Lesson 1: Sources of the Scientific Revolution
This lesson discusses the historical sources and context for the scientific developments of the early modern period.
Introduction
The scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries built on a long tradition of science going back to the ancient world. Like most revolutions, it can be looked at in two contradictory ways, neither one of which is wrong and neither one of which is the whole truth. In one way, the scientific revolution was a radical break with the past, in which old ideas and practices were overthrown and a fundamentally new science was created. The other is as the culmination or development of a long history of scientific effort.
One of the things that makes the issue of the sources of the scientific revolution particularly complicated is the fact that early modern people did not use the words “science” or “scientist” in its modern sense. The most common phrase used to cover a great deal of the territory we now designate as “science” was “natural philosophy” and its practitioners were called “natural philosophers.” Philosophy covered a much wider range of knowledge than is now covered in university philosophy departments (one lingering trace of this original meaning of “philosophy” is the fact that many disciplines, from physics to literature, designate their terminal degrees as “Doctor of Philosophy” or Ph. D.).
Although in many ways science dominates the modern world intellectually, early modern natural philosophy did not. Among the disciplines, it ranked well below metaphysics and theology, a particularly controversial subject in this era due to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants, themselves divided into argumentative factions. The “Philosophy faculty” of a medieval or early modern university was the undergraduate faculty, and ranked below the three graduate faculties of law, theology, and medicine. Of the three graduate faculties, medicine was the most important to science, and many scientists possessed medical degrees, practiced as physicians, or at least had attended a medical school. But many scientists were neither physicians nor natural philosophers. Unlike the modern world, where the vast majority of scientists are prepared for their careers by attendance as young people at institutions of higher education, there was a variety of paths to science in early modern Europe.
Some scientists attended universities, some did not. Some followed the most common path today, using their science to support themselves economically. Although the concept of “professional scientist” was unknown in the period, science did offer a path to careers as university educators, physicians, engineers or government consultants. Other scientists supported themselves as clergymen, or were independently wealthy. Women scientists, who comprised a smaller proportion of the scientific community than they do now, faced particular challenges.
Our first lesson will look at the sources of the scientific revolution in previous science and in the circumstances of life in early modern Europe.
