Newton, Bacon, and Descartes

• Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
  • Major work:
    • optics
    • calculus
      • Creation of new mathematics Principia Mathematica (simultaneously with Leibnitz)
        • differential calculus
        • integral calculus
  • Forces on matter, not properties of matter
    • universal gravitation
      • proportional to mass
      • inversely proportional to distance
  • Pre-established harmony Mind-Body solution
  • Newtonian Science
    • Deeply religious, thought God had created universe and set it into motion
    • Existence of natural laws only
    • Purpose was incommensurate with natural laws
      • Rejection of Aristotelean final causes
    • Belief in Occam's razor
    • Probabilities = flaws (human) not laws
    • Nominal fallacy
  • Effects on religion
    • together with Galileo, Kepler, and Copernicus, Newton led way to new faith in human ability to understand the world
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
  • Radical empiricist Novum Organum
  • Story about the friars and the horse
    • illustrates the clash of methodology
  • Radical empiricist
    • Induction over deduction, thus no theories (i.e, sunrise and sunset)
      • induction involves unbiased observation
      • precurson to positivism
      • Skinner and induction
    • Deduction involves finding a limited number of general principles and then deducing specific predictions from those principles
      • Galileo and Newton used deduction
  • Sources of error (idols):
    • cave--personal biases (genetics, experience, education, feelings)
    • tribe--human nature biases (imagination, desire, hope)
    • marketplace--meaning biases (words, labelling, definitions)
    • theatre--blind allegiance biases (philosophy, religion)
  • Science and technology
    • He cited the following as having changed the world
      • gunpowder
      • printing
      • compass
    • Recall the relationship of science and technology
  • Little influence until Skinner and behaviorism
  • Shakespeare controversy
• Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
  • Soldier, mathematician, philosopher during the dawn of science
  • St. Germain statues
    • became his metaphor for nerve conduction (hollow tubes filled with fluid)
    • reflex and animal spirits
    • helped legitimize animal experimentation
  • Cartesian coordinates
    • the fly in Mersenne's cell
    • analytical geometry simplified and revolutionized mathematics
  • Existence proof
    • escape from solipcism
    • cogito ergo sum
    • A reliance on introspection
  • Physiology
    • hydraulic theory of nerves
    • "animal spirits"
  • Innateness of experience
    • unity, infinity, perfection, axioms of geometry, God
    • presages Kant and rationalism
    • used intuition and deduction
      • stick in the water
    • phenomenologist
  • Mind-Body
    • interactionism
    • pineal gland
    • difficult to specify mechanism of interaction
    • led to others only studying the body half of problem (mechanism)
  • Emigrated to Holland
    • Catholic, but with heretical views
      • i.e., infinite universe
  • Died in Sweden, but body moved to France 16 years later