A. Latin Averroism: introduced a number of doctrines incompatible with Christian orthodoxy (eternity of the world)
Most importantly, the doctrine of the double truth (a claim can be theologically true and philosophically false and vice-versa): the origin of the split between science and values.
B. Platonism and Neoplatonism
C. --> St. Francis (1181-1226): "The Christian attitude is relatively favorable to philosophy and science. Since the world bears traces of its Creator, a knowledge of the physical order is encouraged to perceive the results of the Creator's activity."(Julius Weinberg, Medieval Philosophy)
D. Other Franciscans:
1. Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253): "determined the main direction of physical interests in the 13th and 14th cts." (see Singer, pp. 152f.) According to Alioto, Grosseteste is also significant for his resolution of the epistemological and ontological difficulties surrounding the use of abstract theoretical terms - most notably, mathematics - in the effort to explain concrete phenomena known through the senses.
a. Knowledge of optics (mirrors, the nature of lenses)
b. Also points to the Moslem influence: knowledge derived from Latin translation of Alhazen (965-1038)
2. Roger Bacon (1214-1294)//"English Scholasticism"
a. Recognized the utility of natural knowledge - forecast the modern thematic of man's control of nature (repeated 350 yrs. later in Francis Bacon), with "predictions" of flying, the use of explosives, circumnavigation of the globe, mechanical propulsion.
b. God created the natural order mathematically - mathematics are thus required for understanding nature
c. Advanced optics - the first to mention the use of lenses for spectacles, is perhaps the progenitor of the telescope.
d. Interested in the development of natural knowledge as a way of supporting religious faith.
3. John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) - opposes Aquinas' synthesis of faith and philosophy; establishes a simple either/or:
theology is limited to that which is given through revelation by supernatural means, and
everything within the natural scope of reason is a topic for philosophy
4. William of Ockham (1284-1350)
a. the truths of faith are inaccessible to reason: philosophy (including nascent natural science) has nothing to do with them (Averroist).
b. nominalism - the universals have reality neither in the things nor in the mind of God: they are abstractions of the human mind - concepts or terms. Science is related to the universals and therefore is not a science of things, but only of signs or symbols. (Prepares the way for the development of mathematical thought in the Renaissance.)
c. principle of parsimony - "Ockham's razor"
"Plurality is not to be assumed without necessity," - do not multiply explanatory entities beyond necessity.
(1) Can be traced to Aristotle, for whom the principle follows from a metaphysical assumption that nature is simple
(2) For Ockham, as a nominalist, the principle applies only to human thought and its symbol systems, not to the universe. In our terms, Ockham is headed in the direction of instrumentalism.
d. This "conceptualism" is the beginning of what in Hobbes-Hume will be identified as Anglo-American empiricism.
E. Successors to Ockham
1. The Mechanist School of Paris
a. 1375 - Buridan, Albert of Saxony, Nicholas of Oresme as the beginning of "modern" mechanics.
b. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
c. Benedetti - 1585 - had formulated the main principles of Galilean dynamics, -- made possible by:
(1) Ockhamist "attitude" - the nominalist focus on mathematical signs or correlates of things, rather than on pure universals (ala Plato and pure realism) or things alone (a "pure" empiricism/realism);
(2) Publication in 1543 of Archimedes - whose focus is not on real bodies, "but on geometrical bodies sailing away in Euclidean space."
2. The best known figures of early modern science derive from this tradition:
a. Copernicus (1473-1543)
b. Brahe (1546-1601)
c. Kepler (1571-1620)
d. Galileo (1565-1642)
3. These figures, and Galileo in particular, represent the revival of habits of observation in astronomy and mechanics which will then spread to other sciences.
4. Culminates in Newton (1642-1727) - especially in optics, movement of the planets, and law of gravity
F. Other figures
1. Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)
a. "The mind is a living measure (mens) which achieves its full capacity by measuring (mensura) other things." Knowledge of the measurable world directly gives us a knowledge of human beings. (The pun here points to the connection between reason and mathematics also apparent in rational, as derived from ratio.)
b. By 1450, he was advocating the constant use of weighing by the balance in experiments, and suggests the timing of falling bodies by the water-clock - thus anticipating Galileo
2. Leone Battista Alberti (1404-1472) - "the first real man of science," because of his experimental discovery in 1450 of the elementary mathematical laws of perspective.
A. Renaissance - given impetus by the rediscovery of the classical world via the Moslems. On the one hand, this means the rediscovery of critical mathematical/"scientific" texts: on the other hand, it also means a revival of interest in ancient literature and the rise of a humanism that is more philosophical than scientific. In any case, it is at least an indication that the ideological hold of the medieval Church is beginning to loosen.
B. Capture of Constantinople in 1453 --> migration to the West of Moslem scholars with new manuscripts
C. The world becomes a "bigger" place geographically: this is the era of the journeys to China and the beginning of the voyages of discovery (e.g., Columbus, 1492).
D. The political dissolution of the medieval Church is further marked by Luther's successful rebellion in the early 1500's.
E. Technological developments:
While we think of technology as a product of scientific knowledge, - historically, systematic observation and experiment were first made possible by technology. While the nature of scientific method as apparent to Grossesteste and Bacon in the 1200's, its philosophical foundations were hardly appreciated by Kepler and Harvey in the 17th ct. - and not until the 17th ct. did science make use of technology as its tool.
1. Magnetic compass - by 1100
2. Lenses - mentioned by Roger Bacon as useful for aiding the sight of old people (!) - invented before 1280.
a. Because eyesight for reading typically begins to fail in middle life, the development of spectacles effectively doubled the productive life of the scholar/scientist.
b. Lenses aroused curiousity about refraction: optics becomes the first science to be experimentally developed.
3. Printing - required the development of paper to replace parchment. Developed originally in China, the technique reached Christian Europe in 1200's: by 1450, papermaking was common. The effective application of printing (which may also have begun in China) is achieved by Gutenberg, 1447.
This technology was eventually used to spread the Greek classics (see I.E.1.c.2).
4. Mechanical clocks first developed in 1200's - become effective, common about 1500.
5. Chemical/Alchemical Processes, Apparatus - e.g., furnace and still, assay-scales; distillation of alcohol (from Arabic kohl) in 1200's.
"It is a fair statement that the origin of chemistry is in attempts to understand industrial processes, with the adoption of the technical methods of the alchemists." (Singer, p. 186)
6. Gunpowder, firearms - ultimately mean European ascendancy over other continents, cultures.