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Scientific Revolutions: Historical Perspective 

Scientific Revolutions: Historical Perspective . The rise of new bodies of knowledge: Episteme vs. Techne. episteme vs. techne. episteme - scientia (theoretical knowledge – knowledge of causes ) techne - ars (crafts, know-how: knowing by doing ). episteme vs. techne.

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Scientific Revolutions: Historical Perspective 

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  1. Scientific Revolutions: Historical Perspective  The rise of new bodies of knowledge: Episteme vs. Techne

  2. episteme vs.techne • episteme - scientia(theoretical knowledge – knowledge of causes) • techne - ars(crafts,know-how: knowing by doing)

  3. episteme vs.techne • scientia(theoretical knowledge)ars(crafts) Bringing techneinto the scholarly world

  4. Paracelsus (1493-1541)Philippus Theophrastus AureolusBombastus von Hohenheim Bringing medicaltechneinto the scholarly world

  5. Hippocrates of Kos (BC 460–370) (by Rubens) • Claudius Galenus(AD 129–c.200)

  6. The Hippocratic Tradition • The Canon of Medicine(1025)القانون في الطب‎ al-Qānūnfī al-Ṭibb • IbnSīnā, Avicenna (980–1037) • The Book of Healing(1027) القانون في الطب کتاب الشفاءKitab Al-Shifa

  7. The Hippocratic Tradition • Galenus(AD 129–c.200) • Healing: • Herbs, • Diet, • Bloodletting • IbnSīnā(980–1037)

  8. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • “Hippocrates had the true medical spirit but Galen and other sophists perverted his views.”

  9. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • “Hippocrates had the true medical spirit but Galen and other sophists perverted his views.” Medical Knowledge: God  Apollo  Machaon Podalirius Hippocrates “In them the light of Nature shone forth. But the Evil One interfered and caused medicine to fall into the hands of the antiphysicians so that it became entangled with persons and sophistries.”

  10. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • “Hippocrates had the true medical spirit but Galen and other sophists perverted his views.” • Also - New diseases: • Syphilis • Imported from the new world • How can the old medicine handle this?

  11. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • Some opposed his cosmological views, but accepted his treatments. • Grosse Wundartzney (1536): how to cure wounds created by gunshot

  12. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • Vom Holtz GuaicogründlichenHeylung (1529); FranzösichenKranckheit (1530) • A critic of herbal treatments of syphilis

  13. Paracelsus (1493-1541) Bringing medicaltechneinto the scholarly world Vesalius' Fabrica(1543): problems with Galen’s anatomical observations William Harvey (1578-1657): circulation of blood (1628): problems with Galen’s physiology

  14. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • Von der Bergsucht oder Bergkranckheiten drey Bücher(1530) • On the Miners' Sickness and Other Diseases of Miners

  15. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • “Sickness and health in the body rely on the harmony of man (microcosm) and Nature (macrocosm).” • Typical Hermetic View

  16. Robert Fludd, (1574 –1637) • Paracelsian • Astrologer • MathematicianCosmologistQabalistRosicrucian

  17. Leonardoda Vinci (1490) • Vitruvian Man

  18. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • “Microcosm and Macrocosm” as a practical principle: humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and hence illnesses of the body can be cured with chemical remedies and minerals.

  19. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • Chemical remedies and minerals – sympathies between materials and parts of the body • Hermetic and occult knowledge • Alchemy • Astrology

  20. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • Chemical remedies and minerals – sympathies between materials and parts of the body

  21. Paracelsus (1493-1541) • Hermetic and occult knowledge • Alchemy • Astrology • Opposition to (and scorn for) scholasticism • Directobservation of nature as the source of uncovering knowledge (occult: macro-micro) • Knowledge of nature driven by practical needs • Vernacular texts (German)

  22. episteme vs.techne • scientia(theoretical knowledge)ars(craft) Bringing techneinto the scholarly world

  23. Georg Agricola (1494-1555) De Re Metallica (1530) Bringing techneinto the scholarly world

  24. Georg Agricola (1494-1555) De Re Metallica (1530) • Certainly, if mining is a shameful and discreditable employment for a gentleman because slaves once worked mines, then agriculture also will not be a very creditable employment, because slaves once cultivated the fields, and even to-day do so among the Turks; nor will architecture be considered honest, because some slaves have been found skilful in that profession; nor medicine, because not a few doctors have been slaves; nor will any other worthy craft, because men captured by force of arms have practised it.

  25. Georg Agricola (1494-1555) De Re Metallica (1530) • Yet agriculture, architecture, and medicine are none the less counted amongst the number of honourable professions; therefore, mining ought not for this reason to be excluded from them. But suppose we grant that the hired miners have a sordid employment. We do not mean by miners only the diggers and other workmen, but also those skilled in the mining arts, and those who invest money in mines. Amongst them can be counted kings, princes, republics, and from these last the most esteemed citizens. And finally, we include amongst the overseers of mines the noble Thucydides, the historian, whom the Athenians placed in charge of the mines of Thasos.

  26. Georg Agricola (1494-1555) De Re Metallica (1530) • New Latin technical terms (like in botany): • Changing accepted meanings of existing terms • Combining existing terms into new ones • Translation from German to Latin • Adding Latin post or pre-fixes to German terms

  27. The space between two veins is called an intervenium; this interval between the veins, if it is between venaedilatatae is entirely hidden underground. If, however, it lies between venaeprofundae then the top is plainly in sight, and the remainder is hidden.

  28. Georg Agricola (1494-1555) De Re Metallica (1530) Bringing techneinto the scholarly world A truly new trend: knowing nature in order to dominate nature

  29. M N A B O Archimedes(287-212(BC N:M::AO: OB

  30. The Archimedes Myth

  31. Federico Commandino (1506–1575 (

  32. Federico Commandino (1506–1575 ( On Floating Bodies • On the Equilibrium of Planes (Law of Lever)

  33. Urbino

  34. Bernardino Baldi (1553–1617 (

  35. Guidobaldo del Monte (1545 - 1607 (

  36. Philosophers-Engineers Dissolving the traditional distinction: episteme vs.techne

  37. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete (1600)

  38. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) • The Earth as a giant magnet • A decidedly “experimental” approach • Distinguished between electricity and magnetism

  39. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) • Adopted heliocentrism(unlikely that the planetary spheres can circle the earth in one day) • The planets are driven by souls (the Earth has a magnetic soul) • Believed in cosmic harmonies and astrology

  40. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) • Totally opposed to Aristotelian philosophy of nature • Hostile and dismissive of university culture:

  41. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) “As for the causes of magnetic movements, referred to in the schools of philosophers to the four elements and to prime qualities, these we leave for roaches and moths to prey upon.”

  42. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) “Practical workers with nature, like navigators, metallurgists and farmers, understand more about the nature of the Earth, and earthy matter, than professors of scholastic Aristotelian philosophy.”

  43. GiambattistadellaPorta (1535-1615) MagiaeNaturalis(1558) “An iron needle rubbed with diamond also points north.”

  44. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) “Now this is contrary to our magnetic rules; and hence we made the experiment ourselves with seventy-five diamonds in the presence of many witnesses, employing a number of iron bars and pieces of wire, manipulating them with the greatest care while they floated in water, supported by corks; yet never was it granted to me to see the effect mentioned by Porta.”

  45. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) “The Aristotelian element, earth, nowhere is seen, and the Peripatetics are misled by their vain dreams about the elements. … Aristotle's 'simple element,' and that most vain terrestrial phantasm of the Peripatetics, - formless, inert, cold, dry, simple matter, the substratum of all things, having no activity, - never appeared to any one even in dreams.”

  46. William Gilbert (1544-1603) De Magnete(1600) Two basic principles: Sceptical empiricism: since nearly all established explanatory concepts were wrong, one had to reason from securely observed phenomena. Principle of analogy: A model of the Earth, a "terrella" turned from natural loadstone, replicated all the magnetic phenomena of the Earth itself, such as the orientation of compass needles. He explicitly denied the Aristotelian doctrine that 'ars’ could not imitate nature.

  47. William Gilbert (1544-1603) Terrela

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