The ‘Scientific Revolution’

How to Make Macaroni, 15th century

Sicilian Macaroni. Make a dough of the whitest flour, one egg white and rosewater-- and should you be preparing two plates of it, put in only two or three egg yolks... these macaroni should dry in the sun and can be kept for two or three years; cook them in water or a good meat broth, and garnish them with grated cheese when you set them out on plates with fresh butter and mild spices. Boil them gently for an hour. Neapolitan Recipe Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS Bühler 19 (15th c.)

What is the… ‘Scientific Revolution’?

It’s pretty messy!!....

An historical ‘period’?

An event?

A cultural movement?

Where does it take place?

Who does it involve?

What shapes and defines it?

Depends on who you ask…..

[AGAIN!!! does this slide look familiar?!]

‘Scientific Revolution’ or New Science? Or… or?

‘Scientific Revolution’ – was it a revolution? Was there no science before?

Is ‘science’ new, or is it being done in a ‘new’ way?

What’s the big deal then?

The ‘Scientific Revolution’?

An historical ‘period’? An event?

If and Intellectual and Cultural movement –

When does it start, and where? How? Who is involved?

‘start dates’?

co-exists and overlaps with ‘late medieval’ AND ‘early modern’? – maybe….

When depends on where and who and how

Correspondence and letter writing – printing press, makes changes more uniform

Like renaissance, reformation, and early modern, it is a construct - but also has historical configurations.

Is there more than one?

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

'Science' undergoes 'paradigm shifts' instead of linear and continuous progression

These shifts open up new approaches, methods, and understandings that scientists wouldn't consider valid beforehand

Paradigm shifts as kinds of periodic revoltuions where the nature of inquiry is suddenly transformed

Paradigm as Disciplinary Matrix

Symbolic generalizations: e.g. Newton's laws of motion

Metaphysical presumptions. e.g., Atoms as "billiard balls", or light as a wave, or light as particles.

Values: e.g., the accuracy of prediction

Exemplars: Textbook or laboratory examples

Two Kinds of Science

Normal Science: practiced within a single paradigm

Revolutionary Science: a shift between paradigms, upsets 'normal' science

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

But… Kuhn is controversial – does his ideas of revolutions exist? [remember the Fall of the Roman empire? When did it ‘fall’?

What does ‘fall’ mean? A decline or a transformation?]

Was there a Scientific Revolution that replaced pre-scientific thinking about nature and society and thus marked the transition to modernity?

Which developments, if any, are truly revolutionary?

If there aren’t any – is it a revolution then?

Is there an overall pattern of scientific development?

If so, is it basically one of creative displacement, as Kuhn originally claimed?

Do all revolutions have the same structure and function?

What of diverse forms of rupture, discontinuity, or rapid change in science? Are there great leaps forward?

What do these ideas mean for ‘scientific progress’?

What is ‘science’? Medieval ‘Scientia’

All Universal knowledge – often theological; ‘Form’ – ideas in God’s mind

Natural Philosophy as expression of Theology

Known by deduction (general to specific)

Textual Authorities

Empirical knowledge proves authority

OBJECT: contemplation of divine purpose in the world

VOCABULARY: organic, qualitative

E.g. hot, cold, wet dry; heavy, light…

METHOD: logic, confirmed and illustrated by experience

Early Modern ‘New Science’

Particular knowledge

Natural Philosophy shows God’s creation, as a ‘Book of Nature’, no one ‘theology’

Known by induction (specific to general)

Driven by Observation and eventually experimentation

Authority is human sentience

Empirical knowledge evaluates authority

OBJECT: observation of order in natural world

VOCABULARY: mechanical and mathematical (quantitative)

Galileo: “I hold that nothing exists in external bodies but size, shape, quantity and motion.”

METHOD: hypotheses tested by experiments.

Places to Explore

Creatures & Earth itself: Flora and Fauna

The New World(s)

Europe

The Stars & Cosmos

Moon

Sun

Solar System & its organization

The Human Body & Mind

Medicine – Anatomy & Physiology

Knowledge & Theories of the Mind

Imagination & Invention!

The Transformation of the European World-View, c. 1543-c. 1700

1. What was “science” c. 1543 ?

a. Medieval ‘natural philosophy’

b. Renaissance currents

c. The impact of the New World

2. The “Scientific Revolution” story

a. Copernicus and Copernicanism

b. The Mechanical Philosophy, and Descartes

3. New places and publics for science

a. Gardens, anatomy theatres, collections

b. Bacon and the reform of learning

Aristotle, On the generation of animals, bk 2, Latin trans., c. 1476

The geocentric Cosmos (Ptolemy, Aristotle) • Sun rotates

around the earth!

Ptolemy: Egypt, c. 83-161 AD for astronomy, astrology, geography

Renaissance Occultism: • the Hermetic tradition • Neoplatonism • alchemy • Paracelsus macrocosm & microcosm

Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi ... historia (1617)

World Map, Ptolemy’s Geography (15th cent)

Charles V’s symbol for his Spanish Empire – Plus Ultra ‘plus more’!

G. F. de Oviedo, Historia general de las Indias (1535)

G. F. de Oviedo, Historia general de las Indias (1535)

Nic. B. de Monardes, Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales (1565-)

B. de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (ms, 1545-90)

José de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590)

Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665)

Wenceslaus Hollar

1543: Copernicus 1473-1543: b. Torun, Poland Catholic canon astronomer, work on coinage, calendars heliocentrism c. 1510-14 De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium, libri VI [Six books on the revolutions of the heavenly spheres] (Nuremberg, 1543) dedicated to Pope Paul III

The Copernican Hypothesis:

heliocentric cosmos (first suggested by the Ancient Greek Aristarchos of Samos)

Ptolemaic (geocentric) Copernican (heliocentric)

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Mathematics professor at University of Pisa (1589-), then Padua (1592-) 1610: The Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius) 1616: first “trial” w. Holy Office 1630: Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems 1633: second trial & condemnation

Galileo’s findings

Mountains on the Moon

Satellites of Jupiter

Phases of Venus

Breaks down the difference between heavenly (superlunar) and earthly (sublunar) spheres: the same physics can apply to both

Evidence for truth of Copernican system?

Use of detailed observational report

Can we trust the telescope?

Why was Copernicanism less of a problem in 1543?

Theory of solar system

Pre-Counter-Reformation Church accepted that Bible used “popular” images of universe

Truth claims

in print, Copernicus did not say his model was true, but only that it produced the best results (for Calendars, e.g.)

preface by Osiander: “Saving the phenomena”

Why did Galileo get in trouble?

Theory of theory

Telescope made virtual experience of heavens possible

Galileo argues that Copernicus’ model is necessarily true.

Biblical issues

Counter-Reformation church more concerned to police heresy?

The mechanical philosophy

From René Descartes, Discours de la méthode ... & Essais (1637)

Galileo (1564-1642) René Descartes (1596-1650) Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) Robert Boyle (1627-1691) Christian Huygens (1629-95) Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

What makes the cosmos, world, and animals move and interact?

… cosmos, human beings, and natural world is made of matter in motion

Atoms and particles, all interacting with fixed natural laws, like a ‘machine’

Allows production of generalized theories that can quantify many different types of interaction

Descartes: the vortices (tourbillons) of swirling particles in space that propel heavenly bodies through collisions (not gravity!) (Descartes, Principia, 1644)

Isaac Newton, 1642-1727 The Principia: The mathematical principles of natural philosophy (1687) Optics (1704)

1543: Vesalius 7 books On the Fabric of the human body (Basel, 1543)

Johannes Kepler New theories of vision and optics in

Astronomiae Pars Optica (1604)

Break with medieval optics…

But continuity or rather a rupture with tradition?

Properties of light

Planetary orbits are elliptical

William Harvey, 1578-1657

Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (1628) first complete theory of the

circulation of blood pushed throughout the

body by the heart's contractions

Anatomy Theatres Botanical Gardens

New Places for Knowledge

Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nic. Tulp (1632)

Ole Worm (Olaus Wormius) 1588-1655 Museum Wormianum, seu Historia rerum rariorum... (Leiden, 1655) The cabinet

New places

Museums

New places

New places … Patrons Rulers sponsor exploration and collection to demonstrate their God-given authority over the natural world in their domains – Knowledge is power 1657: Accademia

del Cimento, Florence

1660: Royal Society, London

1666: Académie royale des sciences, Paris Seb. Le Clerc, Louis XIV visiting the Académie Royale des Sciences

Galileo, courtier?

Galileo needs funding

Moves to Florence:

from university to court

& from mathematics to philosophy

Medicis continue patronage

Medicean ‘stars’ – ie moons of Jupiter

Demonstration of intellectual ‘power’ and prestige

Rudolph II - Emperor

Tyco Brahe & Johannes Kepler

New forms of writing

New instruments, new phenomena

the telescope 1609 thermometer 1617/38 barometer 1640s the air-pump 1650s the microscope 1660s

Air pump, from R. Boyle, New experiments physico-mechanicall (Oxford, 1660).

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) statesman, philosopher (Lord Chancellor of England 1618-21) Great Instauration 1620 Advancement of Learning New Organon New Atlantis (fragment, unpublished) 1620-26

Bacon, Instauratio magna (1620), title page “Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientiae” (Many will pass through, and knowledge will be increased) -- Daniel 12:4 How is the making of scientific knowledge portrayed in the New Atlantis? Is “Salomon’s House” a blueprint for the scientific academies of the 17th century?

Bacon & Scientific Method Knowledge is a rich storehouse for the glory of

the Creator and the relief of man's estate

The Advancement of Learning (1605)

On a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures, is the work and aim of Human Power. Of a given nature to discover the form, or true specific difference, or nature-engendering nature, or source of emanation (for these are the terms which come nearest to a description of the thing), is the work and aim of Human Knowledge

Novum Organum (1623)

The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible,

The New Atlantis, p. 480

Inductive reasoning

Differs from medieval – which

‘leaps’ from specifics to

general, known universal

terms without introspection on

the nature of induction and

observation

The goal of induction is to

guide the mind towards the

discovery of forms

Comparing, Contrasting,

Suggesting, and Excluding

Significance of the New Science

The existence and nature of scientific revolutions is a topic that raises a host of fundamental questions about the sciences and how to interpret them intersects most of the major issues that have concerned philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science

The 'Scientific Revolution' from Copernicus to Newton has been attractive because it fits the Enlightenment picture of the transition from feudalism to modernity and the vision of rational, objective sciences and technologies that lead society along the path of progress

Seeing the new science as a primarily an epistemological shift in practices and methods - in human knowledge - allows a richer awareness of what early modern 'scientists' maintained, adapted, and dismissed.

Terms Copernicus Teleoscope Heliocentric Scientia Anatomy Theatre Cabinet of Curiosities