PHL210Y1 Lecture Notes - René Descartes, Scholasticism, Galileo Affair
Document Summary
Famous for having made connections between geometry and algebra some geometrical problems can be solved using algebraic equations. Physics mechanical explanation rival to newtonianism. Le monde (1633) withheld from publication due to the galileo affair. Did not always agree with modern emerging science but scholasticism was an attempt to reconcile them. Church discouraged free learning and deviations from authorized belief. Descartes is often called the father of modern philosophy due to: His break with the traditional scholastic-aristotelian philosophy prevalent at his time to his development and promotion of the new, mechanistic sciences. Descartes thought that the scholastics method was prone to doubt given their reliance on sensation as the source of knowledge. He wanted to replace their final causal model of scientific explanation with the more modern, mechanistic model. Scholasticism (st. thomas aquinas - attempt to reconcile christian theology with aristotle). Challenges to scholasticism - dispute about the nature of evidence and explanation:
