3. Prehistoric Pre 6 th century BC Classical 17 th c. – 20 th c. Greek 6 th c. BC - 17 th c. AD Modern Physics 20 th c. Each scientific model is accompanied by a broader corresponding worldview Animistic Worldview Aristotelian Worldview Newtonian Worldview Quantum Mechanics & Relativity
4. Animist Worldview - natural phenomena caused by the gods/ no distinction between natural and supernatural/ irrational/ disordered/ magical/ capricious/ human characteristics projected on gods and the earth Aristotelian Worldview - organic/purposeful universe/ everything has a cause/ reason/ order/ rational/ distinction between natural and supernatural/ causality/ everything has a nature which is the cause of its behaviour/ teleology- everything has an end or purpose to which it is directed/ no motion without a mover/ things to be observed in their natural state- experiments as limiting/ intellectual synthesis/ very coherent/ impressive in its applicability/ corresponded to what people saw and experienced/ very strict, rigid social hierarchy- gave people a sense of security and where their place was in the world/ Aquinas synthesized Aristotle with religion
5. Newtonian Worldview - a small group of scientists combined the Greek view of an ordered rational nature with a Christian belief in creation/ empirical / mechanistic causality/ individual events have determinable causes/ determinism - it is possible to determine future states of all the matter in the universe- seen in Freud’s psychoanalysis/ stage of space and time is absolute and eternal/ universe consists of matter, motion and forces/ all of this is governed by mathematical, universal natural laws/ reductionism - reduce the whole into its parts to gain understanding/ the whole is the sum of the parts/ analytic/ objectivism - we are mere observers when we do experiments/ epistemological confidence - we can know a lot about the universe and can continue to discover more/ the clockwork universe/ orderly/ the Enlightenment/ individualism - human society as individuals interacting in accordance with social laws/ equality before the law/ human rights/ democracy/ classical liberal economics- economy is the sum of the action of individual agents acting in accordance with the laws of supply and demand/ materialism - the way science approaches psychology, Marx’s political theory, North American consumerism/ utilitarian ethics - the good for society is the sum of the good for individuals/ skepticism about anything that can’t be explained in mechanistic terms/ this conceptual framework does not easily lend itself to talking about God/ rise of atheism
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7. Newton as Synthesizer Newton contributed to this paradigm shift by synthesizing… Galileo’s mathematical description of nature and approach to science. Francis Bacon’s empirical approach to science including induction and the scientific method. This is a neutral approach with no initial hypothesis, where axioms are confirmed through application. Descarte’s mechanistic philosophy , much like the atomists of ancient Greece. Science here is strictly a study of matter (as opposed to the mind) so natural phenomena were merely physical interactions with no relation to the divine.
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15. not but foresee the change the religion of our enquiry to wit if wee should not be destroyed till the brightness of christ’s second coming we are enquiring after that it is now high time to consider was soe changed that wee may not be destroyed by the spirit of pride Haikus generated randomly by memes.angrygoats.net from Newton’s texts.
![A History of Paradigms ,[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)