>>It's time to put on our thinking caps and
interpret the significance of what we've been
exploring! For unless it explains, history
is trivial. Did you discover anything unexpected
this week that needs to be explained? In your
explorations of 17th-century science, you
encountered different, sometimes contradictory
explanations. Interpretations have varied
immensely over time, and continue to be disputed
even today.
In particular, historians debate the relative
importance in 17th-century science of three
approaches to nature we might characterize
as the mathematical, the mechanical and the
organicist traditions. In contrast to the
last two weeks, when our focus was on the
mathematical astronomy of Copernicus and the
mathematical physics of Galileo, this week
we have turned to the mechanical and organicist
traditions. The mechanical philosophy of Descartes
and Gassendi plays a prominent role in traditional
accounts of the Scientific Revolution. But
many historians also argue that the chemical
philosophy and other organicist perspectives
played a more constructive role in the so-called
Scientific Revolution than has been widely
recognized.
Imagine that you are at a coffee house talking
with a friend in the middle of the 17th century.
Your conversation touches upon various lively
discoveries recently touted by adherents of
the mechanical philosophy and by those with
various organicist philosophies. You are familiar
with the phenomena of magnetism and a wide
range of chemical reactions. You are also
familiar with clear and compelling explanations
of a wide range of phenomena offered in terms
of matter in motion. Which view of nature,
the mechanical or organicist, appears on the
whole more convincing to you?
What is nature? Is nature better known when
understood as a machine, as inert matter in
motion, or when understood as having active
and self-organizing powers? Can the organicist
philosophies explain nature in a clear and
compelling manner, without recourse to emblems
and mysteries? Can the mechanical philosophy
explain the properties of magnets and chemical
reactions? What specific evidence or discoveries
make a stronger impression on you in favor
of the mechanical philosophy or in support
of the organicist philosophies? Finally, another
issue raised by the Scientific Revolution
is the question of science and the human place
in nature. At the beginning of this course
we characterized Aristotelian philosophy as
a philosophy of common sense. Historians often
say that modern science, from Copernican astronomy
to the mechanical philosophy, drove a wedge
between expert knowledge and common sense.
In what ways have our topics this week, and
in the last two or three weeks, revealed a
progressive separation between scientific
explanations and common sensory experience?
If so, might our story of the Scientific Revolution
need to account for an increasing sense of
alienation between ordinary human life and
theoretical science? That is, was the sense
of dislocation between human experience and
science solely due to Copernicus, or did it
have something to do with the setting aside
of common sensory experience as the key to
how nature is known? What is the most significant
implication of what you have learned this
week? What is your interpretation?
