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A ‘Crise de la Conscience Européenne avant la Lettre’? Classical science and the origins of the scientific revolution

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Abstract

This article, which is speculative in nature, contends that a ‘crisis of the European conscience’ occurred in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and may be traced through scientific thought of the period. That thought sometimes is presented in terms of a Scientific Revolution wherein nascent ‘modern’ science challenged and eventually replaced ‘Classical’ science. The argument presented here is that, at least in its early stages, ‘modern science’ sought to refine Classical theory rather than overturn it, and to contribute to the wider cultural purpose of upholding ‘the harmony of the world’. The challenge to this latter vision, according to which all forms of existence are connected and constitute a universal whole, came less from the sciences than from a vigorous philosophical scepticism. Both ‘Classical’ and ‘modern’ science fell under the scrutiny of sceptics, and it was in response to their objections that ‘modern science’ sought to justify itself. The epistemological debates generated by the ‘crisis of conscience’ took place through the written or printed word, but also in certain key institutions, notably royal courts, universities and other educational bodies.

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References

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  18. On this see A. Flocon, ‘Les Artistes du XVIe Siècle et la Fabrique du Corps Humain’, inSciences de la Renaissance: VIIIe Congrès International de Tours (Paris, 1973), 164–171.

  19. The analogous question of how artists illustrated artefacts in books dedicated to archaeology and its associated disciplines is discussed in P. Burke, ‘Images as Evidence in Seventeenth-Century Europe’, inJournal of the History of Ideas, vol. 64, no. 2 (2003), 293–294. On the economics of illustrating scientific and other texts, see A. Johns,The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago, 1998), 444–542.

  20. The following passage is based on J. Sawday,The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture (London, 1995), especially chapters 2, 3 and 4. In similar vein is N.G. Siraisi,The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance Medicine (Princeton, 1997).

  21. On changing attitudes to dissections see. A. Carlino,Books of the Body: Anatomical Ritual and Renaissance Learning, trans. J. and A.C. Tedeschi (Chicago, 1999; originally published asLa fabbrica del corpo: Libri e dissezione nel Rinascimento, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi 622 [torino, 1994], cf. the review of the English edition by. A.E. Hanson in this journal,IJCT, vol. 8 [2001/02], 645–649), and D.L. Hodges,Renaissance Fictions of Anatomy (Amherst, 1985).

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  23. In passing it is perhaps worth noting that the ‘modernist’ Descartes, who disagreed with Harvey on the method whereby blood circulates, gave a dangerous hostage to fortune when ‘In 1639 he wrote to Mersenne that if what he [Descartes] had written about the movement of the heart should turn out to be false, then the whole of his philosophy was worthless.’ (A. Kenny,Descartes. A Study of his Philosophy [New York, 1968], 202.)

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  25. These and related questions are discussed in Z. Hanafi,The Monster in the Machine: Magic, Medicine, and the Marvelous in the Time of the Scientific revolution (Durham, N.C., 2000).

  26. E. g. herLull and Bruno: Collected Essays (vol.1, London, 1982), but especially herGiordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London, 1964) andThe Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1979); see also C. Webster,From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science (Cambridge, 1982). On astrology see S. J. Tester,A History of Western Astrology (Woodbridge, 1987), P. Curry (ed.).Astrology, Science and Society: Historical Essays (Woodbridge, 1987) and S.A. McKnight (ed.),Science, Pseudo-Science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought (Columbia, Missouri, 1992).

  27. A. Debus,The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (2 vols., New York, 1977), W. Pagel,Paracelsus: an Introduction to Philosophical medicin in the Era of the Renaissance (2nd ed., Basel, 1982).

  28. W. Pagel,Johann Baptista van Helmont: Reformer of Science and Medicine, ser. Cambridge Monographs on the History of Medicine (Cambridge, 1983).

  29. (London, 1949 [2nd. ed. 1957]).

  30. See, for example, B.J.T. Dobbs,The Foundation of Newton’s Alchemy, or ‘The Hunting of the Greene Lyon’ (Cambridge, 1975).

  31. B. Dooley, ‘The Ptolemaic Astrological Tradition in the Seventeenth Century: An Example from Rome’, in this journal,IJCT, 5 (1998–1999), 528–548; Idem,Morandi’s Last Prophecy and the End of Renaissance Politics (Princeton, 2002).

  32. See especially hisThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962).

  33. (Cambridge, 1978).

  34. A. G. Debus (ed.),World Who’s Who in Science: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present (Chicago, 1968), 789.

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  36. See the accompanying catalogue: E. Fucikova et al. (eds.),Rudolf II and Prague: The Court and the City (London, 1997); also on the Rudolfine court: R.J.W. Evans,Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual History, 1576–1612 (Oxford, 1973).

  37. E. Fucikova et al. (eds.),Rudolf II and Prague: The Court and the City (London, 1997); 29.

  38. Such views are outlined in Kaufmann,The Mastery of Nature, 174–194.

  39. B. T. Moran, ‘Patronage and Institutions: Courts, Universities, and Academies in Germany; an Overview: 1550–1750’, in B. T. Moran (ed.),Patronage and Institutions: Science, Technology and Medicine at the European Court, 1500–1750 (Woodbridge, 1991), 169–183; D. Mateer (ed.),The Renaissance in Europe: Courts, Patrons and Poets (New Haven, 2000).

  40. Discussions of the Elizabethan court can be found in J. Guy (ed.),The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (Cambridge, 1995).

  41. N. Elias,The Court Society (Oxford, 1983), (originally published asDie Höfische Gesellschaft [Sociologische Texte 54, Neuwied, 1969]) brings to bear upon the subject of royal courts the perspective of a sociologist.

  42. The literature on Versailles and the court is extensive; good studies include P. Burke,The Fabrication of Louis XIV (London, 1992), L. Marin,Le Portrait du Roi (Paris, 1981), J.-F. Solnon,La Cour de France (Paris, 1987) and G. Walton,Louis XIV’s Versailles (London, 1986).

  43. See D.J. Sturdy,Louis XIV (London, 1998).

  44. Modern works on Bacon include P. Rossi,Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science (London, 1968), A. Dodd,Francis Bacon’s Personal Life Story (Kila, MT, 1986), J.C. Briggs,Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature (Cambridge, MA, 1989), J. Martin,Francis Bacon, the State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy (Cambridge, 1992), R.K. Faulkner,Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress (London, 1993), N. Mathews,Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination (New Haven, 1996), M. Peltonen (ed.),The Cambridge Companion to Bacon (Cambridge, 1996), L. Jardine and A. Stewart,Hostage of Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon 1561–1626 (London, 1998), and P. Zagorin,Francis Bacon (Princeton, 1998); see also J.M. Archer,Sovereignty and Intelligence: Spying and Court Culture in the English Renaissance (Stanford, 1993).

  45. Martin,Francis Bacon, the State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy argues that Bacon’s natural philosophy was a subordinate part of a larger programme to further the processes of a prying (“surveilling”, to use the Foucaultian term) and imperialistic state.

  46. This is a position taken, for example, by C. Hill,Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (Oxford, 1977).

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  48. Clavius and his significance are discussed in L.M. Lattis,Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology (Chicago, 1994).

  49. On Gresham College see F. Ames-Lewis (ed.),Sir Thomas Gresham and Gresham College. Studies in the Intellectual History of London in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Aldershot, 1999).

  50. On this subject see M. Feingold,The Mathematicians’ Apprenticeship: Science, Universities and Society in England, 1560–1640 (Cambridge, 1984); on Oxford, M. Feingold, ‘The Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies’ in N. Tyacke (ed.),The History of the University of Oxford, vol. iv,Seventeenth-Century Oxford (Oxford, 1997), chap. 6.

  51. For these details see L.W.B. Brockliss, ‘Patterns of Attendance at the University of Paris, 1400–1800’, inThe Historical Journal, 21, no.3 (1978), 503–544 and J. de Viguerie,L’Institution des Enfants: L’Education en France, 16e–18e Siècle (Paris, 1978), 109–110.

  52. Trinity College, Dublin, for example, all but ceased functioning in the 1640s and 1650s, only resuming serious work in 1657 (R.B. McDowell & D.A. Webb,Trinity College Dublin, 1592–1852 [Cambridge, 1982], 17–18). Oxford University fared better, but faced purge and counterpurge in the 1640s and 1650s (see I. Roy & D. Reinhart, ‘Oxford and the Civil Wars’ in Tyacke [ed.],Seventeenth-Century Oxford, chap. 14).

  53. R. Chartier, M.-M. Compère et D. Julia,L’Education en France du XVIe au XVIIIe Siècle (Paris, 1976), 163–168.

  54. De Viguerie,L’Institution des Enfants, 208–209. On aspects of Jesuit approaches to education, including scientific training, see J.W. O’Malley SJet al. (eds.),The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773 (Toronto, 1999).

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  57. There exists an enormous bibliography on Galileo. Good guides are S. Drake’s,Galileo (Oxford, 1980) andGalileo, Pioneer Scientist (Toronto, 1994); see also M. Sharratt,Galileo: Decisive Innovator (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), W.A. Wallace,Galileo and his Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo’s Science (Princeton, 1985) and W.A. Wallace,Galileo’s Logic of Discovery and Proof (Boston, 1992). An ingenious interpretation of the Galileo affair is offered by Pietro Redondi,Galileo: Heretic, trans. R. Rosenthal (London, 1988; originally published asGalileo eretico, Microstorie 7 [Torino, 1983]), which argues that the trial was a ‘cover-up’ by the Pope to protect Galileo against the more serious charge of atomism. The Galileo affair in its longer perspective is discussed in P.-N. Mayaud, SJ,La Condamnation des Livres Coperniciens et sa Révocation (Rome, 1999).

  58. D.J. Sturdy,Science and Social Status: The Members of the Académie des Sciences, 1666–1750 (Woodbrige, 1995).

  59. This is a view sustained by J. Israel,Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford, 2001), also R. Porter,The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (London, 2000).

  60. A survey of these societies is in J.E. McClellan III,Science Reorganized: Scientific Societies in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1985).

  61. Thomas Sprat,The History of the Royal Society of London, For the Improving of Natural Knowledge (London, 1667); S. Schaffer & S. Shapin,Leviathan and the Airpump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life (Princeton, 1985); Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle,Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes (Paris, 1686); on hiséloges see C.B. Paul,Science and Immortality: The Eloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1699–1791) (Berkeley, 1980).

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    David J. Sturdy

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The present article is based on a paper read at the Fourth Meeting of the International Society for the Classical Tradition held at the University of Tübingen, 29 July–2 August, 1998. The author would like to express his thanks to Professor Wolfgang Haase for his assistance and guidance in preparing the text for publication.

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Sturdy, D.J. A ‘Crise de la Conscience Européenne avant la Lettre’? Classical science and the origins of the scientific revolution. Int class trad 10, 54–72 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02689171

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