PHIL 3410 Test 3 

Instructions: Discuss what the text is saying, then the larger context that surrounds the passage.  

1. The idols of the cave are the idols of the individual man. For every one (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature…. (Francis Bacon, New Organon I.42) 

• Francis Bacon discusses four idols. Idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the marketplace, and idols of the theater. In this passage, he is describing the idols of the cave. He believes these are personal biases that arise from one’s unique experiences and background. For example, an individual's preferences and associations shape their personal interpretation. 

• Context: This passage fits into Bacon’s larger project of reforming the scientific method. In his New Oranon, he lists 3 other idols: marketplace, tribe, and theater, each representing a different kind of obstacle to true knowledge. These idols highlight why reliable science must move past individual experience and instead rely on careful observation and method. 

2. Again, a piece of paper or a feather, when gently rubbed over any part of our body whatsoever, will in itself act everywhere in an identical way; it will, namely, move and contact. But we, should we be touched between the eyes, on the tip of the nose, or under the nostrils, will feel an almost intolerable titillation, while if touched in other places, we will scarcely feel anything at all. Now this titillation is completely ours and not the feather’s, so that if the living, sensing body were removed, nothing would remain of the titillation but an empty name. (Galileo, Assayer, p. 22b) 

• In this passage, Galileo is arguing that titillation, or ‘tickle’, is in fact a quality that is not inherent. He believed that secondary qualities, such as titillation, do not constitute real features of the world, barring perceivers. Galileo thought that the distinction between objective science and subjective qualities was defined by humans.  These qualities solely depended on observers versus those inherent to objects. 

• Context: This reflects Galileos' major distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities. His goal in the Assayer is to define what constitutes proper scientific knowledge. 

3. The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only of gravity and of the lunar sphere. (Copernicus, Commentariolus, p. 37) 

• In this passage, Copernicus is arguing that the center of the Earth is not the center of the universe but only the center of gravity. He is rejecting the idea that the Earth holds a privileged cosmic position. 

• Context: This statement comes from Copernicus’s early outline of his heliocentric model. By moving Earth out of the center, he challenges centuries of Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. His theory begins the shift away from a universe organized around human location and toward a new astronomical framework. 

4. Sagredo: Well, Salviati, there is another remarkable thing which I have just been reflecting about. It is that, according to these considerations, straight motion goes entirely out the window and nature never makes any use of it all. (Galileo, Dialogues p. 80)

• This passage describes one of Galileo's dialogues in which Sagredo, the embodiment of modern science, is talking to Salviati, the embodiment of Aristotelian thought. Segredo is arguing that there is no such thing as straight motion and that, in reality, all motion that we think may be straight is really moving in circles. Example of dropping a stone from a height, showing that physics does not align with geocentric principles: if Earth's motion were true, stones would veer from straight descent. 

  • The stone example was traditionally used to deny Earth’s motion. Galileo and Sagredo use circular motion to show how the same phenomenon could fit with a moving Earth. 

5. Sagredo: Your assumption appears to me so reasonable that it ought to be conceded without question, provided of course there are no chance or outside resistances, and that the planes are hard and smooth, and that the figure of the moving body is perfectly round, so that neither plane nor moving body is rough. All resistance and opposition having been removed, my reason tells me at once that a heavy and perfectly round ball descending along the lines CA, CD, CB would reach the terminal points A, D, B, with equal momenta. (Galileo, Discourses p. 84) 

• In this passage, Galileo is describing three scenarios: free fall, rolling down an inclined plane from two different points. His claim is that speeds near the bottom will equalize under ideal conditions. To my knowledge, now, that is scientifically correct. 

• Context: This passage illustrates his break from Aristototelian physics, which focused on everyday, messy observations rather than controlled scenarios. Galileo’s approach leads to new principles about acceleration and inertia

6. No Creature doth usurp so much as Man, Who thinks himself like God, because he can Rule other Creatures, and make them obey: Our Souls did never Nature make, say they. Whatever comes from Nature’s Stock and Treasure, Created is, only to serve their pleasure: Although the Life of Bodies, comes from Nature; Yet still the Souls come from the Great Creator. (Cavendish, Poems p. 106) 

• In this passage, Cavendish is poetically questioning human superiority by pointing out that humans claim authority over nature, even though both bodies and souls depend on forces beyond human control. This ties into her broader claim that humans mistakenly assume that they are like God. 

• Context: This poem reflects her broader philosophical ideas. She rejects the strict separation between mind and matter and instead supports a form of materialism and panpsychism, where all matter has some degree of life or perception. Her writing often challenges human exceptionalism, emphasizing that humans are a part of nature rather than above it. 

7. If for example a stone fell from a roof onto someone’s head and killed him, this sort of argument would prove that the stone fell in order to kill the man. For if it did not fall for this purpose in accordance with God’s will, how could so many circumstances (for there are often many simultaneously) coincide by chance? Perhaps you will reply that it happened because the wind blew and the person was walking along that way. But they will press: why did the wind blow at that time? Why was the person going that way at that very time? If you counter that the wind sprang up at that time because the day before, though the weather had been calm, the sea began to be get rough and the person had been invited by a friend, they will press again, because there is no end to asking questions: why was the sea getting rough? Why had the person been invited at that time? And so on and so on, and they will not stop asking for causes of causes until you take refuge in the will of God, which is the refuge of ignorance. (Spinoza, Ethics p. 38)

• In this passage, Spinoza shows how people often make the mistake of thinking events happen for a purpose. When a stone falls off a roof and kills someone, many people assume it happened in order to kill him and that it must have been part of God's will. Spinoza argues that this way of thinking is wrong. He says that if we keep asking the question ‘why?’ in terms of the purpose of intention, we eventually end up claiming that God planned everything. For Spinoza, this showed ignorance because the stone fell due to natural causes, not because it had a goal or because God wanted a specific outcome. 

• Context: This passage fits into Spinoza’s larger rejection of final causes, which are explanations based on purpose or design. Spinoza believed that nature has no built-in purpose and everything happens out of necessity, not divine intention