140 likes | 288 Views
Scientific Thinking and the Cartesian / Newtonian Paradigm of Thought. Komatra Chuengsatiansup. Outline of Presentation. Sciences and philosophy from historical perspective Sciences from philosophical perspective Descartes and the foundation of modern science
E N D
Scientific Thinking and the Cartesian / Newtonian Paradigm of Thought Komatra Chuengsatiansup
Outline of Presentation • Sciences and philosophy from historical perspective • Sciences from philosophical perspective • Descartes and the foundation of modern science • Newton and the invention of scientific empiricism
Outline of Presentation • Science and the Cartesian/Newtonian paradigm • Quantum physics and the new scientific paradigm • Post-modernism and the re-enchantment of science • Conclusion: One science or many?
Science and Philosophy From Historical Perspective • The origins of science in the ancient worlds • The divergence of science and philosophy • The historicist theory of scientific rationality • From Plato to Aristotle and beyond • From renaissance to the Newtonian epoch • Progress in science: evolutionary science and normal science
Sciences From Philosophical Perspective • Ontological and cosmological foundation of scientific knowledge • Scientific method and its epistemological assumption • Kuhn’s structure of scientific revolutions • Feyerabend and scientific anarchist • Logical empiricism and the philosophy of modern science
Descartes: The Life and Work of the Founder of Modern Philosophy • 1596-1650,1618 served in the army, engineer. • Early work on harmony, proportion & ratio • The World not published in 1633 • Discourse: Cartesian metaphysics • Principle of philosophy (1644) • Meditations on the first philosophy (1641) • Died in Sweden under Queen Christina’s patronage
Descartes and the Foundation of Modern Science • Descartes’ method: reductionism & doubt • Cogito ergo sum; I think therefore I am • Cartesian dualism of body and mind • Theory of vortices and the disenchantment of nature • Mathematical reality (geometry – algebra) and materialistic worldview
Newton: The Life and Work of a Revolutionary Scientist • 1642-1727, 1661 entered Cambridge • 1667 fellow at trinity, 1669 professor of mathematics • 1665-1666 formulating principia, but published in 1687 • 1689 member of convention parliament • 1699 master of the mint • Never married and lived modestly • Einstein: greatest achievement a man can make
Newton and the Invention of Scientific Empiricism • The life and work of Isaac Newton • Mathematics and the science of precision • Light and optics • Motion and gravitation • Theistic materialism • Knowable law of god’s creation
Newton’s Material World “It seems probable to me that god in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles… and that these primitive particles being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them… no ordinary power being able to divide what god himself made one in the first creation”
Science and the Cartesian/Newtonian Paradigm • Materialism and determinism • Reductionistic and analytical reasoning • Quantitative and the science of measurement • Androcentrism • The claim of objectivity and universalism • Weighing contributions and drawbacks
Quantum Physics and the New Scientific Paradigm • The dissolution of matter and energy • Observers and the observed • The problems of space and time • The indeterminacy of complexity • The Tao of physics • New biology and the science of life
Post-modernism and the Re-enchantment of Science • Knowledge and power • Holism, system theory and emergent property • Pluralism and uncertainty • The good, the aesthetics, and the rightness • The new science and the re-enchantment of life
Conclusion: One Science or Many? • Back to Socrates: know how we know before know what we know • Is an absolute truth possible? A salamanders’ knowledge of the cosmos • Feyerabend: everything goes • When east meets west: knowledge in inner space • The multiple realities of human existence and the many sciences