MMW 13 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Scientific Revolution, Thomas Aquinas, Ant Colony

• School: UCSD
• Department: Making of the Modern World
• Course: MMW 13
• Professor: Edmond Yi- Teh Chang

Document Summary

Mmw 13 lecture 26 uncertainty at the cusp of modernity. Surge in confidence: having a better understanding of the world through observation and through reason. The scientific revolution ironically augured new sense of uncertainty that would come to define the modern" period: science might have displaced religion but could not inspire absolute faith, ambivalence and doubt in both descartes and newton. Newton ends mathematical deduction process by taking a leap of faith. Newton: god is omnipresent and thus is not bound by matter. Does not pretend to suggest that his law of gravitation does not help us understand god, god is beyond those laws. The soul of god is beyond reason to encompass. Descartes begins philosophical treatise by calling it a fable: key part of modern mindset is uncertainty/skepticism of what we know. Sometimes the more we know, the more we realize how little we understand.