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8/6/2019 Boxed- Medieval Science and Its Contributions to the Modern World
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UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
Boxed: Medieval Science
and its Contributions to theModern WorldHonors Undergraduate Thesis
Joshua Adams
April 11, 2011
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Preface
I started this work over a year ago after finishing my first course on the middle ages by Dr. Charles
Stinger at the University at Buffalo. As a Biological Sciences and History double major, I found myself
interested in the history of science, particular how different time periods affected the modern development
of science. All too often, scientists simply take for granted the maturation of our fields and forget all the
many people and groups that have contributed to sciences current and astonishing intellectual height. I
completed this work with the intent to better understand the nature of medieval science and the nature of
science itself and I finished the work better educated in the development of natural philosophy and with a
greater appreciation for my future career as a physician-scientist.
This work is not intended to be an exhaustive review of medieval science nor is it to be taken as a
history of the middle ages. Instead, I have written this thesis with the idea of looking at several key moments
and by considering select passages from individual medieval intellectuals and scientists to better understand
the nature of medieval thought and science. In addition, I wished to compare medieval thinking with that of
the ancient Greeks, the Scientific Revolution and modern science to better understand not only how
scientific was the middle ages but also the nature of science in general.
I am convinced that modern science is based on a tradition of inquiry that stretches back to the
ancient Greek world and that an understanding of modern science requires an understanding ofallscientific
periods including the middle ages. In this vein, I have brought together the medieval thinkers with their
Greek and modern counterparts.
In the spirit of modern scientific inquiry itself, I draw upon many sources, from historians and
scientists who have come before me. In addition, as a scientist myself, I feel that my own ideas have their
place and I have placed them appropriately in the context of the giants of science upon which science is built.
Buffalo, NY Joshua Adams
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my mentor, Dr. Charles Stinger, for his time and wisdom that enabled me
to complete this work. I would also like to thank Dr. Jonathan Dewald for his persistence over the years
that have made me the writer I am today. I would also like to thank all the proofreaders and those off
whom I bounced ideas; Timothy Ecker, Alex Sunshine, Charlie Nassor, Adem Aktas, my brother Jonathan
Adams and my parents Clayton and Pamela Adams. Finally I would like to thank the University at Buffalo
Department of History and the University at Buffalo Honors College for the opportunity to write the
undergraduate honors thesis and their support throughout the writing process.
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Image Platos cave. Now, transform that cave into a simple, white box. What do you see? White
walls, an empty background. Now, imagine that your box is actually in another box, this time one that
takes on the shape and feel of your town; when one of your box walls collapses you are suddenly
transported into a wider, more complicated world and you are able to think new thoughts, pose new
questions and explore new ideas. The human mind can be thought of as existing within a box and the
box defines what we are able to discover, what questions we can ask and what answers we are willing to
accept. Keep this box in mind as we ask the deceptively simple question, did the Middle Ages have
science?
Since the early twentieth century, historians have generally assumed that medieval Europeans,
as the progenitors of certain key developments that led to the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution,
had some form of science. Pierre Duhem saw medieval science as the forerunner of the scientific
revolution, but he did, nonetheless, define the medieval world as scientific
1
. The question is, was it
reallyscientific? Simply because someone asks a question about a natural phenomenon, does that truly
define having science or is science something more, something deeper and more in flux? As a biologist
and a future physician-scientist, I believe that this question is of utmost importance for it not only
defines where science has been but where it will go in the future. An exploration of the medieval mental
landscape and of several high-profile medieval intellectuals provides mixed answers; the landscape is as
unscientific as one can get but the intellectual community appears, on the surface, to embrace science.
By going back to the ancient Greeks, widely acknowledged for holding scientific ideas and methods, and
1Cited in Grant, E. (2010). The Nature of Natural Philosophy in the Late Middle Ages.Studies in Philosophy and
theHistory of PhilosophyJ. Dougherty. Washington, D.C., The Catholic University of America Press:vii.
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then fast forwarding to the Scientific Revolution and the modern era we find that the medieval world
did nothave a core element that science requires all of its investigators: the ability to criticize and
supplant the past. Yet, the medieval world tells us more than what is needed to have science.It tells us
how our mental box defines how we approach the world and how the size and complexity of our
mental sphere does not necessarily predict its future contributions to a major mental expansion. We will
find that the medieval world contributed a major component of what we know now as science: the
ability to recognize the past as a potential resource for advancing scientific thought. What we learn from
analyzing medieval science, or the lack there of, is that our world is not set, not concrete but rather in
flux just waiting for another wall to come crashing down.
Medieval Europe is one of most misunderstood periods in western history for most students.
We romanticize about castles, knights and courtly dramas, we think of great feasts and battles that are
timeless. Like the Roman humanists of the fifteenth century, we do not always try to see the reality of
the situation, a reality that changed over time and was not nearly as rosy as wed all like to imagine2.
Before we can ask the question, did the middle ages have science, we need to ask what the medieval
mental landscape, the medieval me
ntailit, was like. We dont ask if a town has a symphony if we dont
at least know something about it so we should do the same for the medieval world.
If we wish to ask the question, do the middle ages have science, what types of questions should
we ask about the medieval mentailit? One of the most basic types of information used in analyzing a
scientific result are spatial and temporal measurements without which we are unable to draw
conclusions or comparisons to better understand our universe.
Lets start by exploring the medieval concept of space through the work of Gregory, Bishop of
Tours, author ofThe History of the Franks. Written as a history of Gregorys Europe in the mid-sixth
2For certain illusions (or self-delusions) of the Roman humanists, note Stinger, C. L. (1998). Renaissance in Rome,
Indiana University Press:67-71.
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century, Gregory helps paint for us a picture of the medieval concept of space with a story about an
admired saint and hermit, Hospicius.
He was a man of great abstinence, who had iron chains wound round his body, next to the skin,
and wore a hair shirt on top.One of the Longobards drew his sword and made ready to cut off the
recluses head. His right hand was paralyzed in midair as he dealt the blow, and he was unable to draw it
back to his sideThe man was converted on the spot: his head was tonsured, and he became one of
Hospicius most faithful monks3. Whether or not the story is true (and we know that medieval
hagiography had its own narrative conventions which did not necessarily conform to our expectations of
what is history), it helps us to understand the medieval mindset. The image Gregory sets before us is
what French medieval historian, Jacques Le Goff, would refer to as a symbolic and spiritual one, a
total rejection of the world4. Medieval people had a long way to go before they could penetrate the
screen of symbolism and encounter the reality of the world in which they livedFor the reality was not
that the heavenly world was as real as the earthly world, it was that they only formed one world, in an
inextricable mixture which caught men in the toils of a living supernatural5. This is a world where the
supernatural and the physical mixed; imagine for a moment that your world was a combination of the
magical world ofHarry Potterand the scientific world ofStarTrek; how could any of us deal with that,
how could we come to terms with a physical universe when, sitting in the same plane, is a magical,
supernatural and, therefore, uncontrollable universe. It is this universe that would prompt Le Goff to
describe the medieval person as one who held deep contempt for the world, a world he could not
control nor understand. It is this contempt, which explains Gregorys admiration for Hospicius.
Hospicius, it could be argued, does not represent the common man. After all, even Gregory of
Tours himself was Bishop, not Farmer, of Tours. Can we honestly say that Gregorys tale paints an image
3Gregory of Tours(1974). The History of the Franks, Penguin: 333-334
4Le Goff, Jacques. (1990). Medieval Civilization: Blackwell: 138,153,165
5Ibid: 153,165
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of the medieval mindset even though it is from a leading religious figure and about a well-respected
hermit? We must acknowledge that there will be problems in addressing this question; one of the most
important primary sources on medieval commoners, the inquisition records analyzed by Emmanuel Le
Roy Ladurie in his Montaillou, comes from the fourteenth century and only after a papal
inquisition6elicited extensive testimony from illiterate peasants and shepherds, thus giving voice to the
otherwise inarticulate. Instead, we should remind ourselves of two facts. One, Gregory was not a
widely traveled individual; he mainly remained within and around Tours his entire life7. Two, Gregorys
choice of a hermit is highly revealing as hermits were revered by the common people; so Hospicius
actions cannot be taken as merely his own, but rather one idolized by medieval civilization8.
Another way to look at how a people view space is how they approach questions and conflicts in
their world. Modern histories, for example are analyses of facts, concepts and personal backgrounds
that allow us to understand whysomething has taken place. We do not simply want to know the facts
but wish to probe deeper into our world to better understand historical phenomena. Judging both from
the confluence of the supernatural and the physical and Gregory of Tours admiration for Hospicius
conte
mptus mundi, or contempt of the world, we should expect that some early medieval thinkers may
not analyze their world as thoroughly as we. Indeed, when we look at the eighth to ninth century
thinker, Alcuin of York, we get that very impression. In his Grammar, he discusses important facts with
Charlemagne. Both Alcuins and Charlemagnes comments assume the guise of critical analysis. If thou
sayest I am not the same as thou, and that I am a man, it follows that thou art not a man, says Alcuin.
It does replies Charlemagne, But how many syllables has homo? replies Alcuin. This continues with
Charles replying Two and Alcuin explaining how he knows what he knows. It is the end that is most
important. Charlemagne says, I see and understand from what was granted at the start, both that I am
6Ladurie, E.L.R., and B. Bray. (2008). Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error: George Braziller.: vii
7Gregory of Tours. (1974). The History of the Frank,. Penguin: 13
8Le Goff: 184
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homo and that homo has two syllables, and that I can be shut up to the conclusion that I am these two
syllables...9.
Alcuin is hardly getting deep into his material (his proof seems to us superficially tautological);
his analysis is not deep because he belongs to a world that cannot be probed, to a world where the
physical is constantly being interrupted by the supernatural. It makes sense that in such a world, even
intellectuals would have trouble asking and answering more than superficial questions.
So far, we have encountered a landscape that is hardly inviting to scientific discourse and
thought; science cannot exist in a vacuum, one without a proper substrate to study. Before we get
ahead ourselves, we need to be reminded that this is a general overview, one that affected the
generality of medieval people and may have had exceptions. To delve deeper, we need to look at the
second most important measurement: time.
We dont give much thought to time unless were running late at the supermarket when we are
supposed to be at a meeting or when we have an assignment due in twenty minutes and were only
half-way through. Time, however is critical to our lives whether we actively think about it or not.
Imagine a world without time or even a world with only more generalized awareness of time. Could we
accomplish our tasks? More fundamentally, could we measure things, analyze situations and reach
quantitative conclusions? As a scientist, I turn to temporal measurements almost as often as spatial
because they provide valuable information regarding the world around me, how fast it moves and
changes. Now, lets think about the middle ages; this is a world, as weve just discovered, that has little
time for the physical. Does the same hold true for the temporal?
We turn, yet again, to Gregory of Tours. In his preface to History of the Franks, the bishop says,
A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad. The inhabitants of
9West, Andrew Fleming. (1892).Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons: 81
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different countries keep quarrelling fiercely with each other and kings go on losing their temper in the
most furious way. Our churches are attacked by the heretics and then protected by the Catholics; the
faith of Christ burns bright in many men, but it remains lukewarm in others; no sooner are church-
buildings endowed by the faithful than they are stripped bare again by those who have no faithwhat a
poor period this is! they have been heard to say. He continues at the beginning of Book 1, Proposing
as I do to describe the wars waged by kings against hostile peoples, by martyrs against the heathen and
by the Churches against the heretics, I wish first of all to explain my own faith, so that whoever reads me
may not doubt that I am a Catholic. For the sake of those who are losing hope as they see the end of the
world coming nearer and nearer, I also think it desirable that, from material assembled from the
chronicles and histories of earlier writers, I should explain clearly how many years have passed since the
world began10
. Gregory not only decries the state of his world but then exclaims that the world will
end, that the world is not only in decline but is approaching its death. Time is, to Gregory of Tours, on its
way out.
It is, again, difficult for us to understand Gregorys concept of time; it is one where the end is
known and near, one where time is in constant and in appreciable decline. Jacques Le Goff says it best,
The fundamental assertion was that history has a beginning and an endthe direction of history sloped
downwards in a declineThe scholastics tried to reaffirm this stopping of history and they gave a
rational basis for it by maintaining that historicity was fallacious and dangerous and that the only thing
that counted was eternity outside of time11
.
If time is in decline, does that necessarily preclude its use as a measurement? This is important
because even in the twenty-first century, we hear phrases like, good old days or, what is this world
coming to? and yet we still use time as an accurate and staple measurement in science and our
10Gregory of Tours: 63, 67
11Le Goff: 166, 173
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everyday lives. Did the medieval world, even with its pessimistic outlook on history, still use time? In his
work, The Problem of Unbelief in theSixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais, Lucien Febvre argued
that a timeless approach to time prevailed. He remarks that commoners in early modern Europe, as did
their medieval ancestors, regarded time vaguely. There is no need to say that those clocks did not
sound the hours[many times] the night watchman were provided with the hour only approximately, by
means of hourglasses using sand or water12.
Time was not only in decline, but it was also not worth its weight in straw hats; the medieval
landscape was one that saw time in decline and not worth measuring. What then, can we conclude
about the medieval thought landscape by examining their sense of space and time? We can say that the
medieval mindset was one where the physical and the temporal were regarded with, at best, apathy and
at worst utter contempt. This is not a landscape where science would easily find a home.
Are there manifestations of this landscape that might help us determine sciences chances? In
science, we use certain tools to measure and describe our world. We might expect the medieval world,
where the physical and the temporal were rejected, to be deficient in such tools and that is exactly what
we find. We look at two types of tools, nomenclature and standards.
Nomenclature is used for almost everything in modern science. We do not point at a glass
beaker and say, that thingy of watery stuff but rather we say, that beaker of methanol or ketones or
any other organic or inorganic solution. We name living organisms by their genus and species and even
assign proper font (italics) and capitalization to the name; Homo sapiens. Anyone who has ever taken
out a book at a library has dealt with the Dewey decimal system. In total, we use nomenclature every
day to navigate our world whether its scientific or just finding the latest Ken Follett novel. The medieval
12Febvre, L., and B. Gottlieb. (1985). The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century, the Religion of Rabelais;
Harvard University Press: 394
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world, on the other hand, did not have such naming structures, and thus was lacking in any standard
nomenclature13
.
Standards are vital because they connect different areas of study and allow experts from many
fields to communicate. You can imagine what would happen if the chemist and the biologist could not
talk to one another; the chemist would know how particulates come together and in suspension and the
biologist would know that if something blocks the various tubules of the kidney that there would result a
malfunction. However, if they could not communicate, then the idea of a kidney stone would be just
outside their grasp. By having standard scientific procedure, measurements and theory, scientists from
multiple fields can build on each others work to create something that neither could produce on their
own. Again, as we see with nomenclature, the medieval world was completely lacking in standards14
.
In our whirlwind tour of the medieval mentailit, we have discovered a world that rejected the
physical and the temporal, rejections that manifested themselves in the absence of nomenclature and
standards. This is nota world where we can imagine science taking hold. Rather, this is one that seems
hostile to science. Return to the image of the box in the opening paragraph. I propose that this medieval
mentailit can be represented as this very box. The medieval world, try as it might, was restrained
within a mental box that, based on its limitations in measurement, nomenclature and standards, was
only able to go so far in studying the universe. We then must ask ourselves the question, does this box
hypothesis hold true? Did the medieval world break out of its box or was it constrained? By comparing
the box to the works of medieval intellectuals we discover a surprising world; the medieval intellectual,
constrained by his box, seems to be far more scientific than would otherwise be expected.
We look at four intellectuals, two from the High Middle Ages, Peter Abelard and Roger Bacon,
and two from the Late, Will iam of Ockham and Thomas Bradwardine. Each tell us something about the
13Febvre and Gottlieb: 389
14Ibid: 401
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medieval intellectual world and reveals a key facet of that world that helped make modern science
possible, along with showing how complicated actually is the history of science.
Lets start by considering one of the most important logicians of the twelfth century, Peter
Abelard. Abelard lived in a time of intellectual renewal throughout Latin Christendom15. This is the
perfect place to begin, as a consideration of logical thinkers naturally connects with a consideration of
the logical thought and analysis seen in science. Abelards famous works include Sic et Non, translated,
Yes and No. Abelards focus throughout the work is simple and direct; he compares ancient thinkers and
church fathers and looks for discrepancies in their statements and works. You might immediately
question why we might study an individual who studied the church and religion rather than science; the
key is not the subject matter but how he analyzes it that tells us much on how the medieval intellectual
approached his world. It is the approach, not the subject that ultimately matters as we will see that the
approach is replicated even when medieval thinkers approach scientific subjects.
Abelard begins his work by explaining what he sets out to accomplish. He says, There are many
seeming contradictions and even obscurities in the innumerable writings of the church fathers. Our
respect for their authority should not stand in the way of an effort on our part to come at the truth. The
obscurity and contradictions in ancient writings may be explained upon many grounds, and may be
discussed without impugning the good faith and insight of the fathers. He continues, Not infrequently
apocryphal works are attributed to the saints. Then, even the best authors often introduce the
erroneous views of others and leave the reader to distinguish between the true and the false.
15King, Peter. (2010). PeterAbelard. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 11.09.20102010 [cited 02.16.2011
2010]. Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abelard/.
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Sometimes, as Augustine confesses in his own case, the fathers ventured to rely upon the opinions of
others16
.
What should we take away from Abelards statement? First, it is painfully obvious that he
attempts to understand the ancient thinkers but it is howhe justifies any contradictions that is key.
Abelard criticizes not the church fathers themselves but rather others who may have misinterpreted
their works; he bluntly admits that the fathers should be left in good faith. This is critical as it tells us
that Abelard not only studied ancient sources but was also unable to come out and say that one of them
was wrong. Imagine in our world not everarguing against an author but rather arguing against their
interpreters; we would have a problem moving beyond the past into the future. Keep this in mind when
considering whether or not medieval thinkers were scientific.
Our second voice from the medieval past is Roger Bacon, a thirteenth century, Oxford-trained
thinker on logic, natural philosophy, grammar, and innumerable other topics17
. He provides our first look
into an actual natural philosopher, if there were one in the middle ages, and therefore helps us to
delve deeper into our question. One of Bacons most important contributions to the modern world is his
emphasis on experimental science. Through a look at his work, Opus Majus, we can glean both his views
on experimentation and past sources. What Bacon says is critical not for its obvious promotion of
experimentation but rather for its approach to the ancients. Like Abelard, Bacon reveals the nature of
science in the middle ages but also the nature of science over time.
He starts Part Six, Chapter 1, Having laid down fundamental principles of the wisdom of the
Latins so far as they are found in language, mathematics, and optics, I now wish to unfold the principles
of experimental science, since without experience nothing can be sufficiently known. For there are two
16Abelard, Peter. (2011). From Sic et Non, 1120 [cited April 4th, 2011 2011]. Available from
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/churchhistory220/lecture%20four/PeterAbelardSicetNon.htm.17
Hackett, Jeremiah. (2011). RogerBacon. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 04.19.20072007 [cited 02.16.2011
2011]. Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/roger-bacon/.
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modes of acquiring knowledge, namely, by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and
makes us grant the conclusion but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so
that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by path of experienceFor
a man who has never seen fire should prove by adequate reasoning that fire burns and injures things
and destroys them, his mind would not be satisfied thereby, nor would he avoid fire, until he placed his
handin the fire, so that he might prove by experience that which reasoning taught18. This amazing
sections importance will become apparent later on but for now we must recognize that Bacon saw
experimentation as critical to learning.
Why then, do we group Bacon with Peter Abelard, a man who was as far from experimentation
as one could go? The key lies in Bacons following paragraph on Aristotle. He says, Aristotles
statement, then, that proof is reasoning that causes us to know is to be understood with the proviso
that the proof is accompanied by its appropriate experience, and is not to be understood of the bare
proof19
. If we were to read the same line from Aristotle we might conclude that he iswrong but Bacon
avoids that problem but adding his own interpretation; he says that Aristotle is right as long as we take
the text to mean something that conforms with our own understanding of the world. Bacon, like
Abelard, cannot bring himself to completely reject past thinkers but, instead, finds reasons for their
errors not in their own assertions but rather in our interpretation. Keep this in mind, along with
Bacons ideas on experimental science, as we continue our journey through the world of the medieval
intellectual.
We now transition into the Late Middle Ages, approximately 1350 to 1550 as demarcated by the
Black Death in 1347/48 and the beginning of the Counter Reformation in 1543 with the Council of Trent.
18Bacon, Roger. (1962). The Opus Majus of RogerBacon. Translated by Robert Belle Burke. Vol. 2. New York, NY:
Russell and Russell, Inc.: 18319
Bacon. Opus Majus Vol. 2:183-184
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Here we survey two additional thinkers, William of Ockham and Thomas Bradwardine. Each continue
the tale begun with Peter Abelard and reveal more on the nature of medieval science.
William of Ockham, probably best known to many a science student, including myself, for his
axiom known as Ockhams Razor, was a late medieval philosopher in logic, natural philosophy, ethics
and political philosophy. Again, like Bacon, he provides us with a view from medieval natural philosophy.
In Ockhams Summula philosophiae naturalishe remarks on the nature of physics. As we read his
comment, keep in mind Roger Bacon. Is physics a theoretical or practical science? It is wholly or for the
most part theoretical, for it is mainly concerned with things we do not make, such as the earth, heavens,
animals and other bodies20. Remember Bacons stance on experimentation; at that time it was
apparent that medieval thinkers were able to come up with physical ways to understand their universe.
William of Ockhams remark dampens that ability; only things that humans make are considered
practical science, everything else is theoretical. Theoretical science here does not mean something that
needs to be tested but rather something that cannotbe tested because Ockham says that it [physics] is
whollyfor the most theoretical. We have therefore hit a stumbling block; Bacon reveals the ability of
medieval thinkers to approach their world using experimentation but Ockham restricts that
experimentation to only those objects humans can make and therefore draws the curtain on wholly
natural philosophy. Again, like the others weve looked at, keep this in mind as we further probe the
science of the middle ages.
Our final medieval thinker is Thomas Bradwardine, a late medieval mathematician who applied
quantitative measures to Aristotelian physics21
.In his Tractatus de proportionibus, published in 1328,
Bradwardine attempts to identify a rule of dynamics using mathematics, particularly one from Aristotles
20Maurer, A.A. (1999). The Philosophy of William ofOckham in the Light of its Principles: [Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies].: 381-38221
Spade, Paul Vincent. (2011). Insolubles [Web Site Encyclopedia]. Stanford University, June 26th, 2009 2009 [cited
04.12.2011 2011]. Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/insolubles/#3.1.
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Physics22
. Did, then, Bradwardine constitute a modern physicist? The answer is no, not because he did
not employ mathematics but because he never used experimentation23
. Remembering the differences
between Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, this would make sense; Bradwardine is using a similar set
of rules as Ockham, looking at the law from a theoreticaland notpracticaland therefore experimental
point of view.
Even if Bradwardine failed to experiment, we still have one additional question; how did he
relate to Aristotle? Did he come up with something new or even try to contradict the ancient Greek
thinker? Jean Celeyrette says it best, The intent of the medieval master is commentary on and
explication of the books of Aristotle. When the medieval master appears in contradiction with Aristotle,
in general he removes the difficulty with the help of distinctions. If this does not succeed, he can, as we
have seen, choose to ignore the disagreement (as Bradwardine does), to stress it (as Kilvington), or even
to pretend that Aristotle was incorrectly translated (as Oresme [and, as we have seen, Roger
Bacon])24
. Here we have an image of a medieval thinker, a mathematician, who does not experiment
but also finds it difficult to even reject the ancients. Like the others, keep this description in mind as we
continue our question, did the middle ages have science?
What conclusions can we draw from our study of the medieval intellectual? First, on the surface
these thinkers, with the exception of Peter Abelard, appear to be protoscientists. There are some quirks,
which we shall get to in a moment, but for the most part they appear to be early versions of future
thinkers of the scientific revolution. Roger Bacon comes up with an idea on experimental science, drawn
from his study of ancient texts, William of Ockham agrees with the study of science but demarcates
physical from theoretical science on the basis of what humans build and finally Bradwardine shows us
22Laird, Walter Roy and Roux, Sophie. (2008). Mechanics and Natural Philosophy Before theScientific Revolution.
Vol. 254, [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science]. Boston, MA: Springer.: 5123
Ibid: 5124
Cited in Ibid: 64-65
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just how much the human mind is able to grasp. In total, we seem to have a proto-scientific intellectual
world but we have a problem; this world seemingly is in contradiction with the medieval landscape, the
mentailit, the box, that we earlier laid out. Do they really contradict or is there something that we miss
by isolating the medieval thinkers in their own world? To better understand whether or not the
medieval world truly had science we must compare the medieval thinkers with other, accepted
scientists throughout history. It is natural to begin with the medieval worlds intellectual progenitors,
those they constantly cited, the Greeks.
The ancient Greeks provide an excellent set of sources to which we can compare the medieval
scientific thinkers for two reasons. First, the Greeks are widely acknowledged for their scientific work,
especially in natural philosophy25. Second, the Greeks provide a similar dichotomy between a general
landscape of thought and the intellectuals; most Greeks were not scientists or intellectuals but, as the
broad range of religious and votive structures and art reveal, had their own culture which may appear,
at first glance, to be the antithesis of science26
. We can, then, adequately compare Greek thinkers with
medieval thinkers and recognize that the general landscape may not be a true view of how scientific the
Greeks were. This helps us to fairly access medieval science by looking at the intellectuals rather than
the common landscape for, as weve seen, it is through the medieval intellectual that we have questions
regarding the nature of medieval science.
Coming out of the Geometric Era at the end of the Greek Dark Age were an entirely new class of
thinkers that we now know as the Pre-Socratics27
. Like the medieval intellectual, not all of the Pre-
Socratic philosophers studied what we can identify as a scientific subject. Lets look at three
intellectuals ranging from the sixth to fifth century BC to get a better understanding of the nature of
Greek science and how it compares to the medieval world.
25Hurwit, J.M. (1985). The art and culture ofearly Greece, 1100-480 B.C: Cornell University Press.: 203
26Ibid: 209
27Ibid: 203
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Before we begin, we should understand the nature of our primary sources; they are fragments.
Such sources therefore should make us question the full validity of the argument as much has been lost.
However, we can safely assume, as dangerous as that is, given the strong nature of the comments, that
what we do have conforms to the Pre-Socratic thinkers core ideas. In addition, for ease of reference, I
will refer to each of the Fragments by their number as given by Philip Wheelwright in his seminal book,
The Pre-Socratics. One additional point has to be made; because these are fragments, they are in no
special order. Wheelwright put them together in a logical manner but we must not assume that one
fragment precedes another but rather take all the fragments as one, complete thought.
Lets begin with Xenophanes, a sixth century Greek philosopher. Xenophanes many fragments
range from myth and religion to natural philosophy. Each tell us much about the nature of Greek
thought and provide excellent comparisons to medieval thinkers. In Fragment 8, Xenophanes attacks the
central pillar of Greek education, the poets Homer and Hesiod. Homer and Hesiod attributed to the
gods all sorts of actions which when done by men are disreputable and deserving of blame- such lawless
deeds as theft, adultery and mutual deception28
. Compare to Peter Abelards analysis of the ancient
thinkers; Abelard finds fault with translators and interpreters while Xenophanes finds fault with the
original author. This clear distinction becomes even more clear when looking at Fragments 8 and 17:
Quite evidently the gods have not revealed everything to mortals at the outset; for mortals are obliged,
in the slow course of time, to discover for themselves what is best; The sea is the source of water and
the source of wind. For blasts of wind could not come-to-be within the clouds and blow forth from them
if it were not for the great sea; nor could there be rivers, nor any rain from the sky without it. The great
sea is the begetter of clouds and winds and rivers29. In Fragment 8, Xenophanes explains knowledge to
be something that is unknown; because the gods never gave the Greeks, according to Xenophanes, any
28Wheelwright, Philip. (1997). The Presocratics, Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall.: 33
29Ibid: 33-34
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special knowledge, Greeks of the future must come up with new ideas, for past thinkers will not know
all. This is continued in Fragment 17 where Xenophanes comes up with a theory for water and wind
withoutciting past sources; he comes up with something new.
What Xenophanes implicitly tells us is that the Greeks saw science and philosophy as a rejection,
not an affirmation of the past; theydefined their future and did not need past thinkers. How can we be
sure that Xenophanes was not unique? A look at the later thinker, Thales, shows Xenophanes to be part
of a line of thinking rather than an independent and isolated source.
Most of Thales fragments have been lost; however we have later Greek and Roman thinkers
writings on Thales to provide evidence for his work. This later citation is, as well see later, important in
analyzing the medieval contribution to modern science. In Proclus On Euclid, there is a description of
Thales entering Egypt and bringing knowledge to Greece. The key is what he says next, He [Thales]
discovered a number of propositions himself, and he explained to his successors the underlying
principles of many others. In some cases he employed deduction from universals, in others his approach
was empirical30
. Thales does go into Egypt and brings back ideas but it is not clear whether or not those
ideas are Egyptian or Thales own. What is more important is the greater emphasis given to his own
work that he not only brought into Greece but passed down to his successors. Why would Proclus make
more of a point of Thales own contributions rather than what we learned from Egypt? Although we
might never know, a simple construction is that Thales did not borrow from the Egyptians but rather
used his experiences in Egypt to open his mind to new possibilities that even the Egyptians had yet to
discover. Regardless, Thales follows Xenophanes idea of building new ideas rather than simply adopting
ancient ideas.
30Wheelwright: 49
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A combination of Thales and Xenophanes reveals a Greek world that is a far cry from the middle
ages; the Greeks looked for new ideas, for their philosophy centered on the gods notgranting all
knowledge to humanity forcing human civilization to discover for themselves what is correct. In
addition, they were willing to criticize past thinkers unlike the medieval intellectual. Before we draw
further conclusions on the nature of medieval science, lets look at one final and monumental thinker,
Heraclitus.
Heraclitus of Ephesus is reported to have reached his zenith between 504 and 500 BC and was
widely known for the rest of antiquity for his demanding statements on philosophy and science,
statements that, as well see, made Xenophanes and Thales appear to be less worthy of admiration in
comparison. We can break Heraclitus thoughts down into three types: his rejection of past thinkers as
well see in Fragments 6 and 93; his rejection of the supernatural and spiritual universe in Fragments 11,
29, and 81; and his view of the future in Fragment 19. We use so many of Heraclitus fragments because
of his importance to our question, did the middle ages have science?
Just as weve seen in the previous Pre-Socratic thinkers, Heraclitus thoughts are broken into
fragments; lets begin with his rejection of the past. There are two fragments of note; Much learning
does not teach understanding, otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, Xenophanes and
Hectaeus and Homer deserves to be thrown out of the contest and flogged, and Archilochos too31. It
is rare even today to find a philosopher or scientist so adamantly opposed to his predecessors. What is
interesting here is not merely Heraclitus rejection of Homer, as weve seen this is hardly new, but rather
his rejection of Pythagoras. We do not expect to find a great Greek philosopher and scientist rejecting a
man and school that even today we hold in high regard. Could it be that the Greek scientists were at
31Wheelwright: 69,76
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one remove even from our own modern science? Keeping this in mind we continue to Heraclitus
treatment of the supernatural.
In fragment 11 Heraclitus establishes his love of observation, an early form of experimentation.
The things of which there can be sight, hearing, and learning- these are what I especially prize32. In
fragment 29, he completely rejects the supernatural by defining the universe in terms of regular,
coherent and, therefore, decipherable, laws. This universe, which is the same for all, has not been
made by any god or man, but it has always been, is, and will be- and ever-living fire, kindling itself by
regular measures and going out by regular measures33
. Finally, in fragment 81, he asserts that the
universe is ruled by one law, bringing together fragments 11 and 29. Men should speak with rational
awareness and thereby hold on strongly to that which is shared in common- as a city holds on strongly
to its law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by the one divine law, which
prevails as far as it wishes, suffices for all things, and yet is something more than they34. Amazingly,
Heraclitus not only rejects the supernatural but constructs a vision of the universe that is completely
predicable, observable and understandable. Such a construct helps put the medieval landscape into
perspective, as well see in a moment by showing just has constraining the medieval box could be.
Before we draw conclusions from our study of the Greek thinkers, we need to look at one final
Heraclitus quote, by far my own personal favorite for what it says about the possibilities of the universe.
There are two translations that we can cite, one from Philip Wheelwright and the other from UB
Classics professor, Dr. Thomas Barry. Wheelwright translates, Unless you expect for the unexpected
you will never find [truth], for it is hard to discover and hard to attain35
. Dr. Barry, in his Greek
Intellectual History course at the University at Buffalo in Fall2009, provided a different translation to his
32Wheelwright: 70
33Ibid: 71
34Ibid: 75
35Ibid: 71
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class, of which I was a part that I believe better captures the spirit of the fragment. He translates,
Unless you hope for the unhoped for you will never discover it, for the way to it is trackless and not to
be discovered. Heraclitus is conveying a simple but powerful message; the future is not one that will be
discovered based on the past or, for that matter, ANY past thinking, but rather on an immediate jump
ahead in time. What he describes is what happened in a Zurich patient office in 1905; the relationship
between matter and energy had been attempted before but Albert Einstein did not build off prior
scientists but rather came up with an entirely new theory almost out of thin air. The greatest
discoveries, according to Heraclitus come NOT from a further development of past theory but rather
from a complete departure from the past.
Before we get lost in the ruins of Greece we need to pull ourselves back to the medieval age. We
have already concluded that there is a disconnection between the medieval landscape and the medieval
intellectual when it comes to scientific thought and our detour into the Aegean has helped bring that
distinction into sharper focus. The Greeks, like their medieval counterparts, were divided between the
common man and the intellectual; no doubt the average Greek, as John Hurwitt so put it, had little to no
interest in or knowledge of Heraclitus or the other Greek philosophers; their landscape would have been
just as supernatural, just as mythic and anti-scientific as the medieval one. However, such a landscape
shaped and molded the Greeks; supernatural beings and gods who could care less about human
existence may have helped push the Greek philosopher to find another answer, as Xenophanes sure did.
Can this be the same of the middle ages? Could the medieval box have molded and shaped the medieval
intellectual? We know that the medieval world was one of deep uncertainty and filled with the
supernatural just as the Greek world was. That being true, then how do the two intellectual worlds
compare?
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The Greek intellectual and the medieval intellectual are aligned on many things; both ask
questions and attempt to find answers, both look at past sources and both have some semblance of
observation. There are two key points. First, both the Greek philosopher and the medieval intellectual
had observational skills, thereby linking the two groups and their methods of inquiry. Second, and more
important is how each group viewed the past. The Greeks saw past thinkers as absolutely dead-wrong,
as being misguided and not worth their time in direct study. The medieval intellectual, however, seems
to be stuck in the past, in the Greeks and the church fathers. Even Roger Bacon, an experimentalist,
cannot fully pull his feet out the mud of the past but rather finds contemporary excuses for the
ancients, in his case Aristotles, faults. Can we, therefore consider the medieval world capable of true
science? If we only compare them to the Greeks then the answer is no. Although they were capable of
observation like the Greeks, a point to which I shall return, they would not have been capable of
Heraclitus idea of building a future completely separate from the past. But what if we are judging the
medieval intellectual too harshly? The Greeks may have been progenitors and, while we can find
glimmers of our own civilization in theirs, it does not mean that the medieval intellectual should be
judged only by the Greeks but rather should be judged by his forerunners and his descendents. When
we turn to the Scientific Revolution, we find that the medieval scene is more complicated than we
would imagine just looking at the Greeks; this complication continues as we look at modern thinkers,
among whom I include myself.
The Scientific Revolution, although, as well see, a major departure from medieval thinking,
nonetheless developed in the centuries following the middle ages36. Lets look at the Scientific
Revolution with two questions in mind: How did thinkers of the Scientific Revolution approach the
Greeks and what does their thought say about medieval science?
36Jacob, Margaret C. (2010). TheScientific Revolution: A Brief History with Documents, [The Bedford Series in
History and Culture]. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's.: 4-6
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Lets begin with Nicolaus Copernicus and his On the Revolutions of the HeavenlyOrbs. In her
introduction to her edition of this key work, Margaret C. Jacob cautions us to look at Copernicus
carefully as his attempt to find a better system of motion was dependent on his maintenance of
Aristotelian thought37
. But we will use this caution in a slightly different way; what appears to be a
problem actually reveals one of the most important contributions of the middle ages.
One section in particular is of interest. Copernicus is explaining both what he has done
mathematically and why he set out on the task in the first place. He says, For, first, the mathematicians
are so unsure of the movements of the sun and moon that they cannot even explain or observe the
constant length of the seasonal year. Secondly, in determining the motions of these and of the other
five planets, they do not even use the same principles and hypotheses as in their proofs of seeming
revolutions and motions. So some use concentric circles, while others eccentrics and epicycles38. From
the start, Copernicus seems to be following the Greek path, criticizing the ancient thinkers and arguing
that their work does not add up. Before we jump to conclusions and condemn the medieval thinker, we
should turn to his revealing concluding lines. I pondered long upon this uncertainty of mathematical
tradition in establishing the motions of the system of the spheres. At last I began to chafe that
philosophers could by no means agree on any one certain theory of the mechanism of the universe,
wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly creator, though in other respects they investigated with
meticulous care the minutest points relating to its orbits. I therefore took pains to read again the works
of all the philosophers on whom I could lay hand to seek out whether any of them ever supposed that
the motions of the spheres were other than those demanded by the mathematical schools. Taking
advantage of this, I too began to think of the mobility of the earth, and though the opinion seemed
absurd, yet knowing now that others before me had been granted freedom to imagine such circles as
37Jacob: 45
38Ibid: 47
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they chose to explain the phenomena of the stars, I considered that that I also might easily be allowed
to try whether, by assuming some motion of the earth, sounder explanations than theirs for the
revolution of the celestial spheres might so be discovered39
.
What we just observed was the opening of the medieval box through the past. Copernicus was
willing, like the Greeks to take on the ancient scholars when they were wrong and attempt to find a
better solution to an ancient problem. But that last part is key, it is an answer to an ancientproblem;
Copernicus, unlike the Pre-Socratic philosophers, does NOT attempt to frame his inquiry withoutsome
aid from past thinkers. He, instead, looks to past thinkers as grounding for his current questioning, using
them as sources to construct a better system than they. Historian Eric Cochrane explains it best as the
destruction of the method of argument from authority40. Copernicus does not reject nor does he
adore the past; he uses the best parts as a base and then proceeds to build a system that is better and
more sound than what his predecessors formulated. Is this aspect of Copernicus simply part of the
gradual breaking away from medieval scholasticism or is it more critical? Before we can answer this
question, we need to look at several additional thinkers of the Scientific Revolution and three modern
thinkers.
We now turn to seventeenth-century Francis Bacon and his The Great Instauration, where he
will argue for the need for innovation, for new worlds and humility41
. Here we have one continuous
passage that we shall break down to refine our focus that we started with Copernicus. And then the
way is still to be made by the uncertain light of the sense, sometimes shining out, sometimes clouded
over, through the woods of experience and particulars, while those who offer themselves for guides are
(as was said) themselves also puzzled, and increase the number of errors and wanderers. In
39Ibid: 47-48
40Cochrane, Eric. (1976). Science and Humanism in the Italian Renaissance.American Historical Review, 81 (5):1052-
1053.41
Jacob: 56
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circumstances so difficult neither the natural force of mans judgement nor even any accidental felicity
offers any chance of success. No excellence of wit, no repetition of chance experiments, can overcome
such difficulties as these. Our steps must be guided by clue, and the whole way from the very first
perception of the senses must be laid out in sure plan42
. Lets pause here and take note of two points.
First, Bacon seemingly rejects past thinkers, arguing that even the guides of the past may be uncertain
and mistaken. Second, he also emphasizes that our own experimentation may not be fruitful.
Before coming to conclusions, lets look at what he says next. Not that I would be understood
to mean that nothing whatever has been done in so many ages by so many great labors. We have no
reason to be ashamed of the discoveries which have been made, and no doubt the ancients proved
themselves in everything that turns on wit and abstract meditation, wonderful men. But, as in former
ages, when men sailed only by observation of the stars, they could indeed coast along the shores of the
old continent or cross a few small and Mediterranean seas, but before the ocean could be traversed and
the New World discovered, the use of the mariners needle, as a more faithful and certain guide, had to
be found out43
. Now we have a better picture, and one that is a continuation of what Copernicus said a
century earlier. Bacon does reject past thinkers but not because they were hopelessly ill informed or
bumbling fools as Heraclitus saw Homer and Pythagoras but rather because they couldnot see the truth
for a lack of tools. Bacon and Copernicus are middle men between the obeisance to the past in the
middle ages and the severance from the past in Greece. Again, we need to look at additional thinkers
before concluding whether or not this is unique to the scientific revolution or something more
important.
Before moving on, lets ask one final question of Bacon; did he look for experimentation like the
Greeks and certain medieval intellectuals? He says, In like manner [finding the New World] the
42Cited in Ibid: 57
43Cited in Ibid: 57
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discoveries which have been hitherto made in the arts and sciences are such as might be made by
practice, meditation, observation, argumentation- for they lay near to the senses and immediately
beneath common notions, but before we can reach the remoter and more hidden parts of nature, it is
necessary that a more perfect use and application of the human mind and intellect be introduced44
.
Bacon continues the love of observation first introduced to the western world in ancient Greece and
continued in the middle ages. This love of observation and experimentation is a critical thread that, as
we will see later, is a critical aspect of science and says much on the nature of scientific inquiry
throughout time.
My experience has shown me that almost every scientist has a favorite scientist from each
period in human history and Galileo Galilei is my personal favorite from the Scientific Revolution for one
special reason; among the early modern scientists he comes closest to modern science. He not only
observed his universe but was able to draw conclusions that no one had yet discovered45. Lets look at
one particular passage in his TheStarry Messengerin 1610. Here he describes the surface of the moon
and it is howhe describes both the surface and his method of inquiry that is absolutely critical. These
spots [what we now know as craters] have never been observed by any one before me, and from my
observations of them, often repeated, I have been led to that opinion which I have expressed, namely
that I feel sure that the surface of the moon is not perfectly smooth, free from inequalities and exactly
spherical, as a large school of philosophers considers with regard to the moon and other heavenly
bodies, but that, on the contrary, it is full of inequalities, uneven, full of hollows and protuberances, just
like the surface of the earth itself, which is varied everywhere by lofty mountains and deep valleysNow
the great spots of the moon observed at the same time are not seen to be at all similarly broken or full
of depressions and prominences but rather to be even and uniform, for only here and there some
44Cited in Ibid: 57
45Ibid: 59
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spaces, rather brighter than the rest, crop up, so that if any one wishes to revive the old opinion of the
Pythagoreans, that the moon is another earth, so to say, the brighter portion may very fitly represent
the surface of the land and the darker the expanse of water46
.
I suppose it takes a scientist to get the chills upon reading Galileo but what he has to say speaks
volumes of both the divergence from medieval thinking as well as representing continuity from those
same medieval sources. First, Galileo goes beyond Bacon and Copernicus when he says that HE
discovered something previously unknown to human kind; HE did it, no one else. This is highly reflective
of Heraclitus total rejection of the past for a new kind of thinking. There is however a second point that
is even more important than the first. Galileo may reject past thinkers, he may even see himself as
creating something entirely new; however he bases this on a reading of past thinkers. He knows what
has been said before; he acknowledges them as being right in their own time. Pythagoras and the
Greeks were right in theirtime as Galileo is right in his. He does not attack them as does Heraclitus but
rather states howhe knows more and why; he rejects them without destroying them and this position
is, as well see key.
How do thinkers of the Scientific Revolution compare to the middle ages? For starters,
Copernicus, Bacon and Galileo are more than willing to criticize the past if it so suits them and they are
willing even to assert their own, personal discoveries as independent from anyone else. There is,
however a small but vital thread of continuity from the middle ages to the Scientific Revolution; a
concern to situate their work in relation to the past. Copernicus is most evident while Galileo is less so
but the concept remains. In all cases, past thinkers are not tossed out the nearest air lock but rather
analyzed and revered for their own discoveries in their own time; in essence the past has become the
basis for the future. This is in contrast to the Pre-Socratic habit of destroying, intellectually, the past in
46Cited in Ibid: 61-62
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favor of the future. The medieval worlds foremost hindrance was its dependence on the revered past
or, as Eric Cochrane would put it, the use of argument from authority. Medieval thinkers were not able
to move beyond ancient thinkers simply because they could not reject them; thinkers of the Scientific
Revolution developed a middle ground between the Greeks and the middle ages by rejecting past
thinkers but recognizing them in their own right. This created a situation where science could build upon
on itself, where science could challenge the past while using it for its own gain. This thread, this idea
came not from Greece but from the middle ages and, as well see, shows how important the medieval
world was to the development of modern science even if it itself did not have science.
We cannot answer the question, did the medieval world have science, by only looking at ancient
or early modern examples of accepted science; we must look at modern science. Modern science is one
of the most complicated phenomena in the universe outside the human brain so we must choose our
sources carefully. Well use four sources, the works of Stephen Hawking, a seminal article from the
Journal of CellSciencein 2008, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tysons Death by Black Hole and finally my
own understanding of science from my early scientific academic career.
First published in 1988, Stephen HawkingsA Brief History of Time is one of the most
recognizable scientific works written for the layman in the last half-century. Published in2010, The
Grand Design is Hawkings follow up for the second decade of the twenty-first century. What I find most
interesting about the works is how Hawking describes the role of philosophy in science; it is not the
individual comments on philosophy but rather how the 1988 work compares to his 2010 book. InA Brief
History of Time, Hawking describes philosophys role in the following manner; Up to now, most
scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describewhatthe
universe is to ask the question why. On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the
philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theories. In the eighteenth
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century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field
and discussed questions such as: did the universe have a beginning? However, in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone
except a few specialists. Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein,
the most famous philosopher of this century, said, The sole remaining task for philosophy is the
analysis of language. What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!
However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by
everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people,
be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist47
.
Setting aside Hawkings incredible ego when it comes to ordinary people we find him sympathetic to
philosophers and even optimistic of their future role in science. How then, does he treat philosophers in
his 2010 work, The Grand Design?
In that work his treatment of philosophy is far blunter, condensed to a single line: Traditionally
these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead48
. Amazing that in the course of only twenty
years, Stephen Hawking has gone from seeing a future for philosophy to utterly rejecting its role in the
world not only in science. What can we take from this and how shall we compare it to previous scientific
thinkers, most notably medieval thinkers? First, we should be aware that The Grand Design was a co-
written book, by both Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. It could just be that this opinion is not entirely
Hawkings. Another answer is that, perhaps Hawking and Mlodinow simply have rejected their previous
claims; in other words the ancient Greek idea of rejecting the past has been extended to the self.
Hawking not only rejects the past but also his own past thinking. This is an entirely new concept, not
invented by Hawking, but reflected in the twenty-first century. Hawking reveals the extension of the
47Hawking, S.W. (1998).A Brief History of Time: Bantam Books.: 190-191
48Hawking, S.W., S. Hawking, and L. Mlodinow. (2010). The Grand Design, Random House Publishing Group.: 5
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rejection of the past from rejecting anothers past to rejecting your own. This is in complete contrast to
medieval thinkers who could not even get past their own authoritative sources.
Before we jump to conclusions, we should look at several additional sources. In 2008, an
editorial was written to the Journal of CellScienceentitled, The importance of stupidity in scientific
research. With such a title, it was bound to get attention but its contents are more than worth the time
spent reading. The article focuses on a problem in scientific education, a problem that in my own
undergraduate science courses I know only too well; in high school and college we are expected to have
the answer, to know exactly how certain scientific phenomena work and who came to understand that
process, whereas in real world science we encounter natural processes that neither we nor anyone
before us can understand. The author, Martin A. Schwartz from the University of Virginia, concludes his
article Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in
the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to
bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something
each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right.
No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education
might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to
making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will
wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries49
. How much more
Heraclitian can you get! Schwartz is calling for a sea change in education where the unknown is
emphasized over the known; who cares if we know something, instead we should look for the questions
unanswered and take that unknown path that Heraclitus so urged 2500 years before. The paper
49Schwartz, M. A. (2008). The importance of stupidity in scientific research. Journal of Cell Science, 121 (11):1771-
1771. doi: 10.1242/jcs.033340.
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confirms that modern science needs to reject the past rather than adore it; the medieval world lacked
this one precondition.
So far, the middle ages is not faring well when compared to modern science for it is unable to
question the past. What we must be careful of not doing is assuming that each of the previous authors
simply rejected the past without first considering it, much like the Pre-Socratics who saw no value in the
past. A quick glance at their reference list shows this not to be the case; Hawkings books are filled with
references from past thinkers, and his science, although new, was built off of an understanding of who
came before. Science does not exist in isolation, even if we take Heraclitus at his word and discover
something out of nothing; most science, as I will get to in a moment, starts with a review of all who
came before for we must understand what we know before we can discover what we do not.
If Galileo Galilei is my personal favorite of the scientists in the Scientific Revolution, Neil
deGrasse Tyson is mine for modern scientists. His ability to convey complex scientific terms in fun and
interesting ways is imperative in an increasingly scientifically illiterate world and as a scientist ,as I
regard myself, I find the no-holds-barred and yet understandable approach refreshing. His Death by
Black Hole, a title that should immediately convey why he is so well respected in the academic
community, is a collection of essays that have been written over the past years. Two are particularly
important to our question.
In his On Being Baffled, Tyson argues very much the same argument as Dr. Schwartz. In this
particular case [of a new discovery], the object was eventually identified as an odd, though otherwise
unremarkable, galaxy- but not before millions of readers had been exposed to a parade of selected
astrophysicists saying, I dunno what it is. Such reporting is rampant, and grossly misrepresents our
prevailing states of mind. If the writers told the whole truth, they would instead report that all
astrophysicists are baffled daily, whether or not their research makes headlines. Scientists cannot claim
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to be on the research frontier unless one thing or another baffles them. Bafflement drives discovery50
.
Tyson argues effectively that we will not discover the future of science unless we admit that we do NOT
know the answer, another answer akin to Heraclitus. This is the one thing the medieval intellectual did
not have; he saw the universe as a place where the answers have all been determined, where they are
all available in the ancient texts unlike the modern idea that the answers have NOT been discovered and
wont be until someone today, now figures them out.
He furthers this point in his essay The Perimeterof ignorance where he addresses the problem
of intelligent design. Considered by many to be an extension of creationism, intelligent design argues
that a supreme power, not evolution, guided the development of life in the universe51
. Tyson argues not
against the existence of a god but rather on the nature of scientific philosophy to make the point that
intelligent design is not science. He says, Another practice that isnt science is embracing ignorance. Yet
it is fundamental to the philosophy of intelligent design: I dont know what this is. I dont know how it
works. Its too complicated for me to figure out. Its too complicated for any human being to figure out.
So it must be the product of a higher intelligence. What do you do with that line of reasoning? Do you
just cede the solving of problems to someone smarter than you, someone whos not even human? Do
you tell students to pursue only questions with easy answers? Science is a philosophy of discovery.
Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance52. What Tyson effectively does is define science; science
is where human beings attempt to find the unknown, to understand what no one before them could.
This, again is what the medieval world, in its box, was incapable of doing.
My last source is myself. Having worked in biomedical sciences laboratories for the past three
years and having been accepted into an MD/PhD program, I feel qualified to adduce my own definition
of science. Much of what I have to say can be found in Dr. Tysons or Dr. Hawkings work but I have
50Tyson, N.G. (2007). Death by black hole: and othercosmic quandaries: W.W. Norton.: 303-304
51Ibid: 361
52Ibid: 361
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something to add. I see science as do Dr. Tyson and Dr. Hawking, as a philosophy of discovery but I also
see science as something that requires past thinking. Although each does not say it explicitly, Tyson and
Hawking BOTH need to look at what came before them before they can ask any real questions. Before I
could ask a question on the nature of heat shock proteins in a cancer cell model several years ago I first
needed to review the literature to know what my predecessors discovered and knew of the protein and
its effects. I could not start my research if no one came before; I needed some platform off which I could
build. However, I do not restrain myself to those past thinkers; they are merely sources, sources with
which I can argue and even reject but they are sources nonetheless. Science is a philosophy of discovery
but it is also a philosophy that has been constructed over time by countless individuals, each building
from what came before and tearing down what does not fit. When one renovates a building, remodelers
do not tear it down nor do they keep all components; they take what works and reinvent what does not;
science is no different.
It is now time to answer our question; did the middle ages have science? The answer is no, at
least when compared to modern science. The middle ages did have questioning spirits, individuals
striving to understand their world but they did so from within a box, a box rooted in the past. Medieval
thinkers, whether they be Roger Bacon, Peter Abelard or William of Ockham, did move beyond the
constraints of their medieval landscape; they studied a world rife with superstition and even used tools
of analytical thinking not expected by the general mental landscape. What they did NOT dohowever is
somewhat more critical than what they did. They did not escape from the past; each time a medieval
thinker approached a past thinker and disagreed, they would find fault in the translator, as did Peter
Abelard or in the interpretation, as in Roger Bacon. They would not come out and say the past thinker,
the ancient thinker was wrong. Without this ability, they could not, would not discover anything new for
even if they had they would not accept it as it would be considered against the rules, the authorityof
the past. Only when the box was broken down and the walls fell open to a wider, more expansive
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world would science advance. Only when the past became expendable again was science ready to
progress.
Was medieval intellectual thought then worthless? Was it simply a voice in the darkness, a
whimper that would be forgotten? A closer look reveals the medieval world to be, if not scientific, a
progenitor of modern science thought. As weve seen, the ancient Greek pre-Socratics had a difficult
time with the past; they tended to utterly reject it and, although they did not ignore it, they were none
the less unable to accept that anything from the past was worth their time. Now, this is an
overstatement to be sure; Aristotle and others would look at past thinkers; my evidence from Thales
came from later Greeks and Romans who were obviously studying the past. But when the Pre-Socratics
came down to defining their world, they did so with complete disregard in respect to the past; it was
expendable and not worth their time. When we looked at the Scientific Revolution and even the modern
writers we found that, while the Greek idea of rejecting the past was back in full force, it had been
tweaked. No longer was the past something to completely reject and toss out the window but rather
was something to be studied; as Francis Bacon put it, the past thinkers thought that way for a reason
and they were wrong not because they were fools or intellectually handicapped but because they lived
in another time withoutthe tools and the background necessary. From where would this background
come? From the PAST. The middle ages gave us the ability to recognize and respect the past; their total
submission to past authority was the hindering factor, it was the one thing that kept the medieval world
in an intelligent design like mentality. The medieval intellectual was no idiot, no fool and not worthless;
he was a product of his time and of his box and it was this respect for the past, tempered by the
sixteenth century and tempered still today, that helped modern science build on itself and has helped
our world develop.
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We are, indeed, products of the middle ages. The ancient Greeks gave us the ability to question
and to reject past thinkers who we could safely say were wrong. The medieval world, despite its
limitations, gave us the ability to understand and acknowledge the past. One attribute without the other
does not go far; the Greeks were limited in their scientific discourse for many reasons but it is my belief
that one of the major contributors was their rejection of past contributions that kept them from building
off of each other until the days of Aristotle. The medieval world in turn was incapable of rejecting the
past and moving beyond what was already known. Put together, both concepts, both ideas have made
our world scientific. It is quite the irony that, while the medieval world did not have science, without it
our world could not be scientific.
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