Scientific Knowledge: Greco-Medieval and Modern Eras

Outline of Scientific Knowledge Through History

Greco-Medieval Era

Introduction

Philosophy was considered equivalent to Science and dealt with universal essences. Myth, on the other hand, was associated with *doxa*, representing multiple and changing appearances. The Middle Ages maintained a similar scheme, but with a theological basis.

The Universe: A Biological Model

• The universe was seen as a living being, finite (limited) and ordered (a cosmos), and full of matter (not empty).
• Qualitative Approach: Nature endowed each substance with potentialities determining its nature:
  • Plants: grow, survive, nurture, and reproduce.
  • Animals: feel, crave, and move.
  • Humans: think.
• Geocentric and Geostatic: A heterogeneous view where celestial phenomena differed from terrestrial ones.
• Sublunary (Earth and its surroundings): Composed of four elements with rectilinear movement.
• Supralunar (Sun, Moon, planets, and the Unmoved Mover): Composed of ether with circular movement.
• Natural phenomena were considered certain and followed two principles: causality (what exists or may exist) and conservation (of substance).

Scientific Knowledge

Objective: Theory explaining natural phenomena based on four causes:

• Material (what it is made of)
• Formal (its essence)
• Efficient (what caused it)
• Final (its purpose).

Method: Empirical:

1. Observation of particular phenomena through the senses.
2. Abstraction of universal concepts (essences) of things.
3. Understanding of particular substances.

Modern Age

Introduction

Renaissance: A shift from Theocentrism to Anthropocentrism, focusing on natural reality instead of transcendental metaphysical reality. Key changes included:

• Copernicus: Heliocentrism and the motion of the Earth.
• Kepler: Elliptical orbits.
• Galileo: Use of the telescope.

Enlightenment: Newton, considered the father of modern science, formulated the laws of gravity. Conclusion: Everything in nature is either matter or energy, existing within an infinite, three-dimensional Euclidean and absolute space, and an infinite, linear (not cyclical), and absolute time.

Philosophy and science became separate disciplines.

The Universe: A Mechanistic Model

• Nature was viewed as a machine, a large artifact composed of matter and energy moving in space and time.
• Quantitative Approach: Natural phenomena were explained not by their qualities, but by mathematical laws governing the course of nature. These laws were characterized by regularity, conservation, economy, and continuity.
• Heliocentrism and the motion of the Earth.
• Homogeneous: The same mathematical laws applied to both celestial bodies and terrestrial objects (e.g., the law of gravity).
• Determinism: Natural processes could only happen in accordance with regularity, conservation, economy, and continuity.

Scientific Knowledge

Objective: To study, dominate, and transform nature to serve human needs. This involved explaining natural processes, distinct from philosophy's attempt to explain the "why" and "what."

Methods: Deductive and Inductive reasoning were used in formal sciences, empirical sciences, technology, and mathematics.