His 102; Topic 2 (chapter 16)

The Scientific Revolution 

I.                   Toward a New Heaven:  A Revolution in Astronomy

A.     Ptolemy’s Model:  A Geocentric Universe

B.     Copernicus

1.      On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres & the heliocentric model

2.      Church reaction

C.     Brahe and Kepler & laws of planetary motion

D.    Galileo and Controversy

1.      The telescope

2.      The Starry Messenger

3.      Church reaction

E.     Isaac Newton

1.      The Principia & law of gravitation

II.               Toward a New Earth:  Descartes, Rationalism, and a New View of Humankind

A.     Descartes’ Discourse on Method

1.      Rejection of the senses and separation of mind and body

B.     Scientific Method

1.      Francis Bacon and the inductive method of inquiry

2.      Rene Descarte and the deductive method of inquiry

3.      Isaac Newton (synthesis of Bacon and Descartes)

a.  The Principia & law of gravitation

III.      Science and Religion in the Seventeenth Century

A.     Galileo and the appeal to nature

B.     Benedict de Spinoza and pantheism and the use of reason

C.     Blaise Pascal

1.      Pensees

a.  The struggle between science and religion

 Overview:  The traditional ordering of the world came to be challenged by the Scientific Revolution.  Not only was well-establish theories of how the universe operated were revolutionized, but the impact went well beyond the realm of science.  The new rationality of this period also challenged the orthodox religions assumptions that was centered on a literalistic understanding of the Bible.  This view also encouraged a more secular orientation of life that would come to conflict with the religious view.