PHILOS 25B Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Mental Property, Corpuscularianism, Copernican Heliocentrism
Document Summary
Corpuscularianism: very important to the new science; idea that there is just one kind of substance: matter (encompasses all corporeal substance) All diversity is determined by size, shape, etc. of the corpuscles ( little bodies ) that make up a thing. Related to ancient view of atomism which had been a minority view since: reasons why corpuscularianism resurfaced and scholasticism broke down. Challenges to church doctrine and to the scholastic idea that things were as. View of living things as machines: autopsies revealed mechanical function of the body and showed that bodies ought to be studied as machines. Growing dissatisfaction with explanations regarding form: aristotelian worldview held that there was no further to go than forms because forms were irreducible, corpuscularianism allowed study of microstructure to show the underlying reasons why things have their properties. Features of corpuscularianism: things are not as they seem.
