Offering Number: T095

Course Code: SoSt 122

Course Title: World History II

Instructor: Mr. Jay C. Bansale

Schedule: Thursday 10:30-12:30

Module 1: Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment (1550-1800)

The following are key events during the Scientific Revolution:

 Rationalism and secularism become the foundation for the modern world view.
 The philosophies of the Enlightenment thinkers influence some rulers to recognize people’s natural
rights, such as freedom of religion and equality before the law.
 American colonies ratified a constitution and formed the United States of America.

The following are some of the influences of Enlightenment thoughts today.

 In the field of research scientific methods serve as a basis for techniques used.
 Montesquieu’s idea on the concept of the separation of powers has influenced the writing of a constitution not
just of the United States but of most countries of the world today.
 The philosophes’ advocacy of people’s natural rights gave rise to democracy.

Module Pretest

Encircle the letter of the BEST answer for each question.

1. The Enlightenment influenced revolutionary thought by

a. Encouraging the poor to take up arms

b. Stressing the importance of the monarchy

c. Designing a common revolutionary strategy

d. Instilling a belief in the natural rights of man

2. The American Revolution was motivated by the Enlightened idea

a. Of a distinct class system

b. That all men are created equal

c. Of the rightful rule of a monarch

d. That government needs central authority

11. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen includes several Enlightenment ideas. Which of the following
is not one of the Enlightenment ideas incorporated into the document?

a. Citizens should have a voice in the decisions the government makes on their behalf

b. People give rights to their governments to limit their governments’ power

c. All citizens possess basic human rights (ie. freedom of speech)

d. People are incapable of ruling themselves because they are inherently disorganized and chaotic
12. The application of science and reason to understanding the world resulted in the 1700s being known for the

a. New Deal

b. Enlightenment

c. Progressive Movement

d. Reformation

13. The discoveries of Isaac Newton had a major influence on Enlightenment thinkers. In what way was this influence so
significant?

a. Enlightenment thinkers attempted to base their philosophies on religious tradition

b. Enlightenment thinkers studied Newton’s writings about the freedom of human beings and the proper role of
kings and governments

c. Enlightenment thinkers employed Newton’s scientific method when exploring questions about human nature
and the responsibilities of the citizen

d. Enlightenment thinkers looked to the works of Copernicus and Galileo, as Newton had, when seeking answers
about the nature of art and religion

14. Montesquieu believed that to prevent tyranny in government there should be a separation of powers. Which of the
following best illustrates this idea?

a. Absolute power in the executive branch

b. Splitting power among three or more countries

c. Total power in the legislative branch

d. Dividing power among three branches of government

15. Which of the following is not an idea from the Enlightenment?

a. People have natural rights

b. Problems can be solved by using reason

c. Kings ruled by divine right

d. Government should serve the people

16. These are the three locations in which the Seven Years War was fought.

a. Europe, North America and India

b. North America, South America, and India

c. Europe, India, and Africa

d. India, Africa, and Japan

17. The willingness of people to hand over their rights to a ruler in exchange for law and order in society was called the

a. Scientific method

b. Magna Carta

c. Enlightenment
 d. Social contract

18. The philosopher who believed that all people are born free and equal, with the rights to life, liberty, and property
was

a. John Locke

b. Thomas Hobbes

c. Galileo Galilei

d. Baron de Montesquieu

19. The group of social critics in Enlightenment France were called

a. Satirists

b. Philosophes

c. Stoics

d. Revolutionaries

20. The new intellectual movement that stressed reason and thought and the power of an individual to solve problems
was the

a. Scientific Revolution

b. Enlightenment

c. Great Awakening

d. Geocentric theory

Lesson 1.1: The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution gave the Europeans a new worldview about the universe. Ptolemy, Nicholas
Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Margaret Cavendish, Maria Winkelmann, René Descartes,
Francis Bacon were some of the few intellectuals during this period which gave significant inputs that provided the
foundation of modern science today.

Preview of Events

Names and Terms to Remember

Ptolemy

Heliocentric view

Robert Boyle

Copernicus

Geocentric view
Rene Descartes

Johannes Kepler

Isaac Newton

Francis Bacon

Galileo Galilei

William Harvey

At the end of the session, you are expected to do the following:

1. Discuss how the scientific revolution begins;

2. Explain the importance of this period in understanding the place of man in the universe; and

3. Enumerate the contributions of this period to advance our knowledge in the sciences.

Motivation Question

How do you think the observation of Galileo, created a new view of the universe in the seventeenth century?

Answer:

Galileo’s observation has made an impact in the view of the universe in the seventeenth century. It created a
new view, new expectations and new possibilities. It made other astronomers curious on what to discover next.

Before the Revolution

Before the Scientific Revolution, Europeans have already intense interest in the world around them. However,
they rely only on Aristotle and other ancient authorities for their scientific knowledge. It was only in the fifteenth and
sixteenth century that they try to abandon their old-world views and develop new ones based on scientific observations.

Advances in Astronomy

Between 600 B.C. and A.D. 200, Greek scientists developed many ideas on how the world worked. They believed
in a theory called rationalism, in which people use reason, or logical thought, to understand the world. A Geocentric
Universe
 A Geocentric Universe

Aristotle

A Greek philosopher, whose observation on the movement of stars and planets became the foundation of the
GEOCENTRIC view of the universe or the idea that the earth is at the center and the sun, the moon, and other planets
all moved in perfectly circular orbits around it

Ptolemy

Ptolemy expanded the geocentric view of Aristotle. He claimed that the moon and the planets moved in small
orbits of their own and revolved around the bigger orbit around earth. Their observations though wrong, have been
accepted by scientists for about 1 400 years. Not until during the Scientific Revolution, where scholars started to
challenge the ideas of Medieval thinkers.

A Heliocentric Universe

Copernicus and Kepler

A Polish mathematician who wrote, “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.” In his book, he contradicted
the idea of Aristotle and Ptolemy that the earth is the center of the universe and the sun and other planets revolve
around it. Copernicus thinks that the geocentric view was too complicated and offered a more accurate explanation of
the phenomena. Copernicus argued that the sun, not earth, is at the center of the universe. The planets revolved around
it and the moon around the earth. The idea was seconded by a German mathematician named Johannes Kepler. Using
more detailed astronomical data, he confirmed that the sun is the center of the universe. Moreover, he contradicted the
notion of Aristotle that instead of circular motion, planets move in an elliptical orbit, with the sun toward the end of the
ellipse. This observation later became Kepler’s First Law.
Galileo

Galileo is known in history as the inventor of the telescope. An Italian mathematician had been under the
suspicion of the Catholic church because most of his scientific observations and discoveries are contrary to the church
doctrines. Using his telescope, he made a series of discoveries: mountains on the moon, four moons revolving around
Jupiter, and sunspots. Another observation of his opposition to that of Ptolemy was his remarks on the material
substance of heavenly bodies. Galileo observed that they share the same material substance just as the earth and not
only seem as pure orbs of light. These observations were published in “The Starry Messenger” in 1 61 0. The discoveries
of Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler threatened the church’s conception of the universe. The heavens were no longer
considered as a spiritual world but a world of matter. However, despite the church’s position, many astronomers had
come to accept the heliocentric view of the universe during the Enlightenment.

Newton

Born in Woolsthrorpe, England, on December 25, 1 642, Isaac Newton tied the ideas of Copernicus, Kepler, and
Galileo through his Laws of Motion. His famous work is known as the Principia in which he defines the three laws of
motion that govern the planetary bodies and objects on earth. His gravitation law explains why planetary bodies have
elliptical orbits around the sun instead of going off in a straight line. In mathematical terms, the law states that every
object in the universe is attracted to every other object by force called gravity. Newton’s idea created a new picture of
the universe and dominated the world, not until Albert Einstein’s law of relativity was published.

Reading check

Using the table below, identify the four aforementioned astronomers’ contributions in our understanding of the
universe.

Astronomers Contributions

Breakthrough in Chemistry and Medicine

Aside from astronomy, there was also a revolution in the field of medicine. In the Middle Ages, medicine was
dominated by the teachings of the Greek physicians, which mostly relied on animals rather than on human dissection.

Andreas Vesalius

Vesalius, a Flemish anatomist, wrote the book in 1 543 entitled “On the Fabric of the Human Body” which
became the basis of human anatomy of txhe sixteenth century. A professor of surgery at the University of Padua.
Vesalius’s work detailed the human anatomy based on his careful examination and emphasized the functioning rather
than the structure of the living body.

William Harvey

After years of thorough laboratory work, William Harvey published a book in 1 628 entitled “On the motion of
the heart and blood”, which discusses blood circulation through the arteries and veins.

Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle was one of the first scientists to conduct a controlled experiment. His pioneering work on the
properties of gases led to Boyle’s Law. This generalization states that the volume of a gas varies with the pressure
exerted on it.
Lavoisier

Antoine Lavoisier is regarded by many as the founder of modern chemistry. He invented a system of naming
elements which is widely used today.

Women and the Origins of Modern Science

The women also have their share in the Scientific Revolution. One of which is Margaret Cavendish, an English
aristocrat who wrote many scientific works, including her famous “Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy.” She
was critical in the belief that through science, men are the masters of nature. To her, humans have no power at all over
natural causes and effects r we are but a small part, his skills are but particular actions of Nature, and he cannot have a
supreme and absolute power.

In Germany, many astronomers were women. They got their training and knowledge in this natural science from
working in family observatories, where their fathers or husbands had trained them. One notable mention is Maria
Winkelmann.

She got her training from her husband Gottfried Kirch, who was at that time, Prussia’s foremost astronomer. Her
original contributions in Astronomy include the discovery of a comet, but even having this, her contribution was not
recognized because she was a woman.

Reading Check

What did Margaret Cavendish and Maria Winkelmann contribute to the Scientific Revolution?

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The Scientific Method

Descartes and Reason

Rene Descartes’s works were inspired by the new conception of the universe brought by the Scientific
Revolution. His works usually center on doubt and uncertainty during the seventeenth century. He ended with a
philosophy that dominated Western thought until the twentieth century.

In 1 637, Rene Descartes published his philosophy in a book entitled “Discourses on Method.” His book advances
the principle of systematic doubt which calls for sweeping past ideas and clearing the ground for the great renewal of
knowledge. He considered mathematics the most powerful instrument available to human understanding and argued
that the material world is measurable and can be reduced to formulas and equations.

For his famous principle “I think; therefore, I am”, which means that he will only accept things that were true to
him, became the basis of his second principle “the mind cannot be doubted but the body and material world can, the
two must be radically different.”

Descartes’s idea that mind and matter were completely separate allowed scientists to view the matter as dead or
inert—as something detached from themselves that could be investigated independently by reason. Descartes has
rightly been called the father of modern rationalism. This system of thought is based on the belief that reason is the
chief source of knowledge.

Reading Check

Explain the significance of Descartes idea on the separation of mind and matter.
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 During the scientific revolution, people became concerned about how they could best understand the
universe. The result of this apprehension was the creation of a scientific method—a systematic procedure for collecting
and analyzing evidence.

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon, an English philosopher, believed that instead of relying on ancient authorities' ideas,
insisted that knowledge could be acquired based on observed facts. He advised scientists to put all traditional ideas
aside and study the world around them based on what their senses perceive. He also argued that new knowledge, when
put into practical uses, becomes true knowledge.

Further Research

Aside from those mentioned above, name other scientists during the Scientific Revolution, who also contributed
to advancing our knowledge in the sciences.

Name of the Scientist Contribution

Assessment

A. Define the following:

1. geocentric

2. Ptolemic system

3. heliocentric system

4. rationalism

5. Inductive method

6. Scientific method

B. Give the contributions of the following philosophes.

1. Ptolemy

2. Nicholas Copernicus

3. Galileo Galilei

4. Isaac Newton

5. Robert Boyle

6. Margaret Cavendish

7. Maria Winkelmann

8. René Descartes

9. Francis Bacon.

C. List the pioneers of modern chemistry who lived during the seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries.

D. Why did the Catholic Church be critical to the works of Galileo during the seventeenth century?
E. Use a diagram to identify examples of new ideas in the form of mathematical discoveries, scientific discoveries, or
technological innovations that appeared during the 1 500s and 1 600s. Then show in the diagram the changes
produced by these discoveries or innovations.