The Rise of Science
The 17th Century
•	Greatest century of pure science
•	Great progress
–	Moved from period of no observation to one of acute observation
–	Physics developed as a viable science
•	Philosophy breaks with tradition
–	Struggles and breaks free from Medieval Schoolmen
–	Psychology of knowledge replaces that of faith
Four Major Concerns
•	Expansion of sensory information
•	Obsession with method
•	Mechanical sophistication
•	The rise of modern epistemology and psychology
Expansion of Sensory Information
•	New devices
–	Telescope
–	Microscope
•	Implications
–	New data to be incorporated into science
–	Reality moves beyond what can be immediately observed
The Obsession with method
•	Certainly from religion no longer possible
•	Then where is truth?
–	Reasoning from experience – Bacon
–	Rediscovery of Euclid provided emphasis on deduction
Mechanical Sophistication
•	Laws of mechanics basically laid down
•	Invention of machines which mimicked human behavior
Psychology 
•	Beginnings of science of humans
•	Interest in three primary questions
–	Sources of knowledge and truth
–	Relationships of mind and body
–	The sources of society and human motivation
18th Century – The Enlightenment
•	Geography
–	Mostly French
–	Also Scottish and English
•	Basis of human knowledge and rationality come under close scrutiny
•	Science becomes the ultimate form of rationality
•	Environment and progress
Main Themes of the Enlightenment
•	Increasing secularism
•	Obsession with certainty
•	New view of human nature
•	Individual and collective happiness becomes a goal of analysis
–	Progress based on rationality
–	Environment shapes behavior
•	Mechanical universe
Increasing Secularism
•	Extension of humanism
•	A new version of God
–	God as an object of contemplation rather than active force
–	God does not intervene – humans responsible for own destiny
–	Clockwork universe – God as tender of clock
•	Moral laws must be built on human psychology and natural rights
Concern with Certainty
•	Truth no longer guaranteed by God
•	But how to know truth?
•	Obsession with method and logic
New View of Human Nature
•	No longer original sin and evil --Scots
–	Release from original sin
–	Stoics
•	Rationality
•	Perfectibility
–	Locke and environmental influence
–	Notion of progress
•	What makes people equal
Individual and Collective Happiness
•	Freedom from superstition (more than religion)
•	Freedom from coercive authority
•	Utilitarianism
•	But also natural rights 
New Views of the State
•	More radical separation of church and state
•	Questions of sovereignty
•	New challenges
–	Commerce
–	State as responsible for happiness as well as safety -- utilitarianism
–	Increasing and diverse territories 
Mechanical Universe
•	Laws of mechanics expanded
•	Wondrous machines
•	All things are caused by eternal laws – Newton
•	No free will
Galileo to Newton
•	Two giants of physics
•	Similar concerns
–	General laws of universe
–	Motion and mechanics central
•	Efficient causes trump final causes
Galileo (1564-1642)
•	First to see that science deals with efficient cause (how) rather than final (why)
•	While mathematical derivation is important (Pythagorean via Plato – Timeaus) experiment is crucial 
•	Extended geometry of astronomy to terrestrial world
•	Ideal experiment and going beyond perceptible reality
Newton (1642-1727) 
•	Universal laws that describe all physical matter
•	Laws of motion become central, especially first law of inertia
•	Bodies reduced to mass and ideal points
•	Forces acting at a distance (gravity) 
•	Metaphorically these had important significance for psychology
Four Influences of Newton
•	A fully causal universe
•	Newton of the Mind
•	Human motivation
•	Nature of society
A Fully Causal Universe
•	Universal laws describe all motion
•	Applied to humans no room for free will
•	Entire universe governed by common laws “It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal, five feet high, who in contempt of these laws could act as pleased solely according to caprice” (Voltaire)
•	La Mettrie among others argued that all human behavior was fully determined by existing physical laws.
Newton of the Mind
•	Highest accolade in the 18th Century and many aspired
•	Locke much influenced by his friend Newton
•	Hartley, James Mill
Inertia and Human Motivation
•	Just as bodies have essential inertia so do humans
•	Thus motivation came increasingly to be seen as an external force
Society
•	What keeps humans together and organized into a society?
•	Gravitation is one apt metaphor
•	So society
–	Composed of individuals – ideal points
–	Held together by attraction (gravity) – attraction originally a physical term
–	Can be resolved into various forces