Later still would come deChaulliac's small-seer and the incredible discoveries he made during the Great Death; Marsilius of Inghen's infinitesimal algebra; Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa's quicksilver thermometer and his creation of the first authentic vacuum; Da Vinci's discovery of Uranus and his investigations into electricity with batteries and twitching frogs; Francis Bacon's telephone; and the amazing plethora of inventions—from light bulbs to moving pictures—that spilled from the workshops of the acerbic Galileo Galilei. And not least of all, in 1682, the successful landing on the Moon of the rocket ship Buridan, flown by Captain Sir Isaac Newton, and propelled thither by the self-same forces first described by Oresme in his Experientia cum sufflatores.
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What happens next.
If you stand on the mountain peak of any great age and gaze toward the past, you may spy in the purpled west the jagged range of another great age.
But what if you look to the east?
Copyright (c) 2007 Michael F. Flynn
[Back to Table of Contents]
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SCIENCE FACT: DE REVOLUTIONE SCIENTIARUM IN ‘MEDIA TEMPESTAS'
by MICHAEL F. FLYNN
Note on format: Medieval Questions were arranged for publication into a standard format called the dialectic: 1) the Question to be determined; 2) the principle objections to the Question; 3) an argument in favor of the Question—traditionally, a single argument; 4) the determination of the Question after weighing the evidence; and 4) the replies to each objection. The determination is sometimes preceded by a definition of terms or by a division into separate cases. The determination was made before arranging the arguments.
Bibliographies were not provided, because the medieval philosopher would have recognized an entire argument from a brief quotation. A bibliography is provided here for readers not so blessed.
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Question I.
The nature of the Scientific Revolution.
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Article 1. Whether there was a Scientific Revolution.
Objection 1. It would seem otherwise, because a revolution consists of definitive points of change, and is carried out during a short time according to a plan. But the development of science was continuous and unplanned.
On the contrary, British historian Herbert Butterfield wrote that the Scientific Revolution “outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes ... within the system of medieval Christendom."
I answer that “Science” is not simply an accumulated body of facts. It is a methodology for a) purposefully uncovering those facts, b) developing natural laws to describe them, and c) formulating physical theories to explain them. While the facts accumulate continuously, the methodology had, by the 17th century, undergone a radical transformation involving six “innovative and essential features” identified by Peter Dear:
1. The view of the world as a kind of machine.
2. The distinction between “primary” and “secondary” qualities.
3. The use of deliberate and recordable experimentation.
4. The use of mathematics as a privileged tool for disclosing nature.
5. The pursuit of natural philosophy as a research enterprise.
6. The reconstruction of the social basis of knowledge around a positive evaluation of cooperative research.
Arguably, this revolution was confined to the physics of motion, but spread to chemistry a century later, to biology by the 1920s. (In practice, Darwin was a natural philosopher.) But a gradual sequel does not contradict a sudden advent. Science in our modern sense is only three hundred years old.
But how long was the pregnancy? Pierre Duhem argued that the continuity of the sciences with the medieval tradition was greater than humanist historians had supposed; but he based this on the “pre-discovery” of specific scientific laws like Newton's first law, a procedure subject to accusations of “cherry-picking.” Whether Dear's transformations also had medieval roots will be explored in the Questions that follow.
Reply to Objection 1. That the Middle Ages contributed nothing to the history of thought is an idée fixe of the Modern Ages. Thus, as evidence grew for the medieval roots of much of the Scientific Revolution, so did the argument that there hadn't really been one.
But the Scientific Revolution was as “short and sudden” as the emergence of a butterfly from its cocoon. Those involved were purposefully engaged in overturning previous paradigms. Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy is perhaps the “Storming of the Bastille.” Yet, even if the “revolutionaries” were correct in their self-assessment, revolutions (and cocoons) always have deeper origins. After all, it was never called the “Scientific Coup d'Etat."
“Tipping point” may be a better metaphor than “revolution."
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Article 2. Whether the Scientific Revolution was uniquely Western.
Objection 1. It would seem otherwise, because Western science grew from Aristotle's natural philosophy. Also, the ancient Greeks proposed atomism and heliocentrism, two themes of the 17th century revolution. Thus, the Scientific Revolution began in ancient Greece.
Objection 2. Furthermore, the West was backward compared to Islam, and learned of Greek natural philosophy through Arab intermediaries. Thus, the Scientific Revolution began in Islam.
Objection 3. Also, Shen Kua discussed magnetic declination and land formation by deposition and erosion; and maintained daily records of lunar and planetary positions. Thus, China also had a Scientific Revolution.
On the contrary, Stanley Jaki has written that “the Scientific Revolution was stillborn in every other civilization."
I answer that while all peoples and cultures have accumulated “lore, skills, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, and knowledge,” Science is not the mere accumulation of facts. Those facts must be arranged and understood within the context of natural laws and physical theories. But scholars must believe that natural laws are possible before they will look for them. Obstacles to this belief have included:
a) A multitude of self-willed gods. There cannot be consistent natural laws if trees, rivers, and planets are capable of emotions and desires, and sundry gods can intervene in the world to contrary purposes. As Stock writes, “[the Roman's] daily experience led him to believe that nature's forces could be imitated, even placated; he was less sure they could be understood."
b) The absolute autonomy of God. When even the act of handwriting is ascribed to God's direct intervention, “laws of nature” can be no more than “habits of God,” and the reasons for them cannot be comprehended.
c) An infinite sequence of cyclic universes. If the cosmos and its mutations are eternal, all possibilities must eventually come to be, and “laws of nature” are merely temporary concatenations of little significance.
In the Latin West, these impediments were mitigated or absent. The Latins believed that the World has a beginning and an end (i.e., time has direction) and that a singular, rational God “disposed all things by measure and number and weight” (Wis. 11:21). By thus revealing His rational nature, wrote Anselm of Canterbury, and because He is faithful to His promises, God has bound Himself to act in a certain way. Such beliefs disposed the Latins to conceive a consistent World, knowable by “measuring, numbering, and weighing."
The Latins made a further, crucial distinction—between primary vs. secondary causation. As William of Conches wrote, “[God] is the author of all things, evil excepted. But the natures with which He endowed His creatures accomplish a whole scheme of operations, and these too turn to His glory since it is He who created these very natures.” Later, Albertus Magnus [De vegetabilibus et plantis] wrote, “In studying nature we have not to inquire how God the Creator may, as He freely wills, use His creatures to work miracles and thereby show forth His power; we have rather to inquire what Nature with its immanent causes can naturally bring to pass."
They believed that their God had g
iven material bodies the ability to act directly upon one another through their natures. Hence, natural laws. This “disenchanted” the World. There is no dryad behind the tree, no nymph in the well, only natures knowable to human reason. Further, since the heavens, too, are just another created thing (Gen 1:1), and not, as the Greeks and others had supposed, something “alive, divine, and influential in human affairs,” the heavens, too, must be governed by natural laws.
That the reasons for material phenomena should be sought in the natures of things, and not in the inscrutable Will of a transcendent Deity—and that these secondary causes are both consistent and rationally accessible—was a uniquely Western worldview.
Reply to Objection 1. The ancient Greeks invented the very idea of “science” (historiê, lit., “inquiry"), as well as “nature"—and without that none of the rest would have happened. (You can't have a Scientific Revolution unless there is already a science to revolve!) But historiê applied to nature was mostly a non-empirical speculative philosophy. Their criterion for truth was logical coherence more than correspondence to facts. Many, like Plato, doubted the reliability of empirical facts when they conflicted with a really cool logical theory.
Atomism and heliocentrism do not mark an ancient Greek Scientific Revolution for two reasons: a) being outside the mainstream of Greek thought, they revolutionized nothing; and b) they were not scientific in the modern sense intended here. They were not derived from empirical facts but deduced from logical necessity or assumed a priori. Democritus’ atomos seems prescient only because we apply his term to a very different entity. His five “atoms” corresponded to the five regular solids and five “elements.” ("Therefore,” the element fire is painful because its tetrahedral atom has the sharpest corners.) Aristarchos placed the Sun in the center “because” fire was a nobler element than earth and rest a nobler state than motion. Aristotle and Archimedes, more empirical than most Greek philosophers, rejected heliocentrism because the predicted stellar parallax could not be seen, thus “falsifying the theory."
Aristotle “lit the fire” of Science, although the fuse was uncommonly long. He organized a large body of empirical observations within a coherent philosophical framework, making Science into a specific discipline. This had a stunning impact, first on Islam, then on the West.
But Aristotelian natural philosophy, while necessary, was not sufficient: No scientific revolution occurred in Byzantium, which never had to discover or translate it. Few Byzantine scholars added to their heritage, Simplicius and Philoponus being notable exceptions. As Theodore Metochites wrote, “The great men of the past have said everything so perfectly that they have left nothing for us to say.” Byzantium did, however, deserve its proud title of “The World's Librarian,” and its preservation of ancient learning midwifed both Islamic and Western science.
Reply to Objection 2. Initially, Islam treated Greek learning with greater enthusiasm than had the Byzantine Greeks themselves. However, no Muslim Aquinas ever reconciled Aristotle with Holy Qur'an. The great Islamic faylasuf who embraced the Stagerite—e.g., ibn Sinna, ibn Rushd—embraced him all the way, becoming heretics to Islam. Those who rejected him—e.g., al-Ghazali—rejected him completely. The faylasuf prospered only under the protection of powerful rulers; and their writings found readier audiences in Western Christendom than in Islam itself.
Islam denied secondary causation. According to Maimonides [Guide to the Perplexed], Islamic theologians asserted “when a man moves a pen, it is not the man who moves it; for the motion occurring in the pen is an accident created by God in the pen. Similarly the motion of the hand, which we think of as moving the pen, is an accident created by God in the moving hand. Only God has instituted the habit that the motion of the hand is concomitant with the motion of the pen, without the hand exercising in any respect an influence on, or being causative in regard to, the motion of the pen.” Unlike Anselm of Canterbury, ibn Hazn claimed God need not even be faithful to these “habits.” Al-Ghazali wrote in Tahafut al Falasifa [The Incoherence of Philosophy], “The imponderable decisions of God cannot be weighed by the scales of reason.” Ibn Rushd countered with Tahafut al Tahafut [The Incoherence of the Incoherence], but in 1195 he lost all his offices and was exiled from Marrakech. As “Averröes,” his popularity in Europe was second only to Aristotle, but little noteworthy science was created in Islam after his time.
“The problems of physics,” wrote Ibn Khaldûn, “are of no importance for us in our religious affairs or our livelihoods; therefore we must leave them alone.” An exception was the “practical sciences” of astronomy, medicine, etc., where Muslim scholars made outstanding contributions of facts. But laws of nature and explanatory theories smacked of men limiting God's autonomy.
At the dawn of the Middle Ages, Islamic science did outshine the Latin West; but by the close, their positions had reversed. Yet, without the Islamic translations and commentaries, modern Science would have been long delayed.
Reply to Objection 3. China had a scientific revolution in the 17th century when Jesuit missionaries introduced Western mathematics, heliocentrism, and ... translations of Aristotle's natural philosophy. (That old Greek sure did get around.) Their revolution was the realization that there was such a thing as “Science.” If the Muslims never had an Aquinas, the Chinese never had an Aristotle. They had never integrated the study of the natural world into a coherent philosophy, as Aristotle and his Islamic and European successors had done. Poetry, physics, gardening and alchemy were all ko-chih. In effect, while the Chinese had sciences, they did not have Science.
Far from seeking causes in the natures of things, Chu Hsi argued that one should seek principles in the outside realm in only thirty to forty percent of cases; otherwise, moral principles should be sought within. Even this was too much for Wang Yang-ming, who criticized Chu Hsi's “externalist” views. Sivan described Chinese thought thusly: “Empirical knowledge is neither certain nor probable, merely given.... For certainty one looks to illumination, introspection, and other alternatives to purely cognitive processes. Certainty is, in the last analysis, a spiritual and moral stance."
The sages were more concerned with identifying the current point on the cosmic cycle than the natural causes of material phenomena. Sequence, frequency, quantity, and magnitude held little interest. Fang Yi-zhi [Little Notes on Principles of Things] wrote that sound and light “are always more subtle than the ‘number’ of things,” i.e., than their measurement. Regarding heliocentrism, Juan Yuan wrote, “Our ancients sought phenomena and ignored theoretical explanation ... It does not seem to me the least inconvenient to ignore Western theoretical explanations and simply to consider facts.” If the Greeks valued logical theories more than facts, the Chinese prized facts with little concern for explanatory theories.
This “follow-the-procedure” approach had consequences. During the Huang-yu reign of Northern Sung, Shen Kua noted that candidates preparing essays on astronomical instruments “were so confused about the celestial sphere, and the examiners themselves so ignorant of the subject, that all candidates were passed with distinction.” His proposal for daily records of planetary positions was sabotaged by his own staff, who simply made up the data.
Chinese arithmetical astronomy at its peak (AD 1300) had not achieved the accuracy of Ptolemy's geometric astronomy a millennium earlier. Three centuries later, the Ming calendar “was regularly failing,” yet the Directorate of Astronomy resisted Hsing Yun-lu's reforms—not on technical grounds, but as sedition. A public admission of calendar failure amounted to a declaration that the dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven, tantamount to a call for revolution.
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Question II.
The medieval embrace of science.
Article 1. Whether the Middle Ages were an Age of Reason.
Objection 1. It would seem otherwise, because the Middle Ages were the “Age of Faith,” and faith is opposed to reason.
Objection 2. Furthermore, in the Middle Ages “ignorance [wa
s] acceptable to God as a proof of faith and submission.” Only in the Renaissance did Europe “awake, bathe, and begin thinking again."
On the contrary, Adelard of Bath [Quaestiones naturales] writes, “It is through reason that we are human. For if we turn our backs on the amazing rational beauty of the World we live in, we should indeed deserve to be driven therefrom, like a guest unappreciative of the house into which he has been received."
I answer that the medievals valued reason so highly that they applied it to their own religious beliefs, and held God Himself to act reasonably. Both Renaissance humanists and Protestant reformers, for different reasons, accused the scholastics of too much reliance on logic and reason.
This Western fascination with reason grew in three stages. During late antiquity, Christianity had to deal with a living, dominant pagan philosophy. As Augustine [De Genesi ad literam] wrote, “It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on [natural philosophy]."
Later, in the cathedral schools, John Scotus Eriugena, Thierry of Chartres, Gerbert of Aurillac, and others taught from the Roman encyclopediasts and from the “Old Logic” of Boethius. Bernard Silvester laid out the lawfulness of nature, the taxonomy of the sciences, and the necessity of secular studies for Christian education.
Finally, the Latins discovered the natural philosophy of Aristotle. Not re-discovered. The Romans had never translated those books in the first place. (Boethius had begun the attempt, but had completed only some of the logic treatises before his execution.) Intrigued by references in the encyclopedias, the medievals flocked to Toledo and Sicily, once the jihad had ebbed, and learned Arabic and Greek to translate these works.
Analog SFF, July-August 2007 Page 7