- 'Modern history: - the diminishing authority of the Church, and the increasing authority of science; states replaced the Church as the authority that controls culture
- Science prevails by its intrinsic appeal to Reason. Arguments are made on a basis of probability and regarded as liable to modification
- Theoretical Science is an attempt to understand the world // Practical Science is an attempt to change the world
- Modern Philosophy retains an individualistic and subjective character; marked in Descartes who builds up all knowledge from the certainty of his own existence
- Italian Renaissance (15th C): broke down the scholastic system, revived the study of Plato, demanded independent thought and intellectual activity as a delightful social pursuit
- 5 important states: Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain, Naples
- The Reformation and Counter-Reformation represent the rebellion of less civilised nations against the intellectual domination of Italy -- Luther, Calvin, Loyola. Luther and Calvin reverted to Saint Augustine with the purpose of diminishing the power of the Church. By the doctrine of predestination, the fate of the soul after death was made wholly independent of the actions of the priests.
- Copernicus believed that all celestial motions must be circular and uniform. The merits of the new astronomy were the recognition that what one believed since ancient times could be false; second, the test of scientific truth is a collection of facts, combined with speculations
- Kepler's discovery of his 3 laws of planetary motion (1609): 1. the planets describe elliptic orbits, of which the sun occupies one focus; 2. the line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times; 3. the square of the period of revolution of a planet is proportioned to the cube of its average distance from the sun
- 1. the substitution of ellipses for circles involves the abandonment of an aesthetic bias which has governed Greek astronomy 2. the varying velocity of the planet at different points of its orbit appeared shocking and asymmetrical 3.
- Galileo: explained the importance of acceleration (change of velocity) in dynamics; any change, either in rapidity or direction, is due to the action of 'force' -- this is later enunciated by Newton as the 'first law in motion'. Galileo established the law of falling bodies: 'when a body is falling freely, its acceleration is constant' -- what he proved was there was no measurable difference of velocity based on the size of the same substance. If a body were not falling, it would cover a certain horizontal distance in flight, and fall vertically with a velocity proportional to the time during which it has been in flight -- Parabola
-Newton: defined 'force' as the cause of change of motion. 'Every body attracts every other with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them'
-17th C:
1) removal of almost all traces of animism from the laws of physics. The first law of motion proposed that lifeless matter, once set moving, will continue to move unless stopped by some external cause. The solar system will keep going by its own momentum without the need of outside interferences.
2) conception of man's place in the universe. In Newtonian world, the earth was a minor planet rather than the centre of heavens
3) abandonment of absolute space and time
Machiavelli
- Political Philosophy (uses scientific techniques, values process over ends) -- Machiavelli's philosophy is scientific and empirical, based upon his own experience of affairs, concerned to set forth the means to assigned ends, regardless of whether the ends are good or bad
- The Prince: concerned with how principalities are won, how they are held and lost. It is necessary for a prince to be 'a great feigner and dissembler...'
- Discourses: discussion of the papal powers. Begins by placing eminent men in an ethical hierarchy: 1st the founders of religion, 2nd the founders of monarchies, then literary men. He holds that religion should have a prominent place in the State, not on the ground of truth, but as a social cement. His criticism of the Church are that its conduct has undermined religious belief, and the temporal powers of the popes prevents the unification of Italy. His political arguments are not based on Christian grounds as compared to medieval writers who had a conception of a 'legitimate' power , which was that of the Pope and Emperor. In Machiavelli, power is for those who have the skill to seize it in a free competition.
- He prides national independence, security, and well-ordered constitutions. The best constitution is one which apportions legal rights among prince, nobles and people in proportion to their real power.
- To achieve a political end, power is necessary; it can be advantageous to seem more virtuous than your adversary
Erasmus and More
- the Northern Renaissance was associated with piety and virtue, in applying standards of scholarship to the Bible
- Erasmus, The Praise of Folly: two kinds of Folly - one praised ironically, the other praised seriously i.e. Christian simplicity
- More, Utopia: all things are held in common; the government is a representative democracy; family life is patriarchal
Francis Bacon
-The Advancement of Learning 'knowledge is power'
-he believed that while reason could show the existence of God, everything else in theology could only be known by revelation. 'double truth' -- that of reason and revelation
-'idols' -- bad habits of mind that cause people to fall into error
Hobbes
-empiricist like Locke, but also an admire of mathematical method, inspired by Galileo
-Leviathan:
- declares that life is a motion of the limbs, therefore automata have an artificial life
- the commonwealth, which he calls Leviathan, is a creation of art and is an artificial man
- sensations are caused by the pressure of objects like sound, color, and not the object itself. the qualities in objects that correspond to our sensations are motions. the succession of our thoughts is governed by laws sometimes those of association, sometimes those of purpose. \\there is nothing universal but names and without words we would not conceive any general ideas. without language, there would be no truth or falsehood as those words are attributes of speech.\\
-reason is not innate but developed by industry
-we call a thing 'good' when it is an object of desire and 'bad' when it is an object of aversion. 'will' is the last aversion remaining in deliberation -- it is merely the strongest in the case conflict (Hobbes denies free will)
-all man are naturally equal. every man desires to preserve his own liberty and to acquire dominion over others. his desires are dictated by the impulse to self-preservation.
-social contract: when a number of people come together to choose a sovereign (a supreme power) which exercises authority over them. the covenant is not an agreement between the citizens and the ruling power; it is a covenant to obey the ruling power as chosen by the majority.
-a multitude so united is called a commonwealth. this 'leviathan' is a mortal god
-the laws of property are to be entirely subject to the sovereign
-liberty is the absence of external impediments to motion. it is consistent with necessity.
- the right of self-preservation is regarded as absolute and subjects have the right of self-defense, even against monarch. in addition, a man has no duty to a sovereign who cannot protect him.
- the best form of State, according to Hobbes, is monarchy. this reflects his contention that powers of the State should be absolute
- to note that Hobbes always considers the national interest as a whole with the implicit assumption that all citizens are the same
