How Will You Describe Philosophy As A Science?

Galileo, and others were part of the scientific revolution that doubted religion and placed truth in

During the seventeenth century, the scientific revolution in Europe was at its peak, changing people’s lives through the new techniques of the scientific method. Citizens of western civilizations had previously used religion as the lens through which they perceived their beliefs and customs in their communities. Before the scientific revolution, science and religion were intertwined, and people were taught to accept religious laws and doctrines without questioning; the Church was the ultimate authority on how the world worked. However, during this revolution, scientists were inspired to learn and understand the laws of the universe had created, a noble and controversial move toward truth seeking. The famous scientists of the time, such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, were known to be natural philosophers, intending to reveal God’s mystery and understand (through proof) the majesty of God. Throughout previous centuries, people had hypothesized how the world and natural phenomenon may work, and new Protestant ideals demanded constant interrogation and examination. Nevertheless, some of these revelations went against the Church’s teachings and authority. If people believed the Church could be wrong, then they could question everything around them, as well. As a result, the introduction of the scientific method, a process by which scientists discovered and proved new theories, was revolutionary because it distinguished what could be proved as real from what was simply

Philosophy is a very important part of people’s lives. Philosophy is quite basically asking inquiries about existence, reality and nature of knowledge. To better understand philosophy we must look throughout history. Looking back through history helps better show what the philosophers thought during the time period in which they lived. The relativity of the theories, to the time period, is a very important factor in how efficient these theories they were. The first philosopher’s ideas to people today would be considered either very basic, or insane. Yet, in the time period they lived in, they were considered to be geniuses. Also, looking back through time and studying philosophers and what they believed can help create a better idea for

To begin, it is important to understand and analyze what philosophy is and ultimately what a philosophical question is. Philosophy is a quest after knowledge. Philosophy is the action of thought and analysis, in fact, it is a pretty unique type of

Another important figure in the Scientific Revolution was Galileo Galilei. He was an Italian born professor of mathematics who had a great interest in the workings of the universe. Galileo served as a professor at the University of Padua, and it was during this time that he began to question the accuracy of the Churches representation of the world. Galileo’s approach towards knowledge was much different then the afore mentioned Copernicus. Where as Copernicus presented his finding to the mercy of the church, Galileo wrote his conclusions and left the Roman Catholic Church interpret them as they chose. The very nature of his findings pitted him as an opponent of the church.

Stokstad posits that these ideas have roots in the previous scientific revolution of the century before it, with philosophers such as Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes establishing what we now know as the scientific method based on logical reasoning, educated guesses and controlled experiments to prove them. The astronomer Galileo Galilei confirmed a previous theory by Nicolaus Copernicus that the sun did not revolve around the Earth and that it was the other way around-- the planets revolved around the sun. These theories and practices went against the Church's teachings, and Galileo in particular was forced to take back what he said on his observations. Other scientists made discoveries on smaller scales relating to the animal kingdom and plant life, and artists were used to convey the new-found information by painting or drawing those findings. (p. 756) With the different revolutions and events that took place before the eighteenth century, it could be said that the Enlightenment was just a logical progression and the next step.

The Scientific Revolution was a time of scientific questioning in which tremendous discoveries were made about the Earth. It has been referred to as “the real origin both of the modern world and the modern mentality” (Mckay, 596) and caused the foremost change in the world-view. This revolution occurred for many reasons. Universities were established in Western Europe in order to train lawyer’s doctors and church leaders and philosophy became a major study alongside medicine, law, and theology. The Renaissance stimulated scientific progress because mathematics was improved, texts were

Philosophy is defined by Webster as "Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline" or "Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods." This essay is a general look at those who pursued that intellectual means, those who investigated, even those who reasoned Reason. Because volumes could be written and this is a rather quick, unworthy paper: apologizes.

The ancient Greeks were pioneering philosophers which started the great rift we see in the early development of scientific and quantified analysis. This was first started by Aristotle whuch believed that science was a process of trying to understand the natural laws behind creation and that the creation was mathematically perfect and that logic and reasoning could be able to rationalise the natural phenomena.

During the Scientific Revolution, Europeans developed new approaches to looking at the natural world, natural philosophers and physicians challenged and scrutinized older scientific and medical systems while developing new ones, and philosophers gave the emerging scientific method a sound foundation with their comprehensive theories. An internal community of natural philosophers dedicated to natural science developed, and the natural philosophers collected and analyzed data about the world.

By the 18th century in Great Britain a new philosophical movement was growing. The observational and experimental was coming into focus. The interest of philosophers in the 18th century shifted from rationalism and deductive, to Empirical and inductive. A philosophy was sought that could conclude knowledge through since experience alone. The philosophers to do this were Rationalist Locke, Berkeley and Hume.

Galileo Galilei built a telescope in 1609, and he studied the night sky, observing the earthlike features of the Moon, moons orbiting Jupiter, and sun spots. He published his work, which later earned him a trial by the church and a house arrest for life. “According to a story that began to circulate shortly afterward, as he left the court for house arrest he stamped his foot and muttered defiantly, looking down at the earth: Still, it moves” (page 530, Chapter 16). Francis Bacon and René Descartes established standards of practice and scientific evidence, and they were true believers in human thinking. Physician, William Harvey contributed to science by observing dissected living animals and experimented on himself that the blood circulates in our bodies through veins, heart, and arteries. Inventor and experimenter Robert Hooke introduced microscope into the laboratory and studied the structure of plants on the cellular level. Isaac Newton gave us laws of motion, universal gravity, the reflecting telescope, optic theories,

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a colossal transition in the scientific view of the universe. During this period a profound rethinking of scientific theory as well as moral and religious matters took place. Traditional ideas were reconsidered by religious thinkers. Philosophers began applying rational scientific thought to problems that they considered. The main concept of the Scientific Revolution was to "question everything". The Scientific Revolution was an elaborate movement. Many brilliant people with a wealth of new ideas contributed to this movement. The French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist Rene Descartes was one of these people.

Alan Francis Chalmers is an associate professor who works extensive in the history and philosophy of science (physical). Alan Chalmers has taught at the University of Sydney since 1971, first in the School of Philosophy, and from 1987 at the Unit for the History and Philosophy of Science. He attained a B.Sc. in physics at the University of Bristol, and his M.Sc. in physics from the University of Manchester. His Ph.D. on the electromagnetic theory of J.C. Maxwell was granted by the University of London. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities in 1997. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Flinders Philosophy Department since 1999.

Before Einstein, Scientists believed that light waves travelled through a medium called ether. Einstein proved that ether was irrelevant and that light doesn’t travel through a medium. Einstein proved this by figuring out that the speed of light was constant, and in order for ether to be the medium light waves travel through, the speed of light would change depending on the observer. This discovery was one piece of the Specific Theory of Relativity.