CGS SS 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Scientific Method, Laissez-Faire, Tabula Rasa
6 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
The age of reason: the legacy of enlightenment. Continued cultivated movement towards modernity from renaissance. Gave man new confidence in his ability to change the world: prepared ground for industrial, american, and french revolutions. Enabled people for first time to construct completely secular world view: represents notion that people can improve world live in, the scientific background. Galileo: proved earth rotated around sun. Descartes, discourse on method (1637: argued natural world could be completely understood and objectively mastered by applying principles of mathematics. Newton, principia (1687: explained celebrated law of gravity, discoveries implied there was rational order in universe. Convinced successors that all complexities of nature, including human relations, could be reduced to simple, mathematical laws that governed physical universe: the philosophes (those who spear-headed the enlightenment) Major objective to demonstrate how scientific method could be used to solve problems of human relations: the impact of john locke.
