Chapter 16.2 European History Terms

Social Science

A field that studies people and the relationships among them.

René Descartes (1596-1650)

"I think, therefore I am."; Descartes discovered analytic geometry which provided scientists with an important new tool. He began to investigate the basic nature of matter. Believing that all matter was made up of identical "corpuscles" that collided together in an endless series of motions, he believed all occurrences in nature could be analyzed as matter in motion, and the total "quantity of motion" in the universe was constant. His greatest achievement was to develop his initial vision into a whole philosophy of knowledge and science. Descartes decided it was necessary to doubt senses and everything that could reasonable be doubted, and then, as in geometry to use deductive reasoning from self-evident truths, which he called "first principles," to ascertain scientific laws. His reasoning ultimately reduced all substances to "matter" and "mind"—that is, to the physical and the spiritual. He believed God had endowed man with reason for a purpose and that rational speculation could provide a path to the truths of creation. His view of the world as consisting of two fundamental entities is known as Cartesian dualism.

Paracelsus (1493-1541)

A physician and alchemist, who was an early proponent of the experimental method in medicine and pioneered the use of chemicals and drugs to address what he saw as chemical, rather than humoral, imbalances.

Rationalism/Reason

A secular, critical way of thinking in which nothing was to be accepted on faith, and everything was to be submitted to reason.

Empiricism / Inductive Reasoning

A theory of inductive reasoning that calls for acquiring evidence through observation and experimentation rather than deductive reason and speculation.

Galen

Ancient Greek physician; his explanation of the body carried the same authority as Aristotle's account of the universe. According to him, the body contained four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Illness was believed to result from an imbalance of humors, which is why doctors frequently prescribed bloodletting to expel excess blood.

Cartesian Dualism

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

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

English politician and writer Francis Bacon was the greatest early propagandist for the new experimental method. Rejecting the Aristotelian and medieval method of using speculative reasoning to build general theories, Bacon argued that new knowledge had to be pursued through empirical research. Bacon formalized the empirical method, which had already been used by Brahe and Galileo, into the general theory of inductive reasoning known as empiricism, which calls for acquiring evidence through observation.

William Harvey (1578-1657)

He discovered the circulation of blood through veins and arteries in 1628, and he was the first to explain that the heart worked like a pump. He also explained the function of its muscles and valves.

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.

Andreas Vesalius (1516-1564)

He studied anatomy by dissecting human bodies, often those of executed criminals. He issued his masterpiece, On the Structure of the Human Body in 1543. Its two hundred precise drawings revolutionized the understanding of human anatomy.

Deductive Reasoning

Reasoning in which a conclusion is reached by stating a general principle and then applying that principle to a specific case.