Historical Worldviews: From Ancient Greece to Modern Science

Ancient Worldviews

Worldview: The Greek "cosmos" implied a beautiful order and harmony, as opposed to chaos and disorder. It represents a coherent and systematic view of the world, a total interpretation of reality.

Scientific Worldviews

Theories of science:

• Astronomy: Studies the stars.
• Cosmology: A part of astronomy that explains the origin and evolution of the universe.
• Physics: A fundamental science for understanding the world, contributing laws that explain the movements and forces affecting bodies.

Former Worldviews: 6th Century BC

• Principles of Reality

  The ancients believed that all substances came from the transformation of one or several elements that could be considered the origin of reality.

  • Basic Principle or Arche

    The Milesian school of philosophy considered that substances derived from a unique Arche.

  • The Four Elements

    This doctrine states that all things are formed from the mixture of the four elements: earth, water, air, and fire.

• The Shape of the Earth

  Initially, they believed the Earth was flat and surrounded by the ocean. However, they later deduced that the Earth was spherical.

• The Sky

  Three features:

  • Movement of the heavenly bodies: Must be circular.
  • Geocentrism: The Earth must be considered motionless and located at the center of the universe.
  • The universe: An unlimited sphere of fixed stars, like a dome with stars embedded in it.

Aristotelian Cosmos

• Earth

  The Earth, where humans live, is spherical and occupies a central place in the universe. It is limited by the sphere of the moon and formed by the four elements. It is characterized by a natural, rectilinear movement.

• Celestial Realm

  Beyond the sphere of the moon lies the limit of fixed stars. It consists of the four elements plus ether, a perfect, divine, pure, unchanging, and weightless substance. The celestial world is eternal and immutable. It follows Eudoxus' model, where each sphere of ether moves with uniform circular motion. According to Aristotle, this movement is caused by a prime, stationary mover.

Philosophical Implications of the Aristotelian Cosmos

• Fact: A perfectly ordered and completely knowable reality.
• Perspective: The reality studied is anthropocentric.

Modern Worldview: 16th and 17th Centuries

Copernican Revolution

Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model, attributing three types of movement to the Earth:

• Rotation: The Earth rotates on its axis.
• Translation: The Earth revolves around the Sun in an annual period.
• Declination of the Earth's Axis: The Earth moves like a spinning top, changing the direction of its axis.

Other Contributions to the New Worldview

• Tycho Brahe

  Contrary to Copernican heliocentrism, he discovered a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia and studied the orbits of comets.

• Johannes Kepler

  A defender of heliocentrism, Kepler stated that planetary orbits were elliptical, with the Sun at one focus. He also found that the speed of planets varied depending on their distance from the Sun.

• Galileo Galilei

  His contributions led to the final consolidation of heliocentrism. He was the first to use a telescope for scientific purposes and discovered Jupiter's moons.

The New Physics: Galileo and Newton's Laws

• Inertia (Galileo)

  Any particle continues in its state of rest or uniform rectilinear motion unless a net force acts upon it.

• Universal Gravitation (Newton)

  This law explains all natural movements and has a universal character. It became a model and benchmark for the new science.

Philosophical Implications of the Modern Worldview

• Mechanism: The idea of a world as a large, perfect machine, comparable to a clock mechanism.
• Determinism: The world is theoretically predictable.
• Role of God in Cosmology: God's existence is not denied, but He is separated from the study of the universe. God is reduced to the designer of the world machine and its laws.
• Importance of Nature: From the moment of creation, nature, which owes its laws to God, evolves independently and self-sufficiently. Humans, to a certain extent, depend on nature and are subject to its physical laws.
• Insecurity: Humans occupy a small corner of a vast, perhaps infinite, universe.
• Power of Reason: Reason is seen as unlimited.