Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment

Important thinkers of the scientific revolution

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) (Think it guy):

  • Wanted to glorify God by creating a more perfect mode, didn't want to challenge the church. Ends up challenging the church though even though he wasn't trying to.

  • Challenged ptolemaic model BUT not accurate (maintained circular orbits not elliptical orbits which would be correct) but was a heliocentric model (earth orbits the sun)

  • On the revolutions of heavenly spheres (1543). He doesn't publish book, his friends publish for him on his deathbed. Book is condemned by major religious groups in europe.

Brahe: 

  • Believes in an in between of geocentric and heliocentric theory where both may exist.

  • Sponsored by HRE Rudolph ll

  • Limited understanding of mathematics

Kepler: (math guy)

  • Student of Brahe

  • Smart, and figures out the mistake that copernicus made about circles instead of elliptical orbits

  • 3 laws of motion: elliptical orbits, planets don't move at uniform speed in their orbits, time it takes to orbit is related to distance from the sun.

Galileo Galilei: (1564-1642) (see it guy)

  • Developed laws of motion

  • Used telescope to validate copernicus’ heliocentric theory

  • 1633, the inquisition, on trial by the church for heresy. Pope Urban VII forced Galileo to retract his support of copernican theory. Galileo says the copernican theory is wrong, and that's all, he doesn't recant the heliocentric theory so he technically wasn't wrong. Church doesn't understand what he just did so they are fine with it, so the church just convicts him of grand suspicion of heresy so he lives but has to be on house arrest

Rene Descartes (1596-1650):

  • Deduction: doubt everything until proven by reason, even your own existence. (I think therefore i am)

  • Cartesian Dualism: The world is made of two substances (matter aka physical and mind aka spiritual). Church and science can coexist since they aren't the same thing. Science = matter, church = mind

Francis Bacon (1561-1626):

  • Empiricism: inductive: observation based

  • Experience is the best source of knowledge

  • Break free from tradition and find new understandings, opposed scholasticism (the church), and says the goal is human improvement

  • Not anti religion, believes mind and matter are separate.

Issac Newton (1642- 1727):

  • Natural laws of motion - gravitation

  • Astronomy of copernicus and kepler

  • Physics of galileo

  • Invented calculus

  • Constructs are right but the actual math is wrong

Anatomy, Physiology and biology (studying and messing with dead bodies is illegal) 

Vesalius: renewed and modernized the study of human anatomy

William Harvey: explained how blood was pumped by the heart and circulated around the body (if caught, would have been killed)


Women in the scientific revolution:

  • Generally excluded from institutions of academia and intellectual life since they were seen as intellectually inferior

  • Only exception was italy where they were more inclusive of women

  • Wives sometimes worked along with their husbands conducting research but they never got any credit.

Notable women:

  • Margret Cavendish: published numerous books on philosophy, publicly debated ideas of descartes and hobbes

  • Maria Winklemann: discovered a comet, excluded from Berlin Academy, 1/7 astronomers were women since they had elevated status from protestant church as they were wives and mothers in a more biblical sense.

  • Emile du Chatelet: Translated Newton’s Principa into French, showing not only language abilities but scientific knowledge.

Deism

  • Laws discovered by human reason

  • “De-spiritualized” and demystified the universe

  • Universe isn't all based on religion. Clockmaker idea: god created the world and laws that govern but isn't actively involved

  • Protestants are more open, but catholics resist since protestant religion isn’t as rigid as the catholic church

  • The Church doesn’t want to admit wrong ideas because they do not want to lose power, and people will question them if they admit to being wrong.


Impact of the scientific revolution on societies

  • Creation of royal societies. Governments and monarchs encouraged scientific inquiry

  • Royal society in england in 1660, charles ll

  • French academy of sciences in 1666 under louis XlV (14th)


The Enlightenment

  • Natural science and reason could explain all aspects of life

  • Apply science to people society and government

  • 1st time secular, not about religion

  • Belief that natural laws could be applied to society, more education = better society


Important Enlightenment thinkers


  • Thomas Hobbes: wrote the leviathan, says people are short, nasty and brutish, says we need a strong central government and we need a monarch for order.

  • John Locke: writes two treatises of government (1690), says government should protect our natural rights we are born with of life, liberty and property, talks about consent of the government (people have to give the government the right to govern), right to rebellion and change if the government is abusive.

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Social contract (1762), general will should control the nation and the government will provide services and protections, Tabula Rasa = people born good but corrupted by the materialism of civilization, state of nature = good.

  • Baron de Montesquieu: Spirit of laws (1748), separation of powers, checks and balances

  • Voltaire: criticism of the french revolution, freedom of expression, hated bigotry, hated injustice, wanted everyone to be equal, called for religious toleration, advocated for “enlightened despotism”, thrown into bastille (political prison) and then exiled from france, he then spends a lot of time with Fredrick the Great and Catherine the Great.

  • Marquis di beccaria: writes On Crimes and Punishment (1764), humanize criminal law based on reason and equality before the law, get rid of spontaneity that monarchs can make laws.

  • Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations (1776) was the bible of capitalism and free market, refined and expanded the concept of laissez-faire (no government in the economy), supply and demand

  • Denis Diderot: wrote The Encyclopedia, greatest and most representative work of the philosophers, emphasized science and reason, criticizing religion, intolerance, injustice and tyranny, this gets him in trouble with french monarch and they won't let him publish his book, Catherine the Great finds this out and she publishes his book in Russia


Women in enlightenment


  • Montesqueiu believed in the equality of women but had a traditional view of family and marriage

  • Diderot’s encyclopedia suggested ways to improve women's lives but did not suggest reform

  • Rousseau felt women should be subordinate to men

  • Mary Wollstonecraft – a vindication of rights of woman (1792), defended equality of women with me based on human reason, Argued if women had access to the same educational opportunities as men they would be equally as intelligent.

Salon movement: (think tanks called salons since gathering room = salon)

  • Organizers and patrons

  • Madame de Geoffren = one of the most famous salon hosts

  • Olympe de Gouges: wrote declaration of rights of woman and the female citizen (1791), challenged male authority and male-female inequality

  • Killed during Reign of Terror, she attacked government and befriend Girondin (moderates)



Baron Paul d’Holbach:

  • Atheist

  • Translated for diderot

  • Wrote System of Nature

  • Argued humans were essentially like machines, completely determined by outside forces (determinism)

David Hume:

  • Against faith in natural law

  • Ideas result of experiences

  • Passion guides human affairs

Immanuel Kant: 

  • Separated science and morality into separate branches of knowledge

  • Science describes nature, not morality

  • “things - in Themselves”

  • Science is science and math is math


Enlightened depot: absolute monarchs who ruled based on ideas of enlightenment for approval and to prevent rebellions

  Reforms:

  • Religious toleration

  • Streamlined legal codes

  • Increased access to education

  • Freedom of the press

  • Reduction or elimination of torture and the death penalty


Frederick the Great (prussia):

  • patronized Voltaire and invited him to live in his court in Berlin

  • War of Austrian succession; pragmatic sanction. Prussian annex silesia, prussia wins, euro power

  • Seven years war: maria teresa tries to regain silesia, austria ally with france and russia divide lands,britain backs w $ prussia bc they dislike france, horrific war (maybe 1st world war since also fought in new world), prussia on verge of defeat and peter lll (russia) backs out and was killed. 

  • Promotion through merit - work and education rather than birth status, civil service exam

  • Religious toleration for every christian, muslim, and jew, but christianity is still #1

  • Legal reforms such as abolish torture and freed serfs on crown lands (not nobles lands since they needed serfs for army and tax money)

  • Called himself “first servant of the state”


Catherine the Great (r 1762-1796) (Russia):

  • One of the greatest rulers in European History

  • German princess (mom was a romanov) who became queen after her husband Peter lll was assassinated during the 7 years war.

  • Limited administrative reforms due to local control of the nobility. Not free serfs. Allowed religious toleration (Jews). Restricted the practice of torture.

  • Economic growth, opened up trade

  • Corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot (published diderot’s encyclopedia)

  • Emphasized education, including education for girls

  • Territorial expansion to warm weather ports along the baltic and black seas.


Maria Theresa (r 1740-1780)

  • Assumed the habsburg empire from her father Charles VI

  • Pragmatic sanction of 1713 says habsburg lands can be divided based on ruler so they can be passed to a female 

  • Sought to improve the condition of her people, son Joseph ll also did this (maybe most enlightened despot), Co-emperors for 10 years before Joseph ll took over. 


Joseph ll (1780- 1790)

  • Ruled with other Maria Theresa

  • Greatest of the enlightened despots

  • Believer in absolutism and could be ruthless in achieving his goals

  • Extended the empire at the expense of Poland, bavaria and the ottoman empire

  • Religious toleration (mostly islam)  (unlike catholic mom, maria theresa)

  • Economic and agrarian reform, improved transportation and trade

  • Abolished serfdom on state lands - though attempted land tax reforms (not on noble lands)

  • Freedom of press (allows himself to be criticized)

  • Many reforms were ignored/ repealed after his death

  • Had no heir, so crown went to leopold after his death who wasn't as enlightened (joseph and leopold are brothers to marie antoinette)

  • Judicial equity for all citizens

  • Abolishs torture and ends death penalty

  • Expands state schools and establishes public buildings like parks and hospitals