1. HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION:
1648 TO PRESENT
LECTURE 4:
A Newtonian Universe?

2. Sixteenth-Century Europe
• Discovery of the New World (1492)  challenge to Old World
Cosmology
• Reformation (1517)  challenge to religious and political
authority
• Scientific Revolution (roughly 1540-1700)  challenge to
theology and cosmology

3. Mappamundi, ca. 1485-1500

4. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
A. Hans Schlunk
B. Religion in 1648
1. Catholics and
Protestants
a. Theology
b. Liturgy
C. Religious Warfare
to 1648
1. Political and Religious Order
2. Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)

5. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution

6. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority: Hierarchy and Harmony
1. Scripture
a. God
b. Prime Mover
2. Classical Philosophy
a. Plato
b. Aristotle
c. Ptolemy
3. Tradition
Peter Apian, Cosmographia (1524)

7. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
1. Scripture
a. God
b. Prime Mover
2. Classical Philosophy
a. Plato
b. Aristotle
c. Ptolemy
3. Tradition
Didacus Valades, “Great Chain of Being,” Rhetorica Christiana (1579)

8. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
1. Scripture
2. Classical Philosophy
3. Tradition
4. Sin and the Medieval Synthesis
a. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas
b. Theology (e.g. transubstantiation)
c. Essence/accident
d. Final Cause

9. Final Cause (or Purpose)

10. Final Cause (or Purpose)

11. Final Cause (or Purpose)

12. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
1. Scripture
2. Classical Philosophy
3. Tradition
4. Challenges to the
classical order
a. Bestiaries and
herbals
b. The New
Science
Martin de la Cruz and Juannes Badianus. Badianus Manuscript (Codex
Barberini), 1552. Vatican Library. This herbal was in Nahuatl, written by
two Aztecs, who studied at the College of Santa Cruz at Tlaltelco, Mexico
City. The manuscript outlined Aztec herbal medicines and was a gift to
Charles V.

13. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
B. The New Science:
Astronomy
1. Geocentrism

14. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
B. The New Science:
Astronomy
1. Geocentrism
2. Epicycles

23. I. Life and Religion in the early modern period
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
B. The New Science:
Astronomy
1. Geocentrism
2. Epicycles
3. Nicolas Copernicus
(1473-1543) and
Heliocentrism

24. I. The Thirty Years’ War
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
B. The New Science:
Astronomy
1. Geocentrism
2. Epicycles
3. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) and
Heliocentrism
4. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

25. I. The Thirty Years’ War
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
B. The New Science:
Astronomy
1. Geocentrism
2. Epicycles
3. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) and
Heliocentrism
4. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
5. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642): Stars, Moons of Jupiter,
Sunspots, Planetary axis

26. I. The Thirty Years’ War
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
B. The New Science
C. Doubt and Knowledge
Frans Hals, René Descartes (1596-1650). 1648. Louvre, Paris

27. David DeVore Jr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs

28. David DeVore Jr.
Frans Hals, René Descartes (1596-1650). 1648. Louvre, Paris

29. I. The Thirty Years’ War
II. The Scientific Revolution
A. Epistemology and Authority:
Hierarchy and Harmony
B. The New Science
C. Doubt and Knowledge
D. The New Science: Significance
1. Humans no longer center of the universe
2. Universe is no longer “perfect”
3. New ways of seeing  machines to view the world
4. Movement can me measured
5. Movement can be described mathematically
6. No metaphysical purpose to motion
7. BIG QUESTION: We know how things move, but WHY do
they move?

30. I. The Thirty Years’ War
II. The Scientific Revolution
III. The Newtonian Synthesis
A. Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
1. Principia (1687)
2. Calculus / Fluxions (1669)
3. Motion operates upon
mathematical principles,
described in the formula
for gravity  physical rather
than metaphysical laws can
describe motion  RATIONAL UNIVERSE
4. Clockwork universe: God/Reason/Science

31. I. The Thirty Years’ War
II. The Scientific Revolution
III. The Newtonian Synthesis
A. Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
B. Gravity

32. Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604)
REFORMATIONS (1500-1600)“Discovery” of New
World (1492)
95 Theses
(1517)
Act of Supremacy
(1534)
Peace of Augsburg
“cuius regio, eius religio”
(1555)
Council of Trent
(1545-1563)
1581: United Provinces declare
independence from Spanish Netherlands
John Calvin (1509-1564)
Peasant’s War
(1524-5)
Society of Jesus,
the Jesuits, form
(1540)
Schmalkaldic
League (1531)
Augsburg Confession
(1530)
Diet of Worms
(1521)
Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Genevan Reformation begins (1541)
Dutch Revolt (1568-1648)
French Wars of Religion (1562-1598)
Charles V (1500-1558)
De revolutionibus
(1543)
Edict of Nantes
(1598)
Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603)
Philip II (r. 1556-1598)

33. Regency: Marie de Medici
(1610-1614)
Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637)
Bacon, Advancement of Learning (1605)
Kepler, Harmonice Mundi (1619): 3rd
Laws of Planetary Motion
Wars of the Three Kingdoms
(1639-1652)
Charles I
(1625-1649)
James I
(1603-1625)
Naval war with
Spain (1623-28)
The Seventeenth Century (1600-1700)
Protectorate
(1653-1660)
Commonwealth
(1649-1653)
William III
(1688-1702)
and
Mary II
(1688-1694)
Charles II
(1660-1685)
James II
(1685-1688)
Anglo-Dutch Wars
(1652-54, 1665-67, 1672-74)
“Glorious Revolution”
(1688/9)
Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
Ship Money collected
in peacetime (1634-41)
Personal Rule begins
(1629)
Forced Loan (1626-7)
War of the League of Augsburg
(1688-1697)
England/Scotland/IrelandFranceScientific
Revolution
Galileo, Sidereus nuncius (1610)
Kepler, Astronomia nova (1609): 1st
& 2nd
Laws of Planetary Motion
Newton, Principia
mathematica (1687)
Henry IV
(r. 1589-1610)
Louis XIII
(r. 1610-1643)
Louis XIV
(r. 1643-1715)
Fronde
(1648-1653)
Regency: Anne of Austria /
Mazarin (1643-1651)
Cardinal Richelieu (1685-1642)
The War of Devolution (1667-68)
The Dutch War (1672-78)