborn personality predispositions
John Locke (Mental processes + primary qualities of pereived objects)
2 principal mental processes:
1. Sensations: sensory input is memorized as a simple idea such as “metal”, “yellow” or “heavy”
2. Reflections: associations between sensations result in ideas such as “gold” or “value”
–This is done through principles of association: similarity, contrast, and contiguity (original Galilean concept)
Primary qualities of perceived objects (objective and independent of the perceiver)
- Shape, solidity, mobility & number
-secondary qualities of the perceived objects (subjective and dependent on the perceiver)
-taste, color & odor
John Locke (on Education)
Defended the principles of association and his belief in the input of sensory experience as the basis of knowledge and understanding
Recommended the rules of hardening in education: hard work, discipline, avoidance of spoiling conditions and pleasures
Freud and Adler would also mention that spoiling and pampering demotivates the child and corrupts mental development
James Mill
Analysis of the phenomena of the human mind– applies the principles of association to the analysis of emotional states as
-Affection
-Aesthetic emotions
-Moral sentiments
The mind is a passive recorder and storage of associations. The ideas represent reality as it is
-complex ideas are mechanical aggregates of simple ideas
The process of education and raising children looks like:
-loading the memory with a maximum of information, strict discipline, and hardening
-the human mind is seen as a passive recorder
John Stuart Mill
James’ son
-Educated very harshly–shielded from peers and had a rigorous academic routine since he was 3 years old
Understood the human mind not as a passive recording device but rather as a creative intelligence capable of combining, recombining and inventing original new ideas based on the rules of pragmatic experience and rational logic
Passionate advocate of women’s emancipation, education for all, and utilitarianism
Everybody is useful and able to contribute to the betterment of community life
John Locke, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and George Berkeley were British proponents of empiricism. However, the first three represent objective empiricism, while Berkeley represents what kind of empiricism?
Subjective
George Berkeley
Philosopher and Anglican bishop
“essay towards a new theory of vision”–presented the theory that depth perception is an effect of human experiences with seeing objects
Argued that all perceived qualities are secondary (subjective). Human perception depends on the cognitive apparatus, and we cannot go “beyond it”
He explained that even if nobody perceives the world of objects, God the permanent perceiver does therefore the world exists
The proof of reality was divine awareness and perception
David Hume
Went further with Berkeley’s subjective empiricism
-Concluded that there is no proof of anything other than our perceptions. Thus, we exist alone, unable to know the world
-His extreme agnosticism is called sollopsism–only one’s mind is sure to exist. Holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure
