Science and Human Knowledge: From Ancient Greece to the Renaissance

Theme 2: Science and Other Forms of Human Knowledge

1. Science

One characteristic that distinguishes humans from other living beings is our natural curiosity to wonder about the world in which we live and about our human nature.

To satisfy this curiosity, there have been ways of knowing, understanding, explaining, and interpreting the world and human existence. One way is through philosophy.

Another is through science, which seeks to know reality, find the causes of observed phenomena, establish universally valid concepts, and demonstrate rational arguments. Science provides knowledge about the universe.

1.1 The Scientific Explanation: A Brief History

Science has not always been the same. There have been three main models of scientific paradigms:

1.1.1. The Age: Greco-Medieval Science

The first major model emerged in ancient Greece and lasted until the late Middle Ages. Greek philosophers used reason to study and interpret natural phenomena and to construct a scientific theory that could explain all existing reality.

1.1.1.1. The Universe

At this stage, the most influential author was Aristotle, and his object of investigation was the universe. For him, the universe is finite in space, has an order, is stable, and is full of matter. Some key points:

• It is a finalist model. Biology is the primary model of knowing.
• It is an essentialist model. The explanation of natural phenomena is based on the qualities of the object.
• It is a geocentric and heterogeneous model. A geocentric universe, and heterogeneous, there are two parts materials:
• Sublunary world: In this part, the Earth is motionless in the center.
• Supralunar world: Around the Earth moves around.
• It is a deterministic model. In this view, nature is governed by two principles:
• Principle of causality: Every effect has a cause, i.e., there is a necessary connection.
• Conservation principle: In nature, there is always something that remains.

It proposes that nature is closed and finished; no random events or developments. Natural phenomena can be described by laws, which allow us to predict future events.

1.1.1.2. The Way to Understand Science

The scientist must explain or describe how the world is and how it works to discover the truth behind appearances.

Therefore, it is a theoretical science, including nature. Its goal is to describe natural phenomena and find out the causes that produce them.

Each individual is the result of four types of causes:

• Formal: Explains what something is, what its essence is. A statue.
• Material: Explains how it's done. Marble.
• Efficient: Explains what has occurred. The sculptor.
• Final: Explains what it is or what it is for. To decorate a house.

The answer to all these questions was the goal of science until the 16th century. From the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy expanded the Greek model, making the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model official. In the 14th century, its most important bases began to be questioned.

1.1.2. The Classical Model: Mechanism

The second scientific paradigm emerged in the Renaissance with modern science. The transition occurred from theocentrism to anthropocentrism. This change began in the 16th century with Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, culminating in the 17th and 18th centuries with Newton's mechanism.

1.1.2.1. New View of the Universe

It considers the universe as ordered and stable. The starting point is the proposed replacement of Aristotle's geocentric model with the heliocentric model.

As Ockham said, the simplest is the most rational, and the most rational is truer than the obvious. Increasing the accuracy of the calculations would give the reason.

The Aristotelian distinction disappears from the two worlds of the universe. Now the universe is something infinite and homogeneous. Example: The law of universal gravitation.

This new model is mechanism. Since the Renaissance, the example has been the machine. The machine was the perfect clock.

Nature is matter composed of particles that move through space and time, and interacting forces that drive the universal mechanism. This model conceives of nature as orderly, stable, and deterministic. The features are: regularity (nature has rules and repeats), conservation (in nature, nothing is created nor destroyed), economy (nature works the easiest way), and continuity (nature does not make jumps).