The%20Church%20and%20Science%20in%20the%20Seventeenth%20Century

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The Church and Science in the Seventeenth Century

• Ann T. Orlando
• 30 April 2007

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Outline

• Background
• Aristotelian Science
• Galileo Affair
• Example Controversy over vacuums
• Conclusion The Enlightenment

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Aristotelian Physics

• Aristotle (384-322 BC) was an empiricist
  knowledge through the sense
• But also believed that there was a well defined
  structure to universe,
• Structure could be known
• All substances made of matter and form
• Matter made of four elements earth, air, fine,
  water in sublunar region unchanging ether above
  the moon
• The cosmos is eternal, filled with elements
• All changes in substances governed by four
  causes material, formal, efficient (violent) and
  final
• Motion is defined as being inversely proportional
  to density of medium through which a body travels

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The Problem with a Void

• Aristotles conception of matter and form was
  opposed to Epicurean motion of atoms and voids
• Aristotle had been strongly opposed to the
  concept of a void in nature
• Argued that if a void existed it was something
  but two things could not occupy the same space
  so a void could not exist
• Another important Aristotelian argument against
  the void was based on his definition of motion

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Church and Physics in the Thirteenth through the
Seventeenth Century

• Just as scholastic theology relied on Aristotle,
  so did medieval physics
• Condemnations of 1277 emphasized basic
  Aristotelian physics
• No voids
• Earth-centered cosmology
• All substances composed of matter and form
• No change to celestial spheres beyond the moon
• Velocity is inversely proportional to density of
  medium through which an object moves therefore a
  vacuum is impossible

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New Observations in Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries

• Telescope allows observations of heavens that
  calls older physics into question
• Reveals changes in sun, moons of Jupiter
• Earth revolves around the sun
• New understanding of velocity
• Dropped balls fall at same rate, regardless of
  weight
• Velocity of a body not defined by resistance of
  medium
• Experiments with gasses leads to speculation
  about atomic theory of matter, not matter and
  form

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Galileo Affair

• Galileo (1564-1642) controversy Church silences
  Galileo because of his support of Copernicus
• Actually, Galileo committed the cardinal sin of
  making fun of his patron (research sponsor)
• Censured in 1633
• But the Jesuits also supported Kepler (1571-1630)
  against Protestant attackers
• Part of Robert Bellarmines (1542-1621) argument
  against Galileo was that his circular orbits were
  not consistent with observations
• Epicycles explained astronomical observations
  better than circular orbits
• Okay to use heliocentric system to aid
  calculations

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Philosophical Developments During the 17th C

• The question of the 17th C how do we know
  (epistemology)
• Or maybe we cant know rise of modern skepticism
• Rationalist Knowledge is from ideas
• Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
• Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
• Empiricists Knowledge is from senses
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
• Pierre Gassendi (1597-1655)
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• John Locke (1632-1704)

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17th C Philosophy Rationalists

• Rationalist Knowledge is from ideas
• Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
• Mathematician and founder of analytic geometry
  and algebra
• I think, therefore I am
• Dualistic approach to mind and body
• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
• Mathematician and founder of laws of probability
• Member of Jansenists heretical Catholic group
  that was very Augustinian
• Pascals Wager on the existence of God
• Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
• Mathematician and founder of calculus
• Because God is all good, this must be the best of
  all possible worlds
• Complex metaphysics many similarities to
  Stoicism

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17th C Philosophy Empiricists

• Empiricists Knowledge is from senses
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
• The modern idea of technological progress (in
  the sense of a steady, cumulative, historical
  advance in applied scientific knowledge) began
  with Bacons The Advancement of Learning
• Champions inductive logic based upon extensive
  observation proceed from particular to general
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• Atheist and materialist does not accept natural
  law of God
• Impressed by current scientific advances
• Very pessimistic about human nature social
  contract with threats of punishments only way to
  control behavior
• Pierre Gassendi (1597-1655)

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Background on Pierre Gassendi

• Born in Champtercier, France 1592 died 1655 in
  Paris
• One of the most famous physicists of his day
• Some beliefs out of step with other natural
  philosophers
• Tried to build a philosophical system around
  Epicureanism
• Reject mathematics as best way to describe
  nature instead relied on words and an analysis
  of all past words spoken on any topic in
  combination with experiments
• Tried to maintain unity of physics and faith

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Gassendi and Christian Classics

• Tried to reconcile physics with Bible, primarily
  through commentaries on Genesis, with Epicurean
  physics and ethics
• If later Christian philosophers could
  rehabilitate Aristotle, Gassendi should be
  allowed to rehabilitate Epicurus
• The early Church Fathers were particularly
  opposed to Aristotle and his philosophy, and they
  displayed extreme animosity against the followers
  of Aristotle. But when some philosophers were
  converted to the faith, they began to set aside
  the more serious errors of Aristotle. What
  remained of Aristotelian philosophy was then
  accommodated to religion so successfully that it
  was no longer suspect and finally became the
  handmaid ministering to religion. Therefore I
  say, just as it was possible in the case of
  Aristotelian philosophy, which is now taught
  publicly, so it is possible with other
  philosophies such as the Stoic and Epicurean.
  All of them have much that is of value and worthy
  of being learned once the errors are eliminated
  and refuted in the same way as the very grave
  errors of Aristotle were refuted. Syntagma
  Philosophicum, Opera Omnia 15.

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Gassendis Evidence for a Void

• Empirical Evidence
• Chemical
• Barometric
• Dynamic
• Historical Christian Evidence
• Angels
• Nemesius
• Irenaeus

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Gassendi and the VoidSpace and Time

• Voids do actually exist
• Space and time are not the same things as
  corporeal entities
• Space and tiem may be measured by corporeal
  entities, but that does not mean they are
  corporeal entities
• Space is Infinite and Eternal
• Space and time exist independently of God
• God creates in space and time
• Tremendous influence on Robert Boyle and Isaac
  Newton
• Gassendi was not condemned, nor even censured by
  the Church

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The Giant of the Scientific Age Isaac Newton

• The most famous man in Europe in his own day and
  thereafter until Einstein
• Alexander Pope Nature and nature's laws lay hid
  by night God said let Newton be and all was
  light
• Combined techniques of rationalists and
  empiricists
• Founder of calculus Fundamental discoveries in
  optics, mechanics, gravitation
• Very deeply religious focuses on Biblical
  exegesis, not physics, at end of his life
• However he rejected Jesus as divine considered
  himself an Arian

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So who thought what about a void?

• A void exists
• Gassendi, Pascal, Boyle, Newton
• Does not exist
• Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz
• Belief in necessity of an ether lasts until
  Michelson-Morley experiments (1887)

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Development of a new secular philosophy
Enlightenment

• Science (as we now define it) as the basis for
  knowledge
• Human reason can figure it (anything, everything)
  out is always making progress
• Devalue history, tradition
• Toleration as the basis for political-religious
  relationship
• Separation of Church and State
• Individual rights, not duty, as basis for
  political systems and society
• Social contract not natural law as basis of legal
  system
• Becomes an alternative to established religions