Lecture 2: Scientific Revolution

Question 1

What is the New Mentality?

Answer 1

We have identified four characteristics of the new mentality of the later Middle
Ages:
1. Appreciation of Latin and Greek writers from Antiquity
2. Critical attitude of ‘the reader’ towards texts from Antiquity
3. Loathing of everything coming from ‘the Middle Ages’, especially medieval
dogma
4. Fueled by discoveries of new people and indigenous knowledge

Question 2

What are the Aspects of the Scientific Revolution?

Answer 2

1. Rejection of the method of authority:
   - it is a bad argument for a claim about the world to just refer to what someone or some organization says is the case (1 point); especially, it is no longer accepted to argue by saying that ‘Aristotle told us so’.
2. Acceptance of the priority of observation over reasoning:
   - if we observe something to be the case although it ought to be impossible according to our reason, we still accept the observation.
3. Application of the principle of induction:
   - we generalize on the basis of a limited set of observations.
4. Stimulating the use of experiment:
   - experiments generate more data that support (or reject) our inductive conclusions.
5. The use of mathematics: mathematics is increasingly used as a tool to build scientific models

Question 3

One of the characteristic features of the Scientific Revolution is the emphasis on the use of the experiment. What is the argument from the perspective of the scientific revolution to use experiments, and why would Aristotle object to the use of the experiment in physics?

Answer 3

• Experiments multiply (and diversify) the number of empirical data points through manipulating the world. The more empirical data we have, the more reliable (we hope) our inductive conclusions (empirical generalizations) will be. Since we are out to discover the truth about the world, it is wise to experiment.
• Aristotle was interested in the world as it naturally is. He wanted to know the natural movement of objects. If you perform experiments, you manipulate the world and instead of observing natural movements you are observing unnatural movements. These latter observations do not contribute to understanding the natural movements

Question 4

Who helpen constitute the revolution?

Answer 4

• Ptolemy
• Galileo Galilei
• Kepler (Astronomia Nova)
• Copernicus
• Newton

Question 5

Who are Ptolemy & Copernicus?

Answer 5

• Copernicus was the first who radically undermined the earth-centered with his book (Revolutionibus). He had the theory that the earth and other planets circle around the sun (heliocentrism: Ptolemy) instead of geocentrism). This resulted in running battles between the old classical theological world-view and the new scientific one.

Question 6

What did the Scientific Revolution result in?

Answer 6

Nature of Science
1. Method
> Observation and Induction
> Experiment
2. What do we see?
> The world is a mechanism
> Ask ‘how’ rather than ‘why’
3. Descriptions
> Mathematics

Question 7

What is the role of Mathematics?

Answer 7

• We use mathematics
  as a powerful
  instrument to build
  ‘scientific models’.
• Since these
  ‘mathematical
  models’ are
  successful in
  generating true
  predictions of what
  happens next (at
  least in physics), we
  think they depict the
  world in the right way.
• The mathematics (our
  reasoning!) is the
  expression of order in
  the universe