The Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment Essay

This essay will explore parallels between the ideas of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. The scientific revolution describes a time when great changes occurred in the way the universe was viewed, d through the advances of sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The enlightenment refers to a movement that grew out of the new scientific ideas of the revolution that occurred in the late seventeenth to eighteenth century. Although both the scientific revolution and enlightenment encapsulate different ideas, the scientific revolution laid the underlying ideological foundations for the enlightenment movement. A number of parallels

During the Enlightenment, radical thinkers challenged the tradition of myth and faith taught by the church in favor of science and rational thought. Galileo and Copernicus denied the belief that Earth was the center of the universe as interpreted from the bible. Many people believed in geocentricism because they were taught that God’s greatest design was mankind and everything designed thereafter was for them. However, Galileo discovered that the sun was the center of the universe by using scientific investigation and employing a telescope (E&A 2015).

Galileo began to express openly his support of the Copernican theory that the earth and planets revolved around the sun. This challenged the doctrine of Aristotle and the established order set by the Catholic Church. supported the Copernican theory, which supports a sun-centered solar system. Galileo was accused twice of heresy by the church for his beliefs, and wrote books on his ideas.

For centuries the world believed in a system formulated by influential astronomer Ptolemy. In the Ptolemaic system the Earth is at the center of all celestial bodies. This theory was widely accepted especially by the Church who held much prominence in Europe. The Catholic Church believed that God formed the earth therefore it should sit at the center of the universe. It wasn't until the 16th century, when a man name Nicolas Copernicus presented a theory which contradicted all that was known in the world of astronomy. Copernicus presented a heliocentric system, in which he placed the sun at the center of the universe, motionless, with the Earth and other planets rotating around it in circular paths modified by epicycles. Thomas S. Kuhn, in his book, The Copernican Revolution, states that “Copernicus, the author of the theory that ultimately deprived the heavens of special power, belonged to the minority group of Renaissance astronomers who did not caste horoscopes” (pg. 94). The Copernican system initially began as a system of minorities, however, as time continued it began to see prominence. Both Johannes Keppler and Galilei Galileo, through their observations and theories began to prove a heliocentric system.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe an intellectual movement took place known as the Enlightenment. During this movement enlightenment thinkers, or philosophers, argued that they must focus on the use of reason and secularism to better themselves and understand the universe. As the sciences became more popular, skepticism about religious grew. A significant root of the Enlightenment was the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) which pressed the use of reasoning, inquiry, and scientific method in order to arrive that the truth.

Newton’s publication of Principia Mathematica in 1677, as well as the Glorious Revolution, paved the way for the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. Promoting critical thinking about the world and about humankind, the Enlightenment based itself primarily on scientific questioning and empirical analysis. Scientists and philosophers of the eighteenth century questioned the traditional ideas about the universe, society, and culture, and rejected the Aristotelian worldview, skeptical because of its lack of verifiable evidence. Denouncing God as the creator of the universe inspired the thinkers of the time to apply the newly founded scientific method in discovering the origin of all existence, leading to the scientific achievements of Copernicus,

Before the Scientific Revolution, popular beliefs concerning the world and its functions all led back to the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps one of the most known beliefs of the Church was its geocentric theory, where the Earth was the center of the universe instead of the Sun. However this theory was refuted by men such as Copernicus and Galileo. In 1543, Copernicus wrote On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, where he discredited the Catholic Church’s long held belief. He had argued that the Sun was in the center of our solar system instead of the Earth, giving way to the heliocentric theory. Then in 1632, Galileo had published his book Dialogue on the

After a thorough study he prepared a revolutionary theory that stated that the planets move in a circle formation rather than moving in an elliptical form. The system given by Galileo known as Ptolemaic system in which each planet has a system of two spheres one is called as a deferent and the other is termed as its epicycle. In this system it was argued that the Earth was in the center position of the universe while half the stars were above the horizon and other half of that stars were below the horizon. There was also an assumption that the stars are at a modest distance from the center of the universe. If somehow there is a displacement of Earth from its position, which is the center position, then this division will be into visible and invisible stars will not be equal. The Copernicus remains speculative in spite of the influence of the Maraghaschool as there was no documentary evidence to prove his system. There were many articles that argue that there is a biblical perspective which appear in some newsletters that indicates the apparent movement of the Sun and the Moon around the Earth rather than showing that the rotation of the Earth about its own

The Scientific Revolution revolutionized the middle ages. The concepts of secularization, scientific method, heliocentrism, as well as the creation of major fields of science. The Scientific Revolution paved the way for modern science. Much of the work that created during the sixteenth and seventeenth century is still considered to be the foundation of many major fields such as chemistry, physics, astronomy and biology. During the revolution, science began to be excepted by both the Protestant and the Catholic churches. Matter of fact, science was encouraged by the church. However, the church had control over the scientist and would commonly censor individuals that spoke out against the church.

Also known as being heliocentric, the Copernican theory was based around the idea that sun is the center. The idea that earth and other planets revolved around the sun has been accepted and is displayed in models of our solar system, today. Although, in the Renaissance era, life was dedicated around the catholic church and the Pope, who was in power at the time. People thought all celestial bodies orbited Earth. They were told that the grand scheme of God revolves around humankind therefore Earth was the center and everything else, even the sun, revolves around it. The catholic church was upset and told Galileo not to share, teach, or defend his position about the

Copernicus was studying and writing during the Renaissance and arguably the Scientific Revolution. The Renaissance was a time of rebirth of old ideas and a new way of looking at things not just in the areas of science but throughout literature, arts and many other areas. It was a time when new ideas did not seem to provide solutions to all the questions that were being asked.( ) Copernicus proposed a new system of planetary motion that had the sun at the centre of the universe rather than the earth. However contrary to popular belief, this was not a new and revolutionary idea. The ancients had proposed such a solution, most notably from Aristarchus who argued that it was more plausible for the sun to be at the centre rather than the earth. However Copernicus makes no mention of Aristarchus in De Revolutionibus. Not long before Copernicus began writing, Cusa suggested this again, and it is argued that this may be where Copernicus got early inspiration from, although this is not proven. ( ) It was in the rest of his writing that Copernicus

The Enlightenment Period was the most overall significance in the history of science known as the “Age of Reason”. This period challenged theological authority from traditional to intellectual ways of thinking. The developments during this time fostered the change. Creative thinkers include Newton, Locke and Halley changed scientific thought. Society was transformed from describing knowledge in terms of human experience rather than biblical beliefs. In this age scholars adopted empiricism, proposing the idea that theories should be based upon human observations and experience. Significant advancements in astronomy and Physics resonated from this period. A decline of power of monarchies, and a reduction in the pre-eminence of the Church gave rise to independence of thought. These actions, discoveries, innovative ideas created a metamorphosis of scientific growth, which solidifies its significance in the history of science.

Undoubtedly, the beginning of the modernization of the West can be traced to the scientific revolution. A period of scientific advances in the areas of math, astronomy, and physics, the scientific revolution sought to bridge the gap between the physical and metaphysical. During this era, the Catholic Church held authority over the masses of illiterate and uneducated commoners. The Church, because of its central role in everyday life, controlled the development science and secular knowledge. However, the scientific revolution began to undermine the authority and long-held beliefs of the Church. Rene Descartes, Galileo Galilei, Frances Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, and countless others fundamentally changed the way that humans viewed the physical world . Reasoning and logic began to triumph over emotion and whim. The stars moved across the night sky according to Newton’s laws of physics, not according to the whims of gods. Deductive reasoning solved real-world issues

Before the 18th century, scholars had already begun to dive into the study of the natural world. This movement, later known as the Scientific Revolution, created the foundation for what would later be the Enlightenment. Consequently, this understanding of modern science allowed for many Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers to translate these ideas to build upon pressing notions of the time like human rights, equality, and progress. These concepts transformed both elite and popular culture through which discussions on politics, the role of women, and the respective public sphere took shape.

However, it was a Frenchman who felt he had proven God’s existence who would provide the philosophical framework for the Enlightenment’s questioning of religion and tradition. René Descartes took Bacon’s ideas of scientific inquiry and used them not only to learn new information about the physical world and hard sciences, but also used them to try and make conclusions about the questions that had long dogged humanity, such as questions about the existence of God. However, in the end, by applying this philosophy of doubt to all fields of human endeavor, Descartes inspired later thinkers to apply even more penetrating and meaningful questions to these same fields of thought, particularly in philosophy and religion, but also in fields such as history and the other soft sciences. This led directly to the explosion of thought and rational inquiry that resulted in the Enlightenment, the “republic of letters,” and the art of the 18th century.