History 2244
The History of
Science:
History is About:
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Humanity
Identity
Perspective
History is not about dead people -- it is
about us.
Cultural History
– History of those elements in a social
group or era which characterize it
and set it apart in the areas of:
– Knowledge and belief
– Behavior, Customs, and social forms
– Material traits
– CONTEXT IS KEY
History is not about “Facts” (that
would be boring)
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History, as a discipline, consists of:
EVIDENCE
INTERPRETATION
The two must not be confused.
Education
• From educere -- “to draw out.”
• Education is about opening minds, not
filling them with “facts.”
• The “facts” and information in this class are
but the hardware of critical thinking.
• The goal is critical thinking.
Intellectual History
• Focuses on knowledge and belief
• Examines how thought, worlviews, and
ideas change through time (or persist
beyond the time in which they were
developed.)
• Recognizes that ideas and beliefs can cause
historical change.
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Intellectual History:
• What was known or
believed in a given
culture?
• What was the
worldview: how did
people conceive of the
world and themselves
in relation to it?
• How did the ideas
change through time?
Intellectual History is the History
of Intellectuals:
• Literate subculture of Early Modern Europe
• They were connected with each other
through Books and Writing.
• Often called “Elites” but their ideas have
now become common.
“Science” is the main
intellectual feature
of modern Western
culture.
We are considering
science as an aspect of
culture.
Who is this guy (and where does
he live)?
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Dr. Steven Matthews
ABAH 211
Email: [email protected]
Webpage: homepage.mac.com/hermetic1/
Office Hours: the hour after class, MWF, or
by appointment
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On the 3x5 Card:
The Website (again)
homepage.mac.com/hermetic1/
The History of Science, points
for today:
1. Some of the questions that make it so gosh
darn interesting to be a historian of science.
2. Science is a Modern, Western phenomenon.
(Why do we say this?)
3. You say you want a Revolution? What’s
“revolutionary” about the scientific
revolution.
4. A bit of the History of the History of Science
(focus on “Whiggism”)
Some other questions asked by
historians of science:
• What makes something “scientific?”
• Why is that which claims to be “scientific” more
trustworthy?
• What’s the cultural significance of names like “Newton,”
“Galileo,” “Darwin,” “Freud,” and “Einstein?” (Why not
“Heisenberg” or “Meitner?”)
• How many people in our culture who “believe in science”
are scientists?
• Why do we trust medical doctors?
• Why does a white lab coat represent knowledge?
• What is the significance of phrases like “it’s genetic,” and
“a recent study shows” for what we believe about the
world?
• Why do we believe in “progress?”
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Name: Steven Matthews
How you are called: “Daddy” or “Dr. Matthews”
Email: [email protected]
Major: European History/The History of Science
Year in school: ( Terminal).
Anything special? English degree, theology
degree, then a doctorate in history (from the
University of Florida). Dissertation on Francis
Bacon. Two small children. Working on a book.
What Is Science?
• The word has been in common use in the English
language for around two centuries.
• This is still a question without a definite answer.
• There are many answers suggested, but they vary
even among those who are professionals in the
“sciences.”
• For now, it is best to see it as a “constellation” of
ideas and methods which have been generally
accepted as constituting areas of study which
focus on mathematics and experimentation.
Science: Modern and Western
• Historians of science generally don’t talk about
“ancient” or “non-western” “science.”
• This is not to make a judgment on the
intelligence of the other groups.
• Islamic mathematics, Egyptian engineering,
Greek astronomy, Roman medicine, and
Chinese technology have contributed greatly to
the Western phenomenon of “Science.”
• However:
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Some problems with talking about
“Ancient” or “Non-Western” Science:
Another common question
among the His. Sci. crowd:
• “Science,” in academia, has a distinct identity and is
associated with specific methods and standards of proof.
• Although these vary from department to department, what
is recognized as “Science” by scientists is a distinct
development of Western history.
• From the outside, Non-Western cultures see science and
the “scientific worldview” as originating in the West as
well.
• Within the sciences, alternative views of the cosmos,
nature, etc. are largely rejected as “unscientific.”
• Why did “science” develop as it did in the West, and not
elsewhere?
• One set of reasons is found in looking to cultural
assumptions such as:
• Determinism
• Mysticism (a transcendental orientation)
• Pragmatism (“Theories” are not necessarily useful
except for building other theories.)
• Finally: something did happen in the fourteenth through
the eighteenth centuries in Western Europe that
significantly altered society and culture in an
identifiable way. (The “Scientific Revolution.”)
What’s Revolutionary about the
Scientific Revolution?
Understanding the Words:
• In the course of the “scientific revolution” no one
involved with it called it scientific, and it certainly
was not seen as “revolutionary” in the modern
sense.
• At the time, what was at issue was the study of
nature, which was called “natural philosophy.”
• Natural philosophy was regarded as only one
branch of learning, and a small one. (Theology,
Rhetoric, Logic, and Grammar were all more
significant.)
A bit on the history of the history
of science.
• Developed, as a discipline, around the turn of the
twentieth century.
• Originally excluded “life sciences” (the founding
figures were math/physics types)
• It was billed as the study of the most important
developments in human history.
• “Science” was presented, early on, as the triumph
of humanity over nature, and particularly of
Western society -- the most “advanced” society.
• The field has now moved to a more inclusive, and
skeptical, approach.
• “Scientific” -- from the Latin scia meaning
“knowledge,” referring especially to human
knowledge. It has been narrowed in meaning to
“knowledge of nature.”
• “Revolution” -- properly, a “turning.”
– Not an “overthrow” or an “upheaval.” Such extreme
connotations came much later.
– As in Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus
What we are truly dealing with is a gradual change
in the understanding, or perception, of nature.
Note: There are two different aspects of
the study of the History of Science -• The history of the actual method (which did
develop, or evolve, over time through a
process of refinement.)
• The package of beliefs, assumptions, and
perspectives which accompanied science
(and is often confused with it.)
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“Science” -- “the relentless
march of progress”
What is “Whig History?”
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The textbook offers one definition, but another often operates in the
History of Science. To wit:
“Whig History” was named after the British “Whig” political party
which interpreted all historical developments as leading up to their
own perspective.
Presentism -- studying the past in light of subsequent, particularly
“present” conditions or developments. This is not necessarily an
impediment to the study of history. (There’s nothing wrong with
asking how things came to be.)
“Whig History” is usually regarded as adding something more: a
positive value judgment of the present state of things in relation to the
past.
“That’s why we’ re better than all those who have gone before us.”
This is a serious impediment to the study of history.
ancient
Modern
medieval
stagnation
Renaissance
Ascent of man
Or fall
Triumph of Man
Typical rhetorical claim:
Casting off the superstitions
and errors of the past we press
toward a glorious future.
Philips Magnavox: “You’ve got to admit it’s getting
better, getting better all the time.”
Some objections made to progressivist or
Whig history in the shadow of the Mushroom
Cloud:
• If we embrace the victory of science and progress in the
eradication of polio and other advances…
• We must also acknowledge its complicity in other forms of
eradication, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the
Holocaust.
• The history of Science is not necessarily the history of
positive change, just the history of how science came to be
as it is.
• Contemporary History of Science examines the
alternatives as well -- the roads not taken, to come to a
greater understanding of how things came to be.
Cosmology:
• Cosmos -- From the Greek,
s, meaning “order”
particularly the type of order of an interacting system. A
catch-all word for what we now call the “universe.” (And not
merely the physical)
• Logy -- from the Greek,
, or “word” meaning an
intellectual discourse.
• Cosmology is the discussion of the order of all things that are,
and how they interact with one another.
• Often, “Cosmology” is treated as synonymous with ancient
“astronomy” but the ancients had much more in mind.
• Although, as you read in the article, many cultures and
civilizations contributed to the observation and study of the
Cosmos, the Greeks are the first for whom we have a regular
list of names and accomplishments, and some sense of how
they built upon one another.
• We will begin with the “big picture” and work our way in.
Cosmology in Antiquity: The
Main Players
Part I
The Big Picture: Astronomy and the
Spheres
Pythagoras and His School (Cult?)
• Pythagoras of Samos (c. 560 - c. 480 b.c.e.)
• He and his followers saw evidence of the divine in the arithmetical
precision of the cosmos.
• “All things are Numbers.”
• Some members of the school maintained, among other things:
– that the earth was rotating on its axis, and
– that the Earth was revolving, along with other planets, around a central sun.
• The Pythagoreans stand as an early example of the Greek faith in
numbers and the designed regularity of the Cosmos, and that properly
arranging circular motions would lead to a full understanding of the
Cosmos.
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Plato and His School
• Plato (428-348 b.c.e.): philosopher, not an
astronomer.
• He and his followers were more “mainline”
(less secretive and mysterious, and more
accepted) than the Pythagoreans.
• Plato shared the belief in the mathematical
precision of the Cosmos.
• Challenged his followers to discover the
“uniform motions” of the stars and
planets through combinations of circular
motions.
• Plato and his followers shared the more
common-sense (and, at the time, more
mathematically sound) theory of a
“geocentric” universe.
Aristotle
• Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 400 - c. 347 b.c.e.) took
Plato’s challenge and devised a system of
concentric spheres to explain the motions of
heavenly bodies. For Eudoxus, it was
hypothetical -- a useful calculating device, but
probably not physically true.
• Aristotle (384-322 b.c.e.) a philosopher, like
his teacher, not obsessed with the math.
• Modified the hypothesis of “nesting spheres”
set forth by Eudoxus, and proposed that it
was the actual physical state of things.
• His system came to dominate both the GrecoRoman world and medieval Christian
thinking.
Some Problems for the
Mathematicians (only two
examples):
• Aristotle’s spheres did not readily account for the
observable “retrograde motion” of the planets.
(The planets appear to move backward part of the
time, in reference to the “fixed” stars of the outer
sphere.)
• The proposed circular orbits of all things around
the earth did not fit with the observation that the
sun and planets appear to have different
brightnesses and to move at varying speeds.
On the first problem:
The Epicycle
• Applonius of Perga (c. 240 - . 190 b.c.e.)
proposed an “epicycle” system to account
for the backward motion of the planets.
• “epi” (επι) Greek for “upon”
• The epicycle is a system of circles upon
circles.
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On the Second Problem:
Claudius Ptolemy: The Pinnacle of the
Development of the Geocentric System
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Geometric Center
• Hipparchus of Nicaea (c.
190 - 120 b.c.e.)
• Recognized that it took
two days longer for the
sun to move from the
Spring Equinox to the
Summer Solstice, than
from the Summer Solstice
to the Autumn Equinox.
• Explained this
mathematically with the
“eccentric circle.”
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“Off-Center” Earth
(c. 90 - c. 168 c.e.) Alexandria, Egypt.
Incorporated the work of Appolonius,
Hipparchus , and others into his own.
Developed a thorough mathematical
explanation of the entire motion of the
heavens, with the assumption of a “fixed
earth”
The mathematics was extremely complex,
but it worked -- the positions of heavenly
bodies could be very accurately predicted.
Presented his work in a MASSIVE four
volumes of the “ Mathematical Synthesis”
s
Also called the “ great synthesis”
s -- megisti
syntaxis From which the Arabs derived
the common title “Almagest.”
Minority Report: Heraclides and
Aristarchus
• Aristotle’s Cosmos, as understood by Ptolemy, became
the sole opinion on the subject of the order of the stars
and planets in the medieval and early renaissance.
• It was the dominant, but not the only, theory going in
classical antiquity, however.
• Heraclides of Pontus (c. 338- c. 315 b.c.e.) held that the
earth rotates on its axis, and that (at least) mercury and
venus orbited the sun.
• Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 - c. 230 b.c.e.) forwarded
a genuine heliocentric system, probably as complex
and accurate as Copernicus’ would be one day.
The Basic Elements of Empedocles:
Four Elements:
• Empedocles (c. 484 - c. 424 b.c.e.) -- Greek physician, poet,
and philosopher.
• Postulated that in order to account for change there must be
more than one type of matter below the unchanging heavens.
• Proposed four “elements” to explain the various qualities and
natures of things in the material world.
• The mixture and interaction of these elements formed the
variety of substances and objects in the sublunar realm.
• Aristotle (again) took the work of Empedocles and elaborated
upon it.
– Added the fifth element: Aether.
– Discussed, at length, the tendencies of these elements to return to their
native places in the sublunar cosmos. (This explained, for Aristotle,
much of the change and physical action observed in nature.)
• This system, also, became the standard understanding of the
medieval period.
Fire
hot, dry
hot
dry
hot, wet
Air
qualities
cold, dry
Earth
wet
cold
Water
(The Fifth, again,
was Aether , the
material component
of the perfect celestial
spheres: the “ Quintessence.”)
cold, wet
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Atomism, according to Democritus
• Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 b.c.e.) did not subscribe to elemental
theory, but expounded the alternative ideas of his teacher,
Leucippus.
• He contended that there was but one basic type of matter which
existed in tiny particles, called “Atoms.”
• Atoms are simple and unchangeable.
• Atoms could vary in shape, mass, and motion.
• All other qualities (color, taste, etc.) were subjective: supplied
by the observer when an object was observed.
• Variations in the material world were the result of the infinite
variety of sizes and shapes in atoms, their number, and the
variety of ways in which they could be combined.
• Not only observable things, but also “spiritual” things, like the
“soul” were, according to Democritus, made up of physical
atoms.
Plato and Atomism:
• The basic ideas of Democritus meshed well with Plato’s belief
that mathematics could explain the material world.
• However, Plato limited atomism to physical phenomena.
• Plato also combined atomism with the theories of Empedocles,
suggesting that the pure elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water
were composed of atoms with specific geometic shapes.
Hexahedron
Earth
Octahedron
Air
Tetrahedron
Fire
Icosahedron
Water
Gif animations Copyright © 1999, 2000 by Rüdiger Appel, all rights reserved.
Final Thoughts on Matter
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Aristotle won out with the most influential system,
again, at the beginning of the scientific revolution.
Plato’s compromise between the
systems may seem most reasonable
to us -- our common understanding
also includes:
The idea of elements -- basic substances
which differ from one another.
The idea of atoms -- the building blocks
of larger substances.
Life Sciences and Medicine in
Classical Antiquity
The Meaning of Life
We have a different view of the very
nature of matter, however. Our
atoms may be divided.
(And that’s no small matter.)
Classical “Biology” -- A Squishy Subject
• There was little in the way of consensus among classical
thinkers regarding “living things” and how they should be
studied (if at all).
• “Life” was a philosophical category, approached first from
philosophical (rather than empirical or experimental)
directions.
• There were as many philosophical opinions on the
“meaning of life” as there were philosophers (perhaps
more).
• Medicine is the one EXTREMELY notable exception to
what we (anachronistically) would regard as a lack of
concern with “Life Sciences.”
• When it comes to biology more generally, Aristotle, and his
chief disciple, Theophrastus (381-286 b.c.e.), was the
notable exception.
Today’s mandatory Greek break:
• Biology -- from
s: life, and
s: discourse.
• Also relevant:
: (zoe) “life.” Eventually comes to denote
life with a higher-order soul -- animals, today. Hence,
“Zoology.”
• Psyche --- “soul.” Living things, according to the
Greeks, were those that had a “life force” or a “soul” (but
there was almost no agreement on what a “ soul” was between
different philosophical schools).
• (Lat. for “soul” = anima hence, “animal.”
• Pneuma --- “Spirit.” Could mean anything from
“breath” to the animating spirit which causes living things to
live and move, to the “spirit” defined as the spiritual part of a
human.
• (Be careful not to assume that what is meant by “soul” and
“spirit” today, in a post-Christian world was the
understanding of the words among the Greeks.)
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Aristotle’s History of Animals
(all about animals)
• Spends considerable space defending the study of “ lower order
creatures.”
• To have life means to have a “soul.”
• Aristotle pioneered the practice of classifying the natural world
based upon observable qualities.
• Man was truly the measure of all things, for Aristotle -- much of
his observation of other life forms stemmed from comparisons
with human beings.
• Among those things which were assumed to have a “soul”
(meaning, for Aristotle, an animating principle within the
creature) all were arranged according to a specific hierarchy,
with man at the top, and “inanimate” things at the bottom.
• Within this hierarchy everything was classified according to the
type of “souls” the creature was assumed to have.
Aristotle’s
Hierarchy
Human Males
Human Females
“Rational Soul” -- complete
self-awareness, reason, able to
think in the abstract.
Blooded
creatures
Other furry animals
“Sensitive Soul” -- accounts for sensation and
movement..
Feathered, egg laying animals
Unfeathered,, non-furry animals
Fish
Insects, mollucs, etc.
“Nutritive Soul” -- able to obtain nourishment, grow, and
reproduce.
UnBlooded
creatures
Plants
Rocks, inert matter, etc.
Some Key Players in Medicine:
Medicine: the craft.
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• Medicine was “practiced,” not merely
theorized.
• Medical practitioners also had theories.
• Medical practice did not always mesh well
with the ideas of philosophers about “life.”
• However, there was a lot of crossover of ideas.
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Hippocrates (c. 460-377 b.c.e.), and the Hippocratic Corpus:
– Comes down to us as a collection of texts on medical practice from the time.
– Hippocrates was the primary figure in a “school”
– The writings are those of the physicians in the “school.”
– There’s a lot in the corpus, but one key idea is the concept of “balance” as a key
to health.
Aristotle:
– Wove the concept of elements together with another theory, that of bodily fluids
or “humors” for explaining the human constitution.
– Advanced the “man as microcosm” idea (of Plato and others.)
– Health is a matter of proper humoral balance.
– (Remember, he was a philosopher, not a physician.)
Galen: (c. 130-200 c.e.)
– Greek physician and anatomist.
– Advanced Aristotle’s empirical study of animals and humans.
– Made humoral theory, as per Aristotle, a model for practical medicine.
Aristotle and Galen come down through time as the “big names” in the field.
Yellow
Bile: Hot, Dry
Fall
Choleric
Four Humours:
Fire
Yellow
Bile: Hot,
Dry
Four Humours:
& Dispositions
Blood: Hot, Wet
Air
Blood:
Hot, Wet
Black
Earth Bile:
Cold, Dry
Summer
Black
Bile: Cold, Dry,
Winter
Sanguine
melancholy
Water
Phlegm: Cold, Wet
Phlegm: Cold, Wet
Spting
Phlegmatic
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Some factors influencing humors
in individuals:
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The humoral balance of parents
Diet
Behavior
Astral/Celestial influence
Involuntary experiences
Age (the natural life cycle)
A Pressing Question:
Does earth sink through
water to its natural place, or
does water run through the
earth to its natural place?
The argument itself is set in the assumptions
of Aristotle’s laws.
Congratulations: you are now citizens of the
terraqueous globe.
Aristotle’s Physical Hierarchy:
Fire
Air
The Article:
Water
Earth
“The Medieval Church Encounters
the Classical Tradition” -- David
Lindberg
The Two Routes of Greek Science:
Greek Natural Philosophy
“Popularization
and
Preservation”
(David C. Lindberg)
Transmission
and
Development
via
Byzantium and Islam
Western Eastern
Popularlization
• In Roman society, Greek thought was adopted without
any particular development.
• So that it could be easily read by Roman intellectuals
whose primary interests lay elsewhere, Greek thought
was summarized and arranged in a more digestible
form.
• Those interested in going deeper could go to the Greek
themselves.
• Others could read Greek thought in conveniently
translated collections.
• However, this meant that little, and very selective,
Greek thought was preserved in the Latin language.
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Preservation
• At least part of the interest in making abbreviated
collections of Greek thought in Latin was to
preserve the most important ideas of Greek natural
philosophy.
• This required a process of selection which was
based upon what the editor/translator thought was
important.
• With the political and economic demise of Rome,
and especially with the crisis brought to most of
the old Roman Empire by “Barbarian Invasions”
the question of preservation became critical.
Monastic Selection:
• In the West, the only remaining institutions of learning
capable of the task of preservation were the Christian
monasteries.
• However many resources were stretched to the limit in
monastic communities:
– Parchment and Vellum
– Qualified Scribes
– The means to travel in seriously hard times.
• In order to preserve the “most important” ideas, Christian
scholars in the West very carefully selected and
summarized what had already been selected and
summarized in Roman culture.
Cultural Triage
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Christian spiritual works, covering the highest subjects according
to monastic transmitters, took priority.
Other works were selected according to their utility and/or
necessity:
– Medical works and books of prescriptions were among the
most important.
– Works on history and law were also prized.
– At this time other selections varied widely, according to the
varying priorities of the scribes involved.
The net result: little Greek thought filtered down through the
West, and that which did came in a highly abbreviated and
summarized form.
Knowledge was often preserved only in little encyclopedias or
“bouquets,” (florilegia) containing gatherings of short descriptions,
prescriptions, and quotations of earlier works.
The “Renaissance” of the 12th
Century:
In the eleventh century, after the last invasions by displaced
Magyars and “Vikings,” etc. Western Europe began to
stabilize.
• More centralized government, along with the rise of secure
trade routes and establishment of cities, provided a backdrop
for a renewed interest in learning: this was when the first
universities came on the scene.
• Increased travel from trade, not to mention the Crusades,
resulted in a greater cultural exchange between Islam and
the West (as well as Byzantium).
• Via Islamic scholars, significant works on mathematics,
medicine, and Aristotle’s cosmos were recovered (along with
the commentaries of Muslim writers.)
The Eastern Route:
• In Byzantium
– The political and economic fall of Rome was not complete, only a time
of transition.
– The Greek language was not lost as it was in the West.
– Serious effort was made to preserve the learning of past generations, but
there was little added to it (except in spiritual and distinctly practical
matters)
– The result was a high degree of preservation but no real development.
• In Islam
– When Byzantine lands were conquered Islamic scholars took possession
of the natural philosophical texts they encountered.
– They translated the “important” ones into Arabic, and developed the
sciences which they found most useful, particularly mathematics,
medicine, and astronomy.
– (Again, cultural triage was at work. “Utility” ruled.)
12th Century Continued:
• (Greek language still remained at a low point in the West,
and very few original Greek texts from Byzantium figured
in the 12th century recovery of learning.)
• In natural philosophy Aristotle was largely recovered, but
almost none of the ancient alternatives to Aristotle were
known.
• In 1277 the inherent contradictions between Aristotelianism
and Christianity led to the condemnation of 219 Aristotelian
doctrines (or propositions).
• In spite of this, the Aristotelian emphasis of the medieval
period was retained, particularly as Aristotle and
Christianity had been reconciled by Thomas Aquinas.
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Medieval Scholasticism:
• Academic system of the first “Universities.”
• Dominated by a synthesis of Aristotelian method and
Christian theology.
• Clerical: established by and for the church.
• Knowledge was packaged in, and expanded according to,
the rigid forms of Aristotelian logic.
• The Goal was always to reach the highest possible truth
(all knowledge should lead to an understanding of God
which transcends this life and world.)
Three Medieval Classes:
Those who:
• Work (Peasantry)
• Fight (Nobility)
•(Agrarian
Pray (Clergy
and Monastics)
Society)
The classes were hierarchical
and static
The Development of the “Middle”
(Merchant) class:
Merchant class characteristics:
• The end of invasions of Europe in the 10th c.
allowed the gradual rise of long distance
trade and towns.
• In time, with this continual “urbanization”
and the solidifying of trade networks, a new
class developed “in between” the other
classes:
• “Those who sell” the merchant class.
• Not static. One could rise through wealth.
• Focus on the individual and Merit: through work
and ability one could change one’s lot in life.
• Urban: cities are (again) the focus of life.
• Symbols of wealth: clothing, houses, and
entertainment were all chosen to display and
celebrate the success of the new class.
• Practical people, who would pay for practical
education, and “real world” answers.
Major Point:
This socio-economic shift
coincided with, and also
fostered, an important
intellectual shift: from
medieval scholasticism to
renaissance humanism.
Growing objections to
Scholasticism:
• Rules of logic artificially constrained
theology.
• In pursuing transcendent truth, scholastics
had little to say about important issues of
this life, and this world.
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It came to a head in “Italy,” c. 1350:
• Backwater City-States
• Ruling Merchant Class
• Established tradition of
scholarship (scholastic
and non)
• Civic strife
• Plague
• Answers were needed
that scholasticism could
not give.
Humanism
• Concern for the “secular” -- from saecula,
that which is of this age.
• Interest in Human worth and achievement.
• Turned to texts of classical antiquity for
answers.
• Concerns reflected in Curriculum:
Grammar, Rhetoric, Poetry, History
What did Greek have to do with
it?
There was a recovery of
Greek thought and
language, especially after
1453.
Not only literature came
west, but also Greeks.
Like Manuel Chrysoloras
(1350-1415) who taught in
Florence.
Renaissance (renovatio, rinascita)
•
•
•
•
An era of “Rebirth”
The people of the Renaissance themselves gave
the name to the era in which they lived.
They believed that a new era was beginning with
them, which would be significantly different
than that which had gone before.
Much of our current cultural identity as the
“West” originated in the changes and
perspectives of the Renaissance era.
How did renaissance thinkers
view history?
Beginning of a Three part Narrative of Civilization:
Barbarian darkness
Ancient
Culminated
In Greece
And Rome
Medieval
(More ambiguous among
Renaissance
Thinkers than
later interpretations.)
Renaissance
Recovery of
Human achievement,
i.e. “civilization”
How did “renaissance” change its meaning and
interpretation through time?
In the course of the Enlightenment and the early
19th century a new triumphalist scheme of history
arose:
Modern
ancient
medieval
stagnation
Renaissance
Ascent of man
Or fall
Triumph of Man
13
How has our view of the
Renaissance changed since
Burckhardt?
Ancient
Medieval
Renaissance
Early modern
Petrarch: “Father of Renaissance
Humanism”
X 1304-1374
X Born near Florence,
spent most of his career
in political exile.
X Convinced that Darkness
fell on Europe when the
name of Christ was
publicly celebrated in
Rome.
X Pious Christian, Priest.
Modern Post?
Studia Humanitatis
• A “Curriculum Revision” of the medieval form of learning.
• Medieval Universities taught:
– Trivium: Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic
– Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music.
• To this basic framework Humanists added special emphases on:
– Grammar (the building blocks of language)
– Rhetoric (how to use language practically and skillfully)
– Poetry (the most sublime use of language, for conveying the
highest truths)
– History (the story of mankind, no longer “sacred history” only)
– Moral Philosophy (how mankind should act in the world)
Types of Humanists:
DActive: Interested in “civic” matters, how
the political reality of the city should be
arranged.
DContemplative: The “Bookish” humanists - concerned with scholarship and literature.
DThese represent two poles of a continuum,
most humanists were of mixed interests.
Studia Humanitatis (cont.)
• Began among independent scholars, in courts
of merchants and nobility, not in the
universities.
• Seen as a threat by those at the university.
• Gradually infiltrated the universities (e.g.
Wittenberg)
• Today it still shapes our university systems (we
call the same program “Liberal Arts.”)
Characteristics of Northern
Humanism
X Less concerned with the
idea of “city-states” and
the “republic.”
X Ancient pagan Rome is
much less of an ideal.
X More exclusively concern
with Christianity and the
Biblical text.
X Church “Reform” was
very much at the heart of
the activity.
X Epitomized by Desiderius
Erasmus (1466?-1536)
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From the article:
“Rebirth of classical studies,” or recovery
of classical knowledge and perspective, is “ the most
obvious aspect of humanism.”
Note that both “secular” and “humanist”
were categories of Christian thought in their
inception.
What is meant by the return to
origins?
How did Humanists read texts?
The birth of the critical method:
XThe origins of any idea or thing contain its
foundations -- the “pure kernel” of what it is
in essence.
XWhat is meant by the return to the
“primordial knowledge of man?”
XThe farther upstream you go, the closer you
are to the spring.
X“Eden” was the ultimate golden age.
X Since the texts of the past were authoritative, it
was necessary to get them right.
X Errors of copying or interpretation frequently
developed over a millennium or more of manual
transmission and copying.
X By comparing texts against each other and against
what was known of history, humanists could
determine the best (earliest) readings.
Example: Lorenzo Valla
disproves the Donation of
Constantine (1440):
Raiders of the Lost Books
X The Donation of Constantine was a document in
which the Emperor Constantine allegedly gave
most of his possessions and authority to the pope.
X Latin was entirely inappropriate for the fourth
century.
X No outside historical sources corroborated it.
X Linguistically from the eighth century.
X Therefore it was a forgery, not an authority.
v Recovery of classical
learning meant the
recovery of classical texts.
v Humanism spawned a
search for books that led
across Europe and beyond.
v Led to unprecedented
book production and
copying even prior to the
printing press.
15
How big is yours?
Who were the Church Fathers?
•
v Cluny Monastery 13th
c. -- 570 ms.
v Medici private library
1495 -- 1039 ms.
Early Christian writers -- from the first
through the eighth or ninth centuries.
(Coincident with the 7 ‘ecumenical’
councils.
Reflect the Culture and Worldview of
Classical Antiquity.
Divided into two categories: Latin
(“Western”), and Greek (“Eastern”)
Texts were largely lost in the West.
Recovered during the Renaissance.
Recovery spawned a new academic field:
“Patristics.”
•
•
•
•
•
Humanism
•
•
•
An Intellectual movement beginning in the fourteenth century
“which had as its aim a new evaluation of man, of his place in
nature and in history, and of the disciplines which concern him.” -Nicola Abagnano, renaissance historian.
In other words: What does it mean to be human?
– In relation to God?
– What is good about being human?
– Of what is mankind capable?
– What is the place of mankind in the world?
Humanists were marked by a renewed belief in human excellence
and potential.
Humanism included a new emphasis
on:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Human excellence and potential -- “the dignity of man”
The individual
The “here and now” (saecula) -- the goodness and possibilities of this
world and this age.
Nature.
Politics and the art of governing.
Practical knowledge -- the need for knowledge to move beyond
abstractions.
Art, literature, architecture, music -- for the sake of beauty, not strictly
to serve the Faith.
The significance of language as a distinctive element of human identity.
The Value of non-Christian sources.
Scholasticism vs. Humanism
•
•
•
•
Academic system of the first
•
“Universities.”
Clerical: Established by and for •
the Church.
Knowledge was packaged in, and
expounded according to, the rigid •
forms of Aristotelian logic.
The Goal was always to reach the
highest possible truth (all
•
knowledge should lead to an
understanding of God which
transcends this life and this world.)
Proposed a new academic system,
the “studia humanitatis. ”
Learning was for the laity as well - merchant patrons benefited from
it.
Objected to the rigid logic of the
scholastics, which artificially
constrained theology.
The goal of learning was not only
to understand God, but also to
facilitate life in this world.
The Authority of Classical Texts:
• The new “age of light” depended, more than anything,
upon the new reading, and the recovery of, ancient texts.
• Recovered from where?
– Christian East
– Islam
• Barbarians had reduced the West to subsistence living,
while the East prospered.
• Classical authorities were read differently than in the
medieval period:
– Not just a support for the faith.
– Texts were valuable for their worldly insights.
16
How did Humanism contribute to
the study of nature?
The trend of observing the human body and
depicting how it “actually worked” included not only
the interest in accurately drawn medical texts, but
also a parallel interest among artists striving for
accurate portrayals of “people.”
Skull -Leonardo da
Vinci
(Be prepared to discuss this from
Abagnagno’s article in the DHI)
A similar trend toward realism applied in
regard to all aspects of the natural world:
In time, the “Triumphs” of science also
became subjects immortalized in artistic
culture:
Medieval Herbarium
Dürer’s “Hare”
In addition, “scientific” demonstrations and
observations secured a place as an element of
popular culture:
For Friday:
• Read chapter 3 in this.
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