While we are used to spectacular changes, discoveries and new developments at the speed of light, similar things were happening in the period 1400 to 1750. They were as drastic regarding daily life as the introduction of the computer in our time.
The only difference is that it all happened at a snail's pace. The way to look at reality was changing. The heavy pressure of the Catholic church on science and its authority dwindled, also caused by the Reformation, which created an alternative Christianity.
The astronomers like Galileo and Copernicus had already begun to question the way we had to look at the stars. De Rerum Natura by Lucretius had offered a new perspective on matter, on the material world around us.
What scientists and some philosophers did in those days was largely abandon the Aristotelian theory of the four elements, the Ptolemaic theory of geocentrism, and the magical ideas of the alchemists.
All thought much was to be gained by thinking of nature as analogous to a clockwork machine whose hidden parts acted by unseen contacts. Most were atomists.
The key problems were to understand what happens when bodies collide, what is conserved in mechanical processes, and whether there can be a vacuum.
Explanations of natural phenomena in terms of essences, ends, forms and qualities, typical Aristotelian physics, were to be replaced by quantitative and often geometrical descriptions.
Major advances in scientific experimentation and instruments were accompanied by the growing consensus that scientists needed to investigate the behavior of matter in precisely defined circumstances not readily accessible in the natural world,
and so needed to design highly elaborate experiments using specialized equipment for this purpose, for example, using the air pump to create a vacuum to find out if sound needs the air to be transmitted.
As I mentioned in the previous lecture the Church was no longer powerful enough to stop this process and already had moved to the Reason vs. Faith position and even asked the question: does reason has a role in relation to the truths of faith?
It still an interesting current question: how can you be a scientist, who demands that knowledge of reality has to be gathered by the scientific method, etc., and yet a belief, that is, claiming that it is true, in all kinds of ....what to call it.... which defy a scientific approach?
Scientists in those days felt this tension. Robert Boyle (1627 -1691) is regarded as one of the founders of modern chemistry and an early pioneer of the scientific method.
He was also a devout Christian, a Protestant, and made an endowment in his will for a series of lectures that came to be known as the Boyle lectures. The series still exist.
The first one was in 1692 and the purpose was to defend the Christian religion against "notorious infidels, viz. Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews and Mahometans".
It seems fair to conclude that Christianity was seen by Boyle to be under threat. The reference to "Atheists" shows that materialist thought had entered the mainstream of intellectual discourse.
We also see here a paradox. As a scientist, Boyle depended on the materialist epistemology that found expression in the scientific method. Boyle's attitude is an example of how scientists tried to combine the scientific mind with their religious beliefs.
It was the great division of the mind that permits science to be pursued as an investigation of the natural world, conceived as free from any supernatural force in one state of mind, while a relationship with god can be maintained in another state of mind.
Here you witness a struggle that lasted for centuries and still it is a matter of debate because religion still is a factor in society you can't ignore. But the more science can describe reality in detail, the further the supernatural explanations are disproved.
The rediscovery of De Rerum Natura was at the dawn of the fifteenth century. By the French Revolution (1789) at the close of the eighteenth-century science had freed itself from the Church, and the age of the persecution of free-thinking by the Church had taken a more psychological form.
In Europe, the threat and use of torture had by and large stopped. Science and technology began a march of progress of ever-increasing rapidity, having become the research and development department of the soon-to-be global economic system of imperialist capitalism.
Freeing the epistemological instinct from the constraints of received Christian doctrine liberated a force of such power that it offered a world of extraordinary well-being, and at the same time threatened the human race with catastrophic destruction.
Thank you for your attention again....
Main Sources:
MacMillan The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition
TABLE OF CONTENT -----------------------------------------------------------------
1 - 100 Philosophers 9 May 2009 Start of
2 - 25+ Women Philosophers 10 May 2009 this blog
3 - 25 Adventures in Thinking 10 May 2009
4 - Modern Theories of Ethics 29 Oct 2009
5 - The Ideal State 24 Febr 2010 / 234
6 - The Mystery of the Brain 3 Sept 2010 / 266
7 - The Utopia of the Free Market 16 Febr 2012 / 383
8. - The Aftermath of Neo-liberalism 5 Sept 2012 / 413
9. - The Art Not to Be an Egoist 6 Nov 2012 / 426
10 - Non-Western Philosophy 29 May 2013 / 477
11 - Why Science is Right 2 Sept 2014 / 534
12 - A Philosopher looks at Atheism 1 Jan 2015 / 557
13 - EVIL, a philosophical investigation 17 Apr 2015 / 580
14 - Existentialism and Free Will 2 Sept 2015 / 586
15 - Spinoza 2 Sept 2016 / 615
16 - The Meaning of Life 13 Febr 2017 / 637
17 - In Search of my Self 6 Sept 2017 / 670
18 - The 20th Century Revisited 3 Apr 2018 / 706
19 - The Pessimist 11 Jan 2020 / 819
20 - The Optimist 9 Febr 2020 / 824
21 - Awakening from a Neoliberal Dream 8 Oct 2020 / 872
22 - A World Full of Patterns 1 Apr 2021 / 912
23 - The Concept of Freedom 8 Jan 2022 / 965
[13:18] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): Thank you Herman
[13:18] herman Bergson: As you see...through the centuries the question arose: how can you be a scientist and also a believer in a religion at the same time
[13:19] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate) is online.
[13:19] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): sounds like a paradox indeed, they more or less totally oppose each other, but
[13:19] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): trying to get both to fit together somehow i guess can be done
[13:19] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): in some way
[13:19] herman Bergson: How, Bejiita?
[13:19] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): idk but i guess thats what he tried to do in some way
[13:19] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): hallo Gemma
[13:20] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): hihi
[13:20] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hi gemma
[13:20] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): late
[13:21] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): tyty
[13:21] herman Bergson: Hi Gemma...the theme is: As you see...through the centuries the question arose: how can you be a scientist and also a believer in a religion at the same time
[13:22] bergfrau Apfelbaum: hi Gemma:-)
[13:22] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[13:22] herman Bergson: Who tried to do that Bejiita?
[13:23] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i try think of it like what do we call it in swedish "fulhack" lit ugly hack
[13:23] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): in those days leaving the church was not a good idea, because you could be banned by the society
[13:23] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): sort of wedge it all together somehow
[13:23] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but well it seems like a recipe for a mess
[13:23] herman Bergson: That was the big problem indeed Beertje
[13:24] herman Bergson: Scientist had yo add something to their theories or so too pllease the Church
[13:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i have only tried it with programming and its not something desireable even there, to try smush stuff together that really dont belong together but u do it anyway the program runs BUT
[13:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ....
[13:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): that sort of thing
[13:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but with religion and science trying combine those
[13:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well
[13:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): its a paradox i guess
[13:24] herman Bergson: And there is the big divide of the mind....one part for natural science and one part for religion and connection with god
[13:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): like combine + and - directly and not get a short circuit in the process
[13:25] herman Bergson: That is how I think about it indeed Bejiita
[13:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[13:25] herman Bergson: Look at the ceiling!
[13:26] herman Bergson: more than 3000 gods have been prayed to....and look around you?
[13:26] herman Bergson: To what effect
[13:26] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): not anything good
[13:26] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the biggest and ugliest "fulhack" ever id say
[13:26] herman Bergson: Whay don't muslims say that the earthquake is a punishment from their God?
[13:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well if it was it would have killed erdogan and not 6000 innocent people
[13:27] herman Bergson: We call it a natural disaster...but for centuries such disasters were qualified as the work of an angry god
[13:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): at least if god is good
[13:28] herman Bergson: You have a point there, Bejiita ^_^
[13:28] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i mean Erdogan is the one being an AH at the moment
[13:28] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): or Erdogant as i call hom, Erdogan + arrogant
[13:28] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): him
[13:29] herman Bergson: from a Swedish point of view, definitely atm
[13:29] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): all Kurds 0 terrorists i don't think so
[13:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): good and bad people are everywhere
[13:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): =
[13:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the extremists are the really dangerous ones
[13:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): no matter if they are Kurds turks Iranians arabs ect
[13:30] herman Bergson: what you see in this period of 1400 to 1750 is the early beginnings of secularization, I'd say
[13:31] herman Bergson: The more science oriented a society becomes, the less religious it becomes
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes they go opposite direction on a scale
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): so combine both seems imposible indeed
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): or maybe depends on how u think about it
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): its not a basic scale i guess but more comples
[13:32] herman Bergson: Well.my idea is...there is a similarity between science nad philosophy......
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): or idk i just try think logically about everything, and thats logical for me as im a code rat
[13:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): so that makes sense its the way i ahve easiest to think in
[13:33] herman Bergson: both are focused on questions...every answer leads to a new question....
[[13:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): logic and reason
[13:33] herman Bergson: theology and religion begins with answers and wants to fit rreality into these answers
[13:34] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): science is other way around
[13:34] herman Bergson: yes
[13:34] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): the tension continues an i guess always will
[13:34] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm i guess
[13:34] herman Bergson: at least for the comming centuries indeed Gemma, I agree
[13:34] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): right
[13:35] herman Bergson: But keep in mind....the historical clock
[13:36] herman Bergson: there in the back is that chart....where everything is projected on a year.....
[13:36] herman Bergson: it shows that we just arrived
[13:36] herman Bergson: what we call science now is just a second in the history of the earth
[13:37] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): just a baby
[13:37] herman Bergson: that's what we are...and a misbehaving baby too :-))
[13:38] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): will we ever learn?
[13:38] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm well
[[13:38] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): they just figured out that neanderthal actually caught crabs and cooked them like humans
[13:39] herman Bergson: that we find religion all over the world in hundreds of forms is because people want answers, are uncertain if there are unanswered questions.
[13:39] herman Bergson: Homo sapiens simply doesn't like that
[13:39] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): showign they had human like intelligence
[13:39] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): they did not believe that before
[13:39] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): new scientific study
[13:40] herman Bergson: they did indeed.....neanderthals weren't primitive primates
[13:40] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): science is continually finding mistakes they made and improving
[13:40] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): basically, somethings not right with current god = new fulhack (new god)
[13:41] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and so it continues
[13:42] herman Bergson: At least w can conclude that homo sapiens is already struggling for centuries with the struggle between science, knowledge and belief.
[13:42] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): yes
[13:42] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but now all seems to have settled around cristianity islam, Jewism, Hinduism and buddhism
[13:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and shintoism as well a bit
[13:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): those are the ones i know of today more or less
[13:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and always have
[13:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): as the main religions of the world
[13:43] herman Bergson: Yes bejiita, but don't overlook one critical factor in this.....
[13:44] herman Bergson: It is not about religions....it is about the power that is gathered by these religions.
[13:44] herman Bergson: Irt is not about a god....it is about political power
[13:44] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well thats true
[13:44] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): sadly
[13:45] herman Bergson: They make the people believe that they have to pray and that there is a benevolent god etc, but that is only a means to keep the powerbase among the people alive.
[13:45] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): its turned that way, its not true bellief really, its all about opression
[13:45] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and brainwashing
[13:46] ℒαđуу нαʋєŋ (ladyy.haven) is online.
[13:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): so a few can control the masses
[13:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and push them down into the mud
[13:46] herman Bergson: That has always been the historical configuration
[13:47] herman Bergson: But as you see in Western Europe...the longer democracy exists, the weaker religion based power becomes
[13:47] herman Bergson: Same in the US, but because of their peculiar election system succeeds the minority in becoming the majority.
[13:48] herman Bergson: The evangelicals have disproportional influence there
[13:48] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): so they can uphold their mantra, IN GOD WE TRUST
[13:48] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ssss
[13:48] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): indeed
[13:49] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): politics and religion combined is a big nono to me
[13:49] herman Bergson: the majority of for freedom of decision on what to do with your body and procreation.....
[13:49] herman Bergson: a minority blocks it
[13:50] herman Bergson: but...ok...so much on politics and religion :-))
[13:50] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate) GIGGLES!!
[13:50] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): ...LOL...
[13:50] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): true
[13:50] herman Bergson: I guess we may conclude our conversation here...
[13:50] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well
[13:50] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:50] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): ♥ Thank Youuuuuuuuuu!! ♥
[13:50] herman Bergson: Thank you all again,,,
[13:51] herman Bergson: Class dismissed...
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): lets PLUUUUUUP!
[13:51] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): Thank you Herman
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): or shuffle
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:51] Gemma (gemma.cleanslate): see you soon
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): good stuff once again
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hugs gemma
[13:51] bergfrau Apfelbaum: ty again! Herman and cLASS
[13:51] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
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