In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle developed sophisticated accounts of matter, causation, sci- entific methods, and a wide range of other subjects. This Aristotelian worldview dominated scien- tific thought throughout Medieval Europe. By the seventeenth century this Aristotelian scientific worldview was attacked as unmotivated, incoherent, and inconsistent with observation. This left the small matter of constructing a scientific new worldview to replace the old one. We begin this course with Aristotle before moving on to the challenges posed by Copernicus’s theory and Galileo’s telescope. Our focus then shifts to Descartes and to Locke.
Notes:
- Aristotle to Copernicus
- Atomism, old and new
- Galileo
- Descartes
- Hobbes
- Locke