Lecture 2: The Scientific Revolution

Question 1

Scientific revolution

Answer 1

Name given to a series of discoveries in the seventeenth century, involving Galileo, Descartes and Newton, that enhanced the status of science

Question 2

Geocentric model

Answer 2

Model of the universe in which the earth is at the centre - was dominant until the seventeenth century

Question 3

Heliocentric model

Answer 3

Model of the universe in which the sun is at the centre

Question 4

Dualism

Answer 4

View of the mind-body relation according to which the mind is immaterial and completely independent of the body; central within religions and also in Descartes philosophy

Question 5

Mechanistic view

Answer 5

World view according to which everything in the material universe can be understood as a complicated machine; discards the notion that things have goals and intentions as assumed by the animistic view; identified with Descartes

Question 6

Principal Mathematica

Answer 6

Book in which Newton presented his laws of physics (1687); considered to be the primary reason for the increased status of science

Question 7

What are factors that contributed to the scientific revolution (5)

Answer 7

1. Demographic changes
2. Absence of pressure from religion or authority
3. New inventions
4. The existence of universities and patronage
5. Massive enrichment from the Greek and Arab civilizations

Question 8

What are factors that helped the fledging science grow (3)

Answer 8

1. The absence of disaster
2. A benevolent religion
3. The establishment of learned societies

Question 9

Deductive reasoning

Answer 9

Form of reasoning in which one starts from a number of indisputable premises, from which new, true conclusions can be drawn if the rules of logic are followed

Question 10

Inductive reasoning

Answer 10

Specific to general. Form of reasoning in which one starts from observations and tries to reach general conclusions on the basis of convergences in the observation; is needed in science to turn observed phenomena into scientific laws, but does not guarantee that the conclusions are true

Question 11

Experimental history

Answer 11

Method introduced by Bacon in which the natural philosopher extracts the truth from nature by active manipulation and examining the consequences of the intervention

Question 12

Natural history

Answer 12

Process of careful observation and the formulation of lower and middle axioms through inductive reasoning

Question 13

Industrial Revolution

Answer 13

Name to refer to the socioeconomic and cultural changes in the nineteenth century caused by the invention of machines

Question 14

Age of Enlightenment

Answer 14

Name given to the western philosophy and cultural life of the eighteenth century, in which autonomous thinking and observation became advocated as the primary sources of knowledge, rather than reliance on authority

Question 15

positivism

Answer 15

View that authentic knowledge can only be obtained by means of the scientific method; saw religion and philosophy as inferior forms of explanation

Question 16

Humanities

Answer 16

Academic disciplines that continued the traditional study of the ancient classics, increasingly supplemented with teachings of contemporary literature and art

Question 17

Romantic movement

Answer 17

Movement in the late 1700s to early 1800s that reacted against the mechanistic world view and the emphasis on reason preached by enlightenment; it saw the universe as a changing organism and stressed everything that deviated from rationalism

Question 18

Analogy

Answer 18

Solution to problem of other minds identified by Augustine of Hippo; If i have consciousness and other people behave like me than they must also have consciousness —> argument from empiricists for observing consciousness

Question 19

Who was the first person to point a telescope at the sky

Answer 19

Galileo

Question 20

What are the 4 idols (Bacon) and explain them

Answer 20

1. Idols of the tribe: fallacies that all humans commit and that are inherent to human nature —> human mistakes
2. Idols of the cause: fallacies we commit because we belong to a certain culture, have certain interests and habits —> these are not the same for all people
3. Idols of the marketplace: fallacies we commit because we can talk about things —> our language is not complete enough to grasp everything we want to say
4. Idols of the theatre: fallacies we commit because we believe what authorities say

Question 21

Was Bacon an empiricist or a rationalist

Answer 21

Both; perception nor reasoning alone provides progress, interaction between both is required

Question 22

What are 5 positive outcomes of impact of science on society according to Kagan

Answer 22

1. Mechanical devices lightened the burden of manual labour and increased the production of goods
2. People started to live longer on average
3. Most people hands a better health
4. People became more literate
5. People knew more about the world

Question 23

What were the 3 most important things Augustine of Hippo contributed

Answer 23

• he developed the first theory of learning; when grown-ups name something and turn towards it the child understands its meaning
• he discovered the unconscious
• he identified the problem of other minds and offered analogy as a solution to this problem

Question 24

What were 6 aspects of the medieval worldview in Europe

Answer 24

• The earth is 6000 years old
• humans are not animals
• the sun revolves around the earth
• heaven and hell are real
• thinking happens in the immaterial mind
• the end of times is near

Question 25

How did the Ptolemaic system (and later Copernicus’ system) explain the strange motion of the planets and what was this motion called

Answer 25

They explained it by adding epicycles to their models, which are small circles the planets makes sometimes when moving in their bigger circle; the motion is called retrograde motion

Question 26

What were 3 reasons Copernicus did not publish his heliocentric model for many years

Answer 26

• scared of the church
• scared to be laughed at
• uncertain about the truth of his model

Question 27

What were 4 objections to Copernicus’ model

Answer 27

• the model does not describe the data very well and is as complex as the Ptolemaic
• why aren’t we thrown into space/feel the earth move if were moving so fast
• why isn’t the moon also orbiting the sun
• why does a stone fall right down when you throw it from a tower

Question 28

Who finally described the ellipse movement of the planets

Answer 28

Kepler

Question 29

What 3 things did Galileo notice when he looked through his telescope and why was one of them very important

Answer 29

• Venus has phases and thus must orbit the sun
• Jupiter also has moons
• the moon has mountains and craters —> this one was very important because Aristotle had said that the moon is smooth so this proved that the ancient Greeks didn’t know everything already and they could be wrong

Question 30

What are 3 stages that civilizations pass through according to Comte

Answer 30

1. Theocratic stage - gods/spirits dominate culture
2. Metaphysical stage - philosophical explanations dominate
3. Positivistic stage - explanations were provided by natural sciences

Question 31

Who was credited with the insight that artificial conditions give insight into the natural world

Answer 31

Galileo Galilei

Question 32

What is reification

Answer 32

The fact that we assume that nouns (words) refer to observable things —> in psych; ‘depression’ is not somewhere in the brain necessary, but just a construct

Question 33

How did Bacon say that we could protect ourselves from prejudices

Answer 33

By following a normative methodology