Chapter 16

Scientific Method

A series of steps followed to solve problems including collecting data, formulating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and stating conclusions.

Natural Philosophy

An early modern term for the study of the nature of the universe, its purpose, and how it functioned; it encompassed what we would call "science" today.

the salon and the coffeehouse

These were two convenient ways of social exchange. One was a drawing room inside local houses hosted by women and it let them have power potential and they were noted by the men that went there. The other, run by men (but women could still converse).

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)

Urged that Jews be given freedom and civil rights, for they remained an oppressed group in Prussia. A few favors were made, but Frederick firmly opposed any general emancipation

Theophrastus (377-288 BC)

Third century BC Greek philosopher and naturalist

John Locke (1632-1704)

insisted that governments are formed to protect natural rights

Enlightenment

A movement in the 18th century that advocated the use of reason in the reappraisal of accepted ideas and social institutions. It spread to the colonies in the 1700s but started in England

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Political theorist advocating absolute monarchy based on his concept of an anarchic state of nature. Unlimited political authority

Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) (1694-1778)

Wrote more than 70 witty volumes, hobnobbed with kings and queens and died a millionaire because of shrewd business speculations. Insulted a French aristocrat and was imprisoned in the Bastille in 1717. All his life struggled against legal injustice. Wrote various works praising England and popularizing their scientific progress. Had a long correspondence with Frederick the Great and eventually joined the Prussian court in Berlin.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)

Wrote one of the most influential human anatomy books (De Humani Corporis fabrica) and was considered the father of modern human anatomy.

Reading Revolution

result of reading more books on many more subjects, allowing the educated public in France and throughout Europe the approach reading in a new way.

Philosophes

Writers during the Enlightenment and who popularized the new ideas of the time.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

1. English politician and writer 2. Formalized the empirical method into a general theory of inductive reasoning known as empiricism

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)

A French Protestant, or Huguenot who took refuge from government persecution in the tolerant Dutch Republic. He wrote Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697). Demonstrating that human beliefs had been extremely varied and very often mistaken, he concluded that nothing can ever be known beyond all doubt, a view known as skepticism.

David Hume (1711-1776)

A central figure in Edinburgh, who emphasized civic morality and religious skepticism. He had a powerful impact at home and abroad. Building on Locke's teachings on learning, he argued that the human mind is really nothing but a bundle of impressions. These impressions originate only in sensory experiences and our habits of joining these experiences together. Since our ideas ultimately reflect only our sensory experiences, our reason cannot tell us anything about questions that cannot be verified by sensory experience (in the form of controlled experiments or mathematics), such as the origin of the universe or the existence of God. Paradoxically, his rationalistic inquiry ended up undermining the Enlightenment's faith in the power of reason. He also popularized ideas of race.

Ptolemy's Geography 1410

A second-century work that synthesized the classical knowledge of geography and introduced the concepts of longitude and latitude. Reintroduced to Europeans about 1410 by Arab scholars, its ideas allowed cartographers to create more accurate maps.

Tyco Brahe (1546-1601)

Danish astronomer. His observations were the basis for Keplers laws of motion

Cartesian Dualism

Descartes's view that all of reality could ultimately be reduced to mind and matter.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

Early enlightenment thinker excommunicated from the Jewish religion for his concept of a *deterministic universe*. He was a Dutch Jewish philosopher who borrowed Descartes's emphasis on rationalism and his methods of deductive reasoning, but rejected the French thinker's mind-body dualism.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

Editor of the Encyclopedia, 28 volume set of collected knowledge of the era, which applied principles of the Scientific Revolution to society and human institutions; patronized by Catherine the Great of Russia when censored in France. "All things must be explained"

Rocco (early 17th century-mid 18th century)

Elegant style of art and architecture that became popular in the mid-1700s

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

English Mathematician and physicist Book: Principia (1687) Laws of Motion Laws of Gravity

William Harvey (1578-1657)

English physician who discovered the workings of the circulatory system, challenging Galen's ideas of human anatomy

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Enlightened thinker best known for writing "The Social Contract" and "Emile". Believed that since "law is the expression of the general will," the state is based on a social contract. Emphasized the education of the whole person for citizenship. Rejected excessive rationalism and stressed emotions, thus anticipating the romantic movement

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

First astronomer to place sun at center of universe. Polish

Barón de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

French aristocrat who wanted to limit royal absolutism; Wrote The Spirit of Laws, urging that power be separated between executive, legislative, and judicial branches, each balancing out the others, thus preventing despotism and preserving freedom. This greatly influenced writers of the US Constitution. He greatly admired British form of government.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

French philosopher that argued for dualism between mind and body

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

German astronomer who first stated laws of planetary motion

Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

He helped found the modern science of chemistry. Following Paracelsus's lead, he undertook experiments to discover the basic elements of nature, which he believed was composed of infinitely small atoms. He was the first to create a vacuum, thus disproving Descartes's belief that a vacuum could not exist in nature, and he discovered Boyle's law (1662), which states that the pressure of a gas varies inversely with volume.

Public sphere (Germany)

Intellectual space that emerged in Europe where people could come together to talk about important issues.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Italian astronomer and mathematician who was the first to use a telescope to study the stars

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)

One of the great universalists, he independently discovered the foundations of calculus. He was also a gifted linguist (famed for his translations of Sanskrit), philosopher, lawyer and diplomat.

Adam Smith

Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. Seen today as the father of Capitalism. Wrote On the Wealth of Nations (1776) One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Madam du Chatelet

She believed women's limited contribution to science was the result of unequal education. Lived with Voltaire and helped spread his ideas

Rationalism

belief in reason and logic as the primary source of knowledge, not religion

Cesare Beccaria

believed that punishment should fit the crime, in speedy and public trials, and that capital punishment should be done away with completely

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

maintained that knowledge comes from our inborn ways of organizing sensory experiences

Empiricism

the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation