Chapter 14: New Directions of Thought and Culture in the 16th and 17th Centuries

• Nicolaus Copernicus• Tycho Brahe• Johannes Kepler• Galileo Galilei• Isaac Newton• Francis Bacon • Rene Descartes

Leaders of the Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke• Hobbes 462-464; Locke 464-466• Questions– What was Hobbes’/Locke’s view of human nature?– What was Hobbes’/Locke’s political philosophy?– Whose view of humanity and political philosophy is correct?

Explain your answer.

English Civil War

Human nature

Nature of Government:Social Contract

Type of Government

Thomas Hobbes John Locke

English Civil War

Human nature

Nature of Government:Social Contract

Type of Government

Selfish

Thomas Hobbes John Locke

Reasonable and Good

English Civil War

Human nature

Nature of Government:Social Contract

Type of Government

Selfish

Thomas Hobbes

Strong Central Political Authority

John Locke

Reasonable and Good

Limited Government; Constitutional Government

English Civil War

Human nature

Nature of Government:Social Contract

Type of Government

Selfish

Thomas Hobbes

Strong Central Political Authority

Sacrifice Liberty for Security

John Locke

Reasonable and Good

Limited Government; Constitutional Government

Sort out Problems; Protect Natural Rights

• Thomas Hobbes: Apologist for Absolute Government• embraced scientific movement • translated Thuclydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War –

influenced his basic view of humanity• Leviathan

– Aimed to provide a justification for strong central political authority; influenced by English Civil War

– Portray humanity/society in a materialistic and mechanical way– Increase pleasure/ minimize pain; driven by physical sensation– Humans exist to meet daily needs not higher moral purpose– Only sovereign commonwealth could help humans meet needs by

limiting free exercise of natural human pursuit of self–interest; social/political contract – give up liberty for security

– Words/promises insufficient so state needs coercive force’ anarchy worse than tyranny

– Opposition from Monarchs, Christian leaders/intellectuals

• John Locke: Defender of Moderate Liberty and Toleration

• Major source of criticism of absolutism and foundation for liberal political philosophy

• First Treatise of Government – ended debate on patriarchal model of government

• Second Treatise of Government – government must be responsible for and responsive to the concerns of the governed– Humans are creatures of reason and basic good will– The state of human nature – a condition of

competition and modest conflict – requires a political authority to sort out problems not impose authority

– Social contract is to ensure rights, liberty and property – limit authority of the government

– Conflict occurs when government violates natural law – government fails to protect people’s natural rights; people have the right to rebel

• Letter Concerning Toleration – allow people to make personal determination of how to reach salvation; no religious conformity forced by government; Catholic exception

• Essay Concerning Human Understanding – early version of behaviorism; tabula rasa

• Believed reason and revelation were compatible

• The New Institutions of Expanding Natural Knowledge• Belief that genuinely new knowledge about nature and

human kind could be discovered– don’t have to look back and recover a better understanding;

advance learning– scholasticism/aristotelianism – wanted to preserve traditional

outlooks; defend ancients versus moderns

• establishment of “institutions of sharing”: Royal Society of London (1660); Academy of Experiments (Florence, 1657); French Academy of Science (1666); Berlin Academy of Science (1700)– authorities created through peer review

and critiques– natural philosophy separated from

religious and political conflict– driven by literate classes outside of elite

classes; empire building encouraged scientific advancements

– members presented science as an enterprise to aid the goals of government

– eventually leads to the Enlightenment Period

• Women in the Scientific Revolution• Generally excluded from the

institutions of European intellectual life

• Queen Christina of Sweden (r. 1623–1654): brought Descartes to Stockholm to design regulations for a new science academy

• Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673)– Observations Upon Experimental

Philosophy (1666)– Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668)

• Maria Winkelmann—accomplished German astronomer, excluded from Berlin Academy

• New Science and Religion• Three major issues:

– Certain scientific theories and discoveries conflicted with Scripture.

– Who resolves such disputes: religious authorities or natural philosophers?

– New science’s apparent replacement of spiritually significant universe with purely material one.

• Representative incident: Roman Catholic authorities condemn Galileo, 1633—under house arrest for last nine years of his life

• Catholic Inquisition places Copernicus’s On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres on Index of Prohibited Books, 1616

• Roman Catholic Church formally admits errors of biblical interpretation in Galileo’s case in 1992

• Attempts to Reconcile Reason and Faith

• Blaise Pascal; French mathematician– opposed both dogmatism and

skepticism– erroneous belief in God is a safer bet

than erroneous unbelief• Francis Bacon

– two books of divine revelation: the Bible and nature

– since both books share the same author, they must be compatible

• Economics: technological and economic innovation seen as part of a divine plan—man is to understand world and then put it into productive rational use

• Continuing Superstition• belief in magic and the

occult persisted through the end of the 17th c.– witch-hunts: 70,000–

100,000 put to death, 1400–1700; 80% women

– village society: magic helped cope with natural disasters and disabilities

• Christian clergy: practiced high magic (Eucharist, Penance, Confession, exorcism

• Baroque Art• 17th c. painting, sculpture, architecture• subjects depicted in naturalistic rather than idealized manner• Michelangelo Caravaggio (1573–1610)