III' The Mechanical Philosophy

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III. The Mechanical Philosophy

• Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

1. Cogito ergo sum

• existence of the world is real but not
  necessarily as our senses perceive

2. Cartesian (mind/body) Dualism

• all of reality consists of two
• things

• Spirit (mind)

• act of thinking (mind)

• no properties except itself

• Material (body)

• no psychic characters

• properties weight, dimension, etc

• interaction

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III. The Mechanical Philosophy
3. Descartes mechanical philosophy

• basic proposition world is a machine composed
  of inert
• bodies indifferent to thinking beings

• all phenomena in nature created by matter in
  motion

• God is the initial cause

• objects in motion or at rest stay in that state

• motion can be transferred but never destroyed

• all motion is in a straight line

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III. The Mechanical Philosophy
4. The Cartesian Universe

• Universe filled with aether and particles in
  motion

• one particle displaces another and threatens to
  create a void

• another particle rushes in resulting in a vortex

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III. The Mechanical Philosophy
5. Cartesian coordinates

• thinking about flies

6. Impact of the mechanical philosophy

• defined framework of all scientific work in 17th
  century

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III. The Mechanical Philosophy
B. William Harvey (1578 1657)
1. Physician to Kings
2. Circulation of blood

• before Harvey

• blood made in liver

• carried in veins to tissues

• used up in the process

• arteries carry vital spirit (pneuma)
• from lungs

• modern understanding

• arteries and veins heart to arteries to
  arterioles to
• capillaries to tissues to venules to veins to
  heart

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III. The Mechanical Philosophy
2. Circulation of blood

• two hearts in one

• right side pumps deoxygenated blood
• to lungs via pulmonary artery

• hemoglobin picks up oxygen in lungs
• via capillaries

• oxygenated blood back to left side via pulmonary
  vein

• oxygenated blood pumped through aorta to body

3. De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus
(1628)

• still much support for Galens physiology

• determined how much blood being pumped

• blows away idea that blood made in liver

• still believes in vital spirits (mixes with
  blood)

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
Nature and Natures Laws lay hid in Night God
said, Let Newton be! and All was Light
Alexander
Pope
A. Accomplishments
1. One of the great synthesizers
If I have seen further it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants.
3. Mathematized science
4. Brought science to the forefront of society
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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
B. Life
1. Childhood
2. Early years
3. Conversation with Edmund Halley (1656-1742)
4. Calculus controversy
5. Newtons personality
6. Director of the Mint
7. Death
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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
C. The Principia (The Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy (1687))
1. Placed science on a mathematical basis
2. Made physics a separate discipline
3. 3 books

• Book One

• 3 Laws of Motion

1. Absent outside forces, a body moving in a
straight line stays in a straight line and a body
at rest stays at rest
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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
2. Force mass X acceleration
3. For every action, there is an equal and
opposite reaction.

• also in book one development of the calculus

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)

• Book One

• Law of Universal Gravitation

• made distinction between mass and weight

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)

• Book Two

• foundation of modern fluid dynamics

• demolished Cartesian universe

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)

• Book Three

• application of Law of Universal Gravitation to
  solar system

• Halleys prediction

• All based on Gods intelligent design

• God the clock maker

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
1. The nature of light
2. Prism experiment
3. Invention of the reflecting telescope

• chromatic
• aberration

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
E. Reactions to Newton
1. Positive

• Age of Reason (the Enlightenment) 18th Century

1. Progress

• knowledge of Nature

• overcoming ignorance

• social improvement

2. Deism
3. Tolerance for all religions

• Poetry

James Thomson, The Seasons
Newton, pure Intelligence, whom God To mortals
lent, to trace his boundless works From laws
sublimely simple.
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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)

• Art

• Joseph Wright, Rainbow

• Politics

• John Locke (1632 1704)

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)

• Economics

• Adam Smith (1723 1790)

• Wealth of Nations (1776)

• Science

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
2. Negative reactions

• Romanticism movement (second half of 18th
  Century)

• William Blake (1757 1827)

Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of
death.

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 1832)

What kind of God would push only from
outside,letting the cosmos circle round his
finger?He likes to drive the world from
inside,harbours the world in Himself, Himself in
the world,so all that lives and weaves and is in
Himnever wants for his power or his spirit.

• David Hume (1711 -1776)

• limits to the role of reason

• mechanical philosophy leads to error

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IV. Isaac Newton (1643 1727)
F. Other works
1. Religion

• God is the ultimate creator of the Laws of Nature

• Arianism

• denied the Trinity

• Christ was divine, but inferior to God

• Newton architects of early Church had distorted
  
• origins of Christianity

2. Alchemy
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