Unit #1 - Chapter #4 Flashcards
What does the word Renaissance mean?
“Rebirth” and dates from 1450-1600.
What is meant by Renaissance human?
Denotes an interest in human beings, as if we are discovering ourselves for the first time.
What are the four themes of Renaissance human?
- Individualism - belief in the power of the individual and to make positive differences in the world.
- Personal Religion - wanted religion to be more personal and less formal.
- Intense interest in the past - the works of the early Greek and Roman poets, philosophers, and politicians were of special interest.
- Anti-Aristotelianism - Did not believe in placing a large emphasis on Aristotle, as he was only human and could not also make mistakes.
Describe the philosophies of Francesco Petrarch?
Concerned with freeing the human spirit from the confines of medieval traditions, main target of attack was Scholasticism.
Classics should be studied as works of humans.
Challenged religious and philosophical authority to help open the door for individuals.
Describe the philosophies of Giovanni Pico.
Argued that God granted humans a unique position in the universe, and that all philosophies have common elements.
Describe the philosophies of Martin Luther.
Disgusted with how Christianity was.
Human intentions are inspired either by God or Satan.
Describe the work of Plotemy.
Summarized the mathematical and observational astronomy of his time and that of antiquity in his Almagest. Ptolemaic system included the beliefs that the heavenly bodies, were spherical in shape and that the sun, moon, and planets travel around the earth in orbits that are circular and uniform.
What did Nicholas Copernicus believe about the sun?
That the earth revolved around the sun.
Describe the work of Galileo.
Saw his task as explaining the true mathematical reality that existed beyond world appearances.
Pythagorean-Platonic beliefs.
Set out to correct misconceptions about the world.
Believed that heavy objects fall faster than light ones.
Modified the telescope.
Discovered the four moons of Jupiter.
Define objective and subjective reality.
Objective reality exists independently of anyone’s perception of it, and attributes to its primary qualities.
Reality consists of secondary qualities.
Secondary qualities are psychological experiences and have no counterparts of the physical world.
Possibility of a Science of Conscious experience.
Believed that consciousness could never be studied by the objective methods of science.
Describe the work of Isaac Newton.
The universe is a complex, lawful machine created by God. Developed differential and integral calculus, universal law of gravitation, and did pioneering work in optics.
What are the 6 Principles of Newton Science?
- God is the creator of the world, but does not intervene with the events of the world.
- Material world is governed by natural laws.
- No place for purpose in natural laws, and therefore Aristotle’s final causes must be rejected.
- Ocam’s razor is to be accepted. Explanations must always be as simple as possible.
- Natural laws are absolute, but at any given time our understanding is imperfect.
- Classification is not explanation.
Describe the work of Francis Bacon.
Promoted science based on induction. Believed that science should include no theories, no hypotheses, no mathematics, and no deductions and should only involve the facts of observation.
Approach to science is positivism.
What are the four sources of error that influence scientific work according to Bacon?
- Idols of the cave - personal biases that arise from a persons intellect, experiences, education, and feelings.
- Idols of the tribe - Biases due to human nature. All humans have in common the abilities to imagine, to will, and to hope these human attributes can and usually do distort perceptions.
- Idols of the Marketplace - Biases that result from being overly influenced by the meaning assigned to words.
- Idol of the Theatre - Biases that result from blind allegiance to any viewpoint, whether it be philosophical or theological.
