Cultural Heritage II

Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment

 

Why did the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment happen when and where it did?

 

Religion:

 

 

 

Renaissance Values:

 

 

 

Philosophy:

 

 

 

Geography:

 

 

 

Exploration:

 

           

 

Economic:

 

 

 

Political:

 

 

 

Sociological:

 

 

 

Technology:

 

 

 

Literature and Art:

 

 

 

Any other factors?: Discussion?

Astrology, Alchemy, and Other Pseudosciences (see Paracelsus)

 

 

 

Ptolemy and the Geocentric System (“truth” for about 2,000 years):

 

 

 

Nicolaus Copernicus (1547-1543) and the Heliocentric System (On the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies, 1543):

 

 

     

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630):

 

 

 

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642):

 

 

 

Isaac Newton (1643-1727):

 

 

 

Deism/Clockmaker God/“The Prime Mover”/God is a Geometrician (Kepler):

 

 

 

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and the Scientific Method:

 

 

 

Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Meditations on First Philosophy (1641):

 

 

      Epistemology: Induction (Bacon) vs. Deduction (Descartes)

 

      Foundationalism: “I think therefore I am” (“Cogito Ergo Sum”)

 

 

 

Discussion?: Are religion and science in fundamental conflict, or can they be made harmonious?   How do scientists who are also believers reconcile these tensions (conflict, harmony, compartmentalization)? 

 

The Enlightenment(s)—French, English, and American (c. 1680-1790, growing out of Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Exploration, Constitutional Monarchy and Democratic Movements)

 

Four Major Characteristics of Enlightenment Culture

 

  1. Reason (Materialism, Skepticism, Scientific Method, “Common Sense”)

 

  1. Toleration, based on refusal to accept absolutes (Laissez-Faire Capitalism, Individualism, Democracy, Religious Freedom)

 

  1. Suspicion of Traditional Authorities (Descartes and Bacon; ongoing rise of middle/mercantile/professional classes; declining power of Clergy/Nobility, Attacks on theological/faith-based ways of knowing.)

 

  1. Belief in Progress (Utopianism, self-improvement, “perfectability”; “Progressive or Liberal Tradition,” past seen as bad/”dark”)

 

 

Philosophes (Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau in France) and “Salons”:

 

Diderot (1713-1784) edits “The Encyclopedia” (1751-71; see facsimile)

 

Rousseau (1712-1778):

 

Voltaire (1694-1778): Candide (1759)

 

 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790):

 

 

Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776):

 

 

Mary Wollstonecraft, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” (1792):

 

 

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785):

 

Builds on Descartes Foundational Philosophy, applying it to morals. 

 

Moral Absolutism vs. Moral Relativism

 

Transcendental Realm of “Higher Reason” (anticipates Romanticism)

 

 

Categorical Imperative:

 

“Always act so that you could will that the maxim of your actions should be the universal law.  A “maxim” is a rule that is followed.

 

Always treat other people as ends in themselves; never as a means to an end (consequences for slavery, capitalism, and ideological programs—reigns of terror.)

 

 

Hypothetical Imperatives (If the outcome is good, then I will do it.)  Also called . . . 

Consequentialism:

 

1.                  Ethical Egoism:

 

2.                  Utilitarianism (remember John S. Mill?)

 

 

The “Cultural Pendulum” (an ongoing “dialectic”): Religion-Reason-Romanticism-Realism-Modernism-Postmodernism

 

 

SOME DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  • What are the major ongoing benefits handed down to us from the Enlightenment?
  • What are some of the costs of Enlightenment thinking?
  • Do you believe in absolute morals, or in relative morals?  How can you decide the difference?  Do you think most people based their morals on selfishness or self-sacrifice? 
  • Have you seen any signs of a cultural pendulum swing or a “great relearning”?