Tag Archives: Renaissance

Arts, Philosophy, Science

Philosophy: The Scientific Revolution

RENAISSANCE

Intro: Although the Renaissance was primarily an artistic and cultural movement, its emphasis on free thinking challenged the authority of religion, and paved the way for an unprecedented age of scientific discovery

Tradition undermined

THE Scientific Revolution began with the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), which presented evidence contradicting the notion of a geocentric universe. A description of this is given at the end of this article.

That same year, Andreas Vesalius published De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), which overturned many orthodox ideas in anatomy and medicine. What followed was a profound change in the approach to enquiry into the natural world. Conventional wisdom, including the dogma of the Church, was no longer blindly accepted, but challenged. Even the work of Aristotle, who had initiated the idea of natural philosophy based on methodical observation, was subject to scientific scrutiny.

At the forefront of this scientific revolution were philosophers such as Francis Bacon, whose Novum Organum (New Instrument) proposed a new method for the study of natural philosophy – systematically gathering evidence through observation, from which the laws of nature could be inferred. But there was also a new class of thinkers and scientists, including Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Galileo challenged dogma more than most by proving that the Earth orbits the Sun, and fell foul of the Church for his efforts.

The discoveries made by these scientists, and the methods they used, laid the foundations for the work of Isaac Newton in the following century, and also influenced philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, who helped to shape the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.

One Cause Only

Central to Aristotle’s philosophy was the concept of the “four causes” (see article). The new scientific methods of the 16th and 17th centuries rejected these, especially the concept of a “final cause”, or purpose. Instead it was proposed that there are only “efficient causes” in nature – i.e. physical causal triggers. Although this is closer to the modern idea of cause and effect, the idea had first been proposed by the Atomists some 2,000 years earlier (see article).

Laws of nature

The theories of Copernicus and his contemporaries heralded a new era of scientific discovery. Religious authority was undermined, but so too was the orthodox concept of the laws that governed the universe, which were based on Aristotelean cosmology and physics. In this new atmosphere of scientific enquiry, conventional assumptions were replaced with laws of nature derived from empirical evidence of observation and experiment.  

The New Method

Induction

Bacon described a method of scientific enquiry using the process of induction, inferring a general rule from particular instances. For example, the rule that water boils at 100C can be inferred because this is the case in every instance.

Experimentation

Often, it is not enough simply to observe in order to come to a scientific conclusion. The scientific method pioneered by Islamic philosophers involves conducting controlled experiments to get reproducible results.

Galileo Galilei once said: “In science the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as the reasoning of one individual.”

Sunspots – The detailed study of sunspots made by Galileo and others showed that these are inherent features of the Sun. These observations contradicted the Aristotelean idea of the perfection of objects in the heavenly spheres.

Gravity – Although it may only have been a thought experiment, Galileo dropped two balls of different weights from the Tower of Pisa to show that they fell at the same speed. This refuted Aristotle’s assertion that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones.

Elliptical orbits – Once it was proven that the Earth orbits the Sun, the orbits of the planets could then be explained. Kepler discovered that the orbit of Mars was not circular, but an ellipse, and concluded that all the planets had elliptical orbits.

THE GEOCENTRIC UNIVERSE

Outside the orbit of the Moon lies the celestial region in which the Sun, the planets, and the stars move in orbits at various distances from the Earth. Unlike the sublunary region, the celestial region is made from an incorruptible substance, which Aristotle calls the “quintessence”, or fifth element. According to Aristotle, the natural movement of the earthly elements is up or down, towards or away from the centre of the Earth. By contrast, the natural movement of things in the celestial region is circular. What’s more, earthly elements tend towards a position of rest, while celestial movement is unceasing. Thus, Aristotle reasoned that the stationary Earth, although imperfect, is at the centre of the cosmos.

Beyond the Moon’s orbit, Aristotle identified 55 concentric spheres to which the celestial objects are attached. As they radiate away from the Earth, the outer spheres draw closer towards perfection, stretching into spiritual realms that have no material existence. The universe, for Aristotle, is a perfect form, and cannot have come into being at any one time: it is eternal, unchanging.

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Arts, Christianity, History, Philosophy, Science

Christianity and philosophy

RENAISSANCE

THE doctrines of the Christian Church dominated the philosophy of medieval Europe. Christianity, especially in its early period, placed less emphasis on philosophical reasoning and more on faith and authority. Philosophy was regarded with suspicion, and the ideas of the Greek philosophers were initially considered incompatible with Christian belief.

The Church had a virtual monopoly on scholarship, but some Christian thinkers introduced elements of Greek philosophy, especially that of Plato and Aristotle. After careful examination by the authorities, many of these ideas were gradually integrated into doctrine. From the end of the Roman Empire to the 15th century, a distinct Christian philosophy evolved, starting with Augustine and culminating in the comprehensive philosophy of Thomas Aquinas.

With the Renaissance, however, the authority of the Church in particular, was challenged by a resurgence of humanist views. Scientific discoveries contradicted core beliefs, and the invention of printing meant the Church could no longer control access to information.

The Scientific Revolution

Although the Renaissance was primarily an artistic and cultural movement, its emphasis on free thinking challenged the authority of religion and paved the way for an unprecedented age of scientific discovery.

Tradition undermined

The Scientific Revolution began with the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), which presented evidence contradicting the notion of a ‘geocentric universe’. That same year, Andreas Vesalius published De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), which overturned many orthodox ideas in anatomy and medicine. What followed was a profound change in the approach to enquiry into the natural world. Conventional wisdom, including the dogma of the Church, was no longer blindly accepted, but challenged. Even the work of Aristotle, who had initiated the idea of natural philosophy based on methodical observation, was subjected to scientific scrutiny.

At the forefront of this scientific revolution were philosophers such as Francis Bacon, whose Novum Organum (New Instrument) proposed a new method for the study of natural philosophy – systematically gathering evidence through observation, from which the laws of nature could be inferred. But there was also a new class of thinkers and scientists, including Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Galileo challenged dogma more than most by proving that the Earth orbits the Sun, and fell foul of the Church for his efforts.

The discoveries made by these scientists, and the methods they used, laid the foundations for the work of Isaac Newton in the following century, and also influenced philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, who helped to shape the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.

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Arts, Culture, History, Literature

Short Essay: Shakespeare’s Plays

(1590–1612)

IT WAS VERY soon after the beginning of his acting career that William Shakespeare started writing plays of his own. Shakespeare was remarkable in many ways, but perhaps the most remarkable is that he was immediately successful. There is no surviving sign of any “apprentice work” that is substandard or unworthy of performance, which is really quite extraordinary. He wrote historical plays that were from the start finely written, immensely popular and commercially successful, the three parts of Henry VI (1592). The theatre impresario Philip Henslowe wrote in his diary that “Harey the vj” played to packed houses at the Rose Theatre between March and June 1592.

The young Shakespeare’s triumphant debut on the London stage was not universally applauded, and there must have been many who were envious of his ability. In September 1592, a frustrated writer called Robert Greene wrote a pamphlet called Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance. This included a ranting attack on an “upstart crow”, a “Shakescene”. It must have been audaciously galling for Greene to see Shakespeare make an immediate hit with his very first play – rather like the composers Igor Stravinsky and William Walton being extremely irritated by the success of Benjamin Britten.

His first seven years in the theatre included several other successes too. He completed two more history plays, King John and Richard III, a revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus, and three comedies, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. So, by 1592, William Shakespeare had attempted to write in each of the three most popular forms of drama of his day – and succeeded. Not only that, he had extended their range, and made his own highly original contribution to each genre. The play-goers in London must have been very aware that a dazzling new talent was at work, eclipsing even Christopher Marlowe, then generally thought to be the best playwright of the era.

For two years in 1592, the London theatres were shut because of plaque. While the theatres were shut, Shakespeare turned his hand to narrative poetry, writing the long and extensive poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece (a dedicated letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to compose a “graver labour”. The play has a serious tone throughout). These poems were highly praised for their eloquent treatment of classical subjects. He wrote many sonnets too at this time when plays were banned, and these were in private circulation by 1598.

When the theatres re-opened in 1594, Shakespeare joined the acting company The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and soon became its joint manager. The company had made quite a clever and shrewd choice by inviting Shakespeare in as a “sharer”. Up to this point he had been a freelance, and any theatre company could perform his plays; now, though, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men had his exclusive services. Shakespeare had his financial security; the company had his plays.

There then followed a torrent of great plays: a tragedy (Romeo and Juliet), three more histories and five more comedies.

When James I came to the throne in 1603, Shakespeare’s company became The King’s Men, and this change in status brought great benefits to the company. His later plays included tragedies such as Hamlet and Macbeth, plays that rank among the darkest ever written. Shakespeare crafted his later plays so that they could be performed in open-air theatres like The Globe, but now also indoors in the great halls of great houses, where artificial lighting and more elaborate stage effects were possible. Shakespeare was always an intensely practical man, well able to adjust to changing technical conditions – and changing fashion. Tragi-comedy (or romantics) was a form of drama now much in trend, so Shakespeare supplied it. These “last plays”, as they are known, included Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.

Shakespeare’s prolific play writing have seen 37 of his plays surviving (while several more have not). The Tempest shows a thinly disguised Shakespeare taking his leave of the stage. He formally handed over the role of The King’s Men dramatist to John Fletcher and retired in 1612 to Stratford, where he died four years later, on 23 April 1616. In 1623, two of his closet friends in the King’s Men – John Hemminge and Henry Condell – assembled all the plays and published them in what is referred to as the First Folio. It was not just a tribute to the greatest playwright of the age, but it saved the plays from extinction. Without that timely publication, many of the surviving plays would have been lost.

Shakespeare was the outstanding playwright of the Renaissance, outshining all his contemporaries and setting new standards for all subsequent dramatists. His plays range widely in subject and tone – challenging histories loaded with political agenda, atmospheric and romantic comedies and the darkest of tragedies. His work is astonishing for the richness and beauty of its language, showing the full potential of the English language for the expression of thought and feeling, building on the weight and majesty that William Tyndale had brought to it a few decades earlier. It also shows great insight into a wide range of human predicaments. Shakespeare’s plays exemplify the questioning humanism of the Renaissance.

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