Task 2 - Through the lens of new science
Reasoning
Heliocentric model of the universe
Geocentric model of the universe (16th century)
Aristotle
elaborated by Ptolemy
Assumptions
Between the earth and the fixed stars are the seven wandering stars (Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn)
The earth is a sphere , if not one side of heavens would appear large
The earth is centre of the heavens
It has no motion of translation, if so objects would be thrown into the air
To explain strange movement: epicycles (Ptolemy)
Adopted by Catholic Church and the Islamic faith
Copernicus adopted the idea of sun as centre
Copernicus was afraid of publishing it because of church
Assumptions
Sun takes one year to move around the earth, the earth needs one day to turn around its own axis
Epicycles to predict movement
Sun as the centre of the universe
published 1543
Galilei (1564-1642)
uses telescope (1609) to proof Heliocentric model
Many more stars were visible to the naked eye
Surface of the moon was not smooth
Jupiter had four orbiting moons
The size of Mars and Venus appeared to increase and decrease in cycles
Church (institution) worked against Galilei
Evident was so convincing that the heliocentric view rapidly came to dominate astronomy
Factors that contributed to the scientific revolution
Demographic changes
Absence of stifling pressure from religion to authority
New inventions (mechanical clock, telescope, book printing)
The existence of universities and patronage
Massive enrichment from the Greek and Arab civilisation
Natural Philosophy became detached from the big philosophical questions
Factors that helped fledging science grow
The absence of a disaster
A benevolent religion
The establishment of learned societies
The new method of the natural Philosopher
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
New view of science
Claiming neither perception nor reasoning alone provides progress
reasoning and observation have to interact
perception is biased
to correct observation bias: structural observations
compares natural philosophers with craftsmen
natural philosophers must go from particulars (experiment) to axioms (generalizing)
inductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning
conclusions are guaranteed to be true if the premises are right and the correct logical rules have been followed
used by Plato
Aristotle defined the syllogisms
conclusions are drawn on the basis of a series of converging observations
Jigsaw puzzle
beliefs were not random
beliefs were interrelated and interlocking
beliefs at the periphery (e.g. there are five planets) could be removed more easily than in the centre
core belief: Earth as the centre of the universe
Science as natural philosophy
explanining and understanding nature
Instrumentality
practical efficacy of scientific theories
component of science, distinguishable from its natural philosophy
in modern science: can be represented as natural philosophy or instrumentality, but not both simultaneously
Rise of modern science
Characteristics
Is experimental
Favors a mechanistic world picture
Acknowledges no authorities except that of nature itself
Describes natural things in mathematical terms and to quantify things
Mechanicism
Social changes of 15th and 16th century
Seeing a living being as analogous to mechanisms
Conclusion
Mechanization as one characteristic feature of its rise
organistic view of world
goes against mechanistic view
Zeitgeist
Impiricism
Rationalism
Decartes
Dualism
Mechanistic view