scientific thinking and the cartesian / newtonian paradigm of thought komatra chuengsatiansup
TRANSCRIPT
Scientific Thinking and the Cartesian / Newtonian Paradigm of Thought
Komatra Chuengsatiansup
Outline of Presentation
Sciences and philosophy from historical perspective
Sciences from philosophical perspectiveDescartes and the foundation of modern
scienceNewton 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 worldsThe divergence of science and philosophyThe historicist theory of scientific rationalityFrom Plato to Aristotle and beyondFrom renaissance to the Newtonian epochProgress in science: evolutionary science
and normal science
Sciences From Philosophical PerspectiveOntological and cosmological
foundation of scientific knowledgeScientific method and its
epistemological assumptionKuhn’s structure of scientific revolutionsFeyerabend and scientific anarchistLogical 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 ScienceDescartes’ method: reductionism &
doubtCogito ergo sum; I think therefore I amCartesian dualism of body and mindTheory of vortices and the
disenchantment of natureMathematical 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 NewtonMathematics and the science of
precisionLight and opticsMotion and gravitationTheistic materialismKnowable 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 ParadigmMaterialism and determinismReductionistic and analytical reasoningQuantitative and the science of
measurementAndrocentrismThe claim of objectivity and universalismWeighing contributions and drawbacks
Quantum Physics and the New Scientific ParadigmThe dissolution of matter and energyObservers and the observedThe problems of space and timeThe indeterminacy of complexityThe Tao of physicsNew biology and the science of life
Post-modernism and the Re-enchantment of ScienceKnowledge and powerHolism, system theory and emergent
propertyPluralism and uncertaintyThe good, the aesthetics, and the
rightnessThe 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 goesWhen east meets west: knowledge in
inner spaceThe multiple realities of human
existence and the many sciences