Scientific revolution

:This article is about the period in history, not the process of scientific progress via revolution, proposed by Thomas Kuhn and discussed at paradigm shift

Literary criticisms

A recent trend in literary theory, "cultural materialism" questions whether there was a scientific revolution, or, if a revolution occurred, it questions whether it was important. Literary critics who hold this point of view have a special (and some would claim, mistaken), definition of what the term "revolution" means. These literary critics hold that if a scientific revolution did not occur instantaneously, and without historical precedent, then by definition it cannot be a revolution, and can only be an evolution. If the scientific revolution was only an evolution, then it would have little or no intelligibility as a single event, but nonetheless, like all evolutionary processes, "the scientific evolution" invites serious consideration as a process or group of processes, in order to understand if and how language, culture and society have changed and are changing as a result.

Related Topics:
Cultural materialism - Revolution - Evolution

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The scientific revolution, as a change in theoretical outlook, is normally identified as a four step process (this is not true of 'scientific practice' which is much less clearly definable historically).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

First, Galileo is seen as the father of "theoretical experimentalism", in that he legitimised observation, as opposed to pure reason, as a route to authentic knowledge, and presented the observations (for instance, in his falling body experiments) with an analysis that had the rigour of Euclidean proof.

Related Topics:
Theoretical experimentalism - Observation - Reason - Knowledge - Analysis - Rigour

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Second (but not subsequent to, or, in direct conjunction with Galileo) Francis Bacon projects (what we would now think of as) the Galilean "experimental truth revealing process" onto the entire map of the natural universe, setting forth an agenda for every natural phenomenon then known, to be subjected to experimental scrutiny.

Related Topics:
Universe - Phenomenon

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Third, Robert Boyle sets about regularising Galileo's experimental work as characterised by his reports of "falling bodies experiments" into a practical method for ensuring that the observational process accumulates a body of knowledge which is public, thorough and "self-correcting" by the practice of publication, replication and review of scientific experiments.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fourth, Newton produces the first widely read works which purport to address the most significant fundamental natural processes with "Boylean rigour".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Although cultural materialism doesn't necessarily dismiss the main thrust of these claims, it does not accept that they fully account for the changes which are attributed to them, or that they reflect the nature or even the points in time when the relevant changes occurred. If Boyle's "public science" model coexisted with "pre-scientific" disciplines, then the "revolution" was "romanticised" by their biographers, who wished to paint a picture of the 'new wisdom' being adopted at the same time as the abandonment of the "wicked, secretive and pagan" practices of the pre-scientific "mystics".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~