A Thesis to account for the rise and development of the Scientific Revolution

The approach I adopt to the Scientific Revolution of the XVII century stands on a non-traditional, cliché-free strategy based on multiple views drawing on Epistemology, History, Sociology, Economics, Politics, Demography, an analysis of Religious movements such as the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, in particular the crucial role of the Inquisition, The Educational Reform started by Martin Luther and followed by Melanchthon, which promoted and successfully spread literacy and schooling. The fight against one of the most powerful Empires in History: The Papal Empire, the fight against Scholasticism and Aristotelianism, the fight against catholic religious fundamentalism, that is its replacement by a more secularized approach to life, which I believe were crucial forerunners in the coming of age of a new era.

For the Scientific Revolution is far more than a scientific revolution, it is one of the many expressions of Modernity. The passage from the lethal lethargy of the medieval times until the end of the XVI century, to the scientific and social boom of the XVII century cannot be explained as mere overcoming of religious prejudices, such as the heliocentric system, as a matter of fact, history speaks for itself, the reluctance of Copernicus to at long, long last, approve the publishing of his long-awaited De Revolutionibus did not in fact produce any revolution, over 50 years had to elapse to start feeling that things were on the move, and they did not by any means have to do with astronomy, but with Bacon`s Natural Philosophy on the one hand, and the discovery of the complex nature of matter, on the other, among other things.

To start with I might mention that I do not believe the Scientific Revolution started with Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo as we are wont to believe, but with Giordano Bruno, René Descartes, Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Marin Mersenne, Gilles Personne de Roverbal, Christiaan Huygens, Pierre de Fermat, Blaise Pascal, and a great deal of Leading Figures of the Scientific Revolution of the XVII century.

Ever since I became engaged in Philosophy and History of Science, a lifetime ago, I kept wondering how in the world the passage from the Middle Ages into Modernity could have taken place. The story I was told as a child that everything started with the "Copernican Revolution", followed by the other two great forerunners: Johannes Kepler and Galielo Galilei presented many doubtful, problematic angles. It did not explain, for one thing, how the work of three isolated very different men could cause such an unprecedented change on cognitive, 'scientific' grounds alone. I knew, as everybody actually does, that great historical movements are dreadfully complex, that the Scientific Revolution was one of those great historical movements (so much so, that it started circa 1600, and it is still going strong). Historical movements of such magnitude usually rely on a background of social, political, psychological, philosophical, ideological, changes. This particular one, in addition, produced one of the most formidable changes ever experienced in history, almost overnight.

 So, I had to explain how men changed from the deadly listlessness of 1000-year-old medieval languor to the hectic, notwithstanding controlled, and self reliant activity of the XVII century. Suddenly, out of the blue, hundreds of geniuses of all the branches of science turned up like mushrooms in less than a hundred years (a couple of generations). What had happened? Had men become clever by a genetic mutation? Why hadn't people like those appeared before? Besides, they turned up and organized simultaneously. They didn't rely on a University background because Universities were Scholastic. But the managed to form a network of knowledge based on Gresham College, the Royal Society, the Circle of Paris, an other centers that followed, which insured them communication. Pierre de Fermat, for instance, was constantly challenging his fellow mathematicians with his tests, theorems, and the like (One of his riddles, known as 'the Fermat Theorem' could not be solved till 1998). This permanently stung his colleagues and so reinforced the growth of intelligence experienced in such a short time.

But, as a matter of fact, my most serious doubts about the classical account (by the way it coincides with Thomas Kuhn's views published in his Copernican Revolution) came forward while revising Nicolaus Copernicus astronomical work called De Revolutionibus Orbi Coelestium, That is: The revolutions of the celestial spheres. In the first place, the work itself is frankly grotesque: the planets are fixed to concentric revolving spheres which rotate round a source of light (the sun). Therefore, the sun, which is not thought of as a heavenly body, clearly symbolizes God. Only that gave me the impression that Copernicus did not hold the smallest intention of revolutionizing the scientific status of astronomy. All he reluctantly pursued was to offer a more rational explanation of an otherwise untenable theory: the Ptolemaic System, and a proof that the Counter-Reformation had something valuable to offer: a planetary system which was simultaneously rational and and a pious proffer to God Almighty who presided over and illuminated everybody and everything from his omnipotent magnificence.

Besides, accounts from his pupils who complained about Nico's reluctance to work on the Revolutionibus, and their own eagerness to write on it, made doubt whether the final work was really written by Copernicus. One would say, that given his reluctance and his ignorance of astronomy, it was his pupils who wrote the famous booklet. But there are other sources of doubt:

People who acted on behalf of Copernicus 

1. Lots of his pupils, as just mentioned.

2. Georg Joachim Rheticus who first publishes the Narratio Prima, in Danzig (1540) and Basle (1541)

3. Andreas Osiander, who wrote the prologue devoted to Pope Paul III as if Copernicus had written it.

4. Pope Clement VII: In 1533 Albert Widmanstadt lectured before Pope Clement VII on the Copernican solar system. His reward consisted in a Greek codex which is preserved in the State library of Munich. Three years later Copernicus was urged by Cardinal Schonberg, then Archbishop of Capua, in a letter, dated at Rome, 1 November, 1536, to publish his discovery, or at least to have a copy made at the cardinal's expense. But all the urging of friends was in vain, until a younger man was providentially sent to his side. It was Georg Joachim Rheticus who quitted his chair of mathematics in Wittenberg in order to spend two years at the feet of the new master (1539-41). Hardly ten weeks after his arrival in Frauenburg he sent a "First Narration" (Narratio Prima) of the new solar system to his scientific friend Schöner in Nuremberg, in the form of a letter of sixty-six pages, which was soon after printed in Danzig (1540) and Basle (1541). Rheticus next obtained for publication the manuscript of a preliminary chapter of the great work on plane and spherical trigonometry.

5. Pope Paul III: Finally Copernicus, feeling the weight of his sixty-eight years, yielded, as he writes to Paul III, to the entreaties of Cardinal Schonberg, of Bishop Giese of Culm, and of other learned men to surrender his manuscripts for publication. Bishop Giese charged Rheticus, as the ablest disciple of the great master, with the task of editing the work. The intention of the latter was to take the manuscript to Wittenberg and have it published at the university but owing to the hostility prevailing there against the Copernican system, only the chapter on trigonometry was printed (1542). The two copies of the "First Narration" and of the treatise on trigonometry, which Rheticus presented to his friend Dr. Gasser, then practising medicine in Feldkirch, may be seen in the Vatican Library (Palat. IV, 585) Finally, it was Andreas Osiander who published the book not without writing his famous preface: The preface of Osiander warns the reader not to expect anything certain from astronomy, nor to accept its hypothesis as true, ne stultior ab hac disciplinâ discedat, quam accesserit. The dedication to Pope Paul III was, however, retained, and the text of the work remained intact, as was ascertained later when access was had to the original manuscript, now in the family library of the Counts Nostitz in Prague.

6. Cardinal Schonberg, Archbishop of Capua, recently mentioned, wrote a letter to Copernicus from Rome on the 1st of November, 1536 urging him to publish his 'discovery'.

7. Bishop Giese of Culm charges Rheticus to edit the final work, but only the chapter on trigonometry goes in print.

8. Bishop Paul of Fossombre. In 1514 on the occasion of the Lateran Council summoned by Pope Leo X, Bishop Paul of Fossombre invites Copernicus to attend the Council to give his opinion on the ecclesistical career. Copernicus excuses himself by letter. His answer was, that the length of the year and of the months and the motions of the sun and moon were not yet sufficiently known to attempt a reform.

9. In 1533 Albert Widmanstadt lectured before Pope Clement VII on the Copernican solar system.

10. Besides, Domenico Maria de Novara, who first stimulated somewhat dreamy Copernicus to take an interest in geography and astronomy, was an early critic of the accuracy of the Geography of the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy. He taught Copernicus the very basics of astronomy, such as the use of the telescope, to observe the skies (for example, he knew that on the 9th of March, 1497 an eclipse was bound to occur and surprised young Nico by showing him how the star Aldebaran disappeared behind a shadow cast by the moon). So Nicolaus became his math professor's astronomy apprentice for about 3 years.

However, his vocation as an astronomer proved feeble: In 1500 Copernicus gained permission to study medicine at Padua, the university where Galileo taught nearly a century later. It was not unusual at the time to study a subject at one university and then to receive a degree from another -often less expensive- institution. And so Copernicus, without completing his medical studies, received a doctorate in canon law from Ferrara in 1503 and then returned to Poland to take up his administrative duties.

Sometime between 1507 and 1515, he completed a short astronomical draft essay, De Hypothesibus Motuum Coelestium a se Constitutis Commentariolus (known as The Commentariolus), which was not published until the 19th century. In this booklet he laid down the principles Domenico Maria de Novara had taught him about a heliocentric planetary system. He distributed it among his acquaintances and pupils and asked them to write down any comments they may have. When they were done commenting on his planetary system they would turn the commented booklet back for Copernicus to gather an assessment of how the heliocentric system impressed his readers, (hence its name: Commentariolus).

it was not until 1530 that he seriously began working on De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), which was finished by a pupil of his, who was eager to see the work in print. It eventually appeared a first publication by a Lutheran printer in Nuremberg, Germany, just before Copernicus's death in 1543.

Pretty complicated, oscillating, at least ambivalent, don't you think so? Small wonder if one thinks that, after all Copernicus's 'masterpiece' was a commissioned work which Nicolaus could hardly comply with, given his little experience as an astronomer: he performed only 27 documented observations of the skies during his lifetime; pretty few for a man who was to revolutionize science...

One can hardly expect from an account like this that a work would emerge which would transform science, or moreover, to start science.

But even granting that Copernicus's work was all right, it could not have caused any revolution: it did not criticize the church, it did not attack scholasticism or Aristotelianism. it said nothing about the methods of discovery, it was not an empirical work, on the contrary it was wholly theoretical. It did not promote educational reform. It did not bring about a cataract of scientific production. He died in 1543. Bacon published his Novum Organum in 1620. Seventy seven years are too many to connect both events, which, in any case are not connected by their respective contents.

A role for Martin Luther

Martin Luther's Reformation proved a cornerstone for the causal conditions of the Scientific Revolution. Not only did he promote independence of criteria and use of one's own head as sufficient condition to understand the Bible, an important precursor of Descartes's cogito ergo sum, but also, by separating Christendom into Protestants and Catholics, he enabled the Christian Protestants to live a more secularized life, whereas catholics remained attached to all the fantastic imagery of miracles, magic, a profusion of Gods or godlike figures, like the saints, and certain prophets, and certain priests and the godlike power of the Pontiff. Protestant Clergymen did not have to prove their devotion to God by swearing commitment to celibacy, poverty, and seclusion. They could marry and lead a normal life unlike catholic priests. Social secularization will prove crucial in a scientific approach to life and an opposition to Catholic policies. So Protestantism means more freedom, and more freedom brings about creativity, and imagination. But Martin Luther did more. One of the most important endeavours he embarked in was Educational Reform. He believed everybody should have an education, particularly children and the young. He believed literacy and schooling ought to become universal, free, and State-funded and controlled. His labours as an educator were as important as his deeds as a religious reformer. So much so, that the Scientific Revolution, the giving up of the medieval mores and the rise of Modernity would have been impossible, even unthinkable, without him.

Circa 1600, 16% of French and 25% of Britons were literate. The English Parliament had an 80% of University graduates.

Schooling: Martin Luther's project of universal, free education met success for during late XVI and early XVII centuries Elementary Schools experienced and unprecedented expansion all over Western Europe.

The Rise of Early Agrarian Capitalism

By the middle of the XV century both farmers and lords realized that they could produce in excess of their needs for mere survival. This slowly started a market of agricultural commodities which took place in the town, not in the country. This, in turn led to demographic migrations from the countryside to the towns, villages and cities, which along the subsequent centuries proved crucial for the setting up of a town-dwelling bourgeoisie who sent their children to school and sought to gain literacy for themselves. Since capitalistic transactions needed accountancy, basic literacy, a certain knowledge of international transactions, legal issues, fiscal issues, technical issues, an aroused mind always alert to catch business opportunities. The whole life becomes work-oriented. The start of occupations, professions, entrepreneurs and waged labour. There was no way out: an education had to be obtained. Hence the proliferation of education, the creation of schools and the spread of literacy.

Capitalism prospered among the protestants because they were more educated than the catholics (Remember Luther had told them to use their heads), rather than the Max Weber thesis of Ascetic Protestantism.

Demographic factors

1. During the XV, XVI and XVII centuries a slow but unremitting process of demographic growth and concentration started populating towns and the great cities, such as London and Paris. At the end of the XVI century at least 80 million people inhabited Western Europe (West of the Elba River).

2. At the end of the XVI century teçhere were at least 12 cities inhabited by more than 100,000 people.

3. Lowering of mortality rate: people lived longer: from 25 years on average at the beginning of the XVI century to 34 years at the end.

4. The European Expansion and the birth of a World Market (XVI century)

5. The Development of Nation-States

6. Overseas expansion: The Americas. Particularly the economic exploitation of South America and the Caribbean supplied gross benefits to the European Market.

7. British and Dutch colonial Empires emerged out of the thrust of rich bourgeoisies, whereas Spanish and Portuguese colonization was State-dependent.

A role for Giordano Bruno

The Counter-Reformation and the Roman Inquisition did something that unexpectedly backlashed harder than could be imagined. By sending Giordano Bruno to die at the stake on the 17th. February, 1600, unwittingly helped a great deal to spread Bruno's progressive, radical ideas, explained here, which immediately gave way to the crucial radical works of René Descartes, Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Blaise Pascal, Christiaan Huygens, Marin Mersenne, John Locke and so many other leading figures of the scientific revolution.

Social 'Function' of the Church

As we have seen elsewhere, the Roman Catholic Church became an extremely powerful institution, so as to become an Empire, actually a stealth Empire, for it rarely accounted for its acts, its atrocities, its crimes, its wars, its greed for secular possessions and power. True, like most destructive forces, it tends to hide its misbehaviour and advertise its deeds.

Be that as it may, the Church managed formidable powers. It was already wholly spread along Europe in the Early Middle Ages. As a political force, it was endowed with power over the three areas of human psychology: the feeling, the thought and the behaviour. An absolute dogmatic power: you were not free to think, feel or act as pleased lest you trespassed a commandment or any other religious rule. Very few Political forces, like nazism or fascism, had such a tremendous power over the minds of their flock.

The Catholic dogma became indispensable for anyone to live, to know how to live, because it was, it appeared as a psychology, the word of the Church appeared as the guardian of all souls. The people's souls belonged to the Church: they decided what to do with your soul at any given moment. Your soul could be glorified, if you did something pro-church, or consigned to the flames if you sinned.

Many an academic, and even as popular philosophy currently has it that the Church was a 'social organizer', for how else would you prevent 'society' to enter into chaos if you didn't enforce law and order. The Commandments seemed to have that function, to prevent society to fall into anarchy, e.g., Do not steal, Do not kill, Do not copulate, particularly do not copulate with thy neighbour's wife (thy neighbour's wife may turn up to be thy Lordship's wife!). You shall love God above all things, meaning you shall love the church's word above all things. You swear eternal obedience and gratitude to God, that is you vow obedience to the church's ministers, from the lowest friar to the higher ecclesiastical ranks.

I must clear up that when I write 'society', I mean the unprivileged, the mob, not the lords, the clergy, the kings, princes, and noblemen. So it was the unprivileged, the oppressed, who had to be controlled, ruled, and used for the powerful's ends.

Consequently, we are now in the capacity to reformulate the Social Function of the Church:

1. The Church was a social organizer so that the faithful could be properly exploited. As obedient serfs, for instance.

2. The Church was a mystical power which ensure recruitment of soldiers willing to give their lives for God: to be used as cannon fodder.

The efficiency of Feudalism relied heavily on the Church and on these beliefs. For instance, the catholics taught, and still proselytize, the belief that life is only a brief passage through earth in our existence. The regal, heavenly life comes after death. In heaven you poor farmer will be freed form your hard labours, you will lead princely life, you will own a fiefdom, have all the prerogatives of the lords, enjoy a life of luxuries and eternal happiness, enjoy life, possessions, idleness. All that you saw or knew noblemen enjoyed.

In that way the unconditional loyalty of the recruited was assured to fight the many wars medieval feudalism promoted either on the Crusades, organized by the Roman Church or on the wars the feudal lords engaged in for their often petty greediness or otherwise motivated, also in the name of God and generally funded by the Church.

Passage from Medieval thought to Modern thought

As I stated earlier, the Scientific Revolution preconditions were all set up by 1600. Let's check them out once again:

1. Martin Luther's Reformation

1.1 Martin Luther's Educational Reform

1.2 Secularization of ways of life.

2. Rise of Early Agrarian Capitalism

3. European expansion. Birth of World Market.

4. Development of Nation-States.

5. Overseas expansion. The Americas. British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese Empires.

6. Rise and development of bourgeoisie.

7. Growth and Spread of schooling.

8. Growth and Spread of literacy.

9. Rising opposition to Scholasticism and Aristotelianism.

10. The Counter Reformation. The Inquisition.

11. Giordano Bruno's death at the stake on February 17, 1600.

Set against this rich background, 3 key figures make their entry: Descartes, Bacon and Boyle, who fruitfully express and partly cause the passage to Modernity.

I say they fertilely express the spirit of the Scientific Revolution because they touch upon a few key concepts which make all the difference between medieval and modern thought. These are: 1. The realm of thought; 2. The Methodic Doubt; 3. The Cartesian materialism; 4. Rejection of fiction; 5. Bacon's Induction; 6. The Experimental Method; 7. Boyle's discovery of the nature of matter.

I am now going to explain these key concepts -which made the passage to modernity possible- in some detail.

The passage is based on 4 Cartesian epistemological principles, 2 Baconian methodological principles and Boyle's discovery of the constitution of matter.

Cartesian Principles

1. Cogito, ergo sum. Descartes acknowledges human thought as the only source and necessary condition to the acquisition of knowledge. Which is tantamount to radically rejecting the scholastic principle based on a compromise between 'rational Aristotelianism' and faith. He stands as radically anti-clerical, and anti-supernatural: "Human thought is more than enough to understand the world" (cf. Luther: "Our head is enough to understand the Bible").

2. Methodic Doubt. Descartes mistrusts everything: he does not believe in anything. He does not have to. Knowledge is not a matter of faith. Knowledge is concerned with the factual demonstration of things. His stance is clearly anti-dogmatic. Descartes deplores dogmatism. He is persuaded anything submitted to our scrutiny must be critically considered.

3. Cartesian Materialism. Descartes rejects belief in spirits, miracles, and other religious beliefs as a legitimate means to understand nature or acquire knowledge.

4. Rejection of fictionalism. In Descartes, this is tantamount to the rejection of literature and wild imagination as a legitimate source of knowledge.

Bacon methodological principles

Francis Bacon states 2 basic principles on which knowledge is based (See a Contextualized analysis of Bacon's Novum Organum)

1. Induction.

    Bacon starts by emphatically rejecting scholasticism in its attempt to reconcile Christian faith and so-called 'Aristotelian rationalism'. Bacon focuses his fatal attacks on the Aristotelian system of syllogistic logic (Novum Organum, 1620)

Starting from false premises, Aristotelian logic only works to make facts fit theory (how convenient!), instead of working the other way round.

Having done with the system of syllogistic logic, or apriorism, Bacon shows how the only road to scientific discovery is by the way of Induction. He thus announces the end of apriorism, and the advent of empiricism, through careful, systematic observations. These, in turn will allow the investigator to get a scientific explanation of natural phenomena. He adds that the empirical approach is simply the base of knowledge. Hence, he sharply distinguishes scientific issues from tales, stories, fantasies, myths, pseudo-sciences like alchemy, astrology, and so on.

2. Experimental Method.

    As already explained in the analysis of the Novum Organum, the experimental method sets up the cornerstone of all scientific activity. With the manipulation of natural phenomena, the era of 'pure thought' comes to an end. The experimental method is suitable for tentative procedures attempting to attain a scientific explanation. Bacon states it clearly that it is a sine qua non procedure. Defenders of pure thought still polluted the world in the 1600's, mostly among nobility and aristocracy. They would never besmirch there white hands with things. So, imagine their reaction at the mere thought of empirical experimentation.

Boyle's discovery of the nature of matter.

Ever since Empedocles, everybody thought that matter was constituted of 4 basic 'elements', air, fire, earth and water. Boyle discovered that those are not elements. They are compounds of more elemental substance. That matter is extremely complex in its constitution and that the composite substances have to be torn apart by chemical analysis. One of them, fire, was not even a substance but a physico-chemical energetic process: combustion. So, in case of combustion, fire was immaterial as regards matter, whereas what was being burnt was undoubtedly material.