The following text is taken from Thomas Hobbes’ Preface to his treatise On the Citizen (published in 1642). The work is mainly political in nature and addresses issues such as …
The following text is taken from the sixth part of René Descartes’ Discourse on the Method (published in 1637). The Discourse is the introduction to a set of three essays …
Welcome to the third week of the course The Scientific Revolution! You made great progress so far and we hope you enjoyed what we discussed during the previous two weeks. …
Read the following text in which Isaac Newton exposes his conception about the uses of hypotheses in experimental philosophy. Your comprehension will be tested in the following step. I have …
Read the following text in which Robert Boyle exposes his conception about when a hypothesis should be accepted in natural philosophy. Your comprehension will be tested in the following step. …
In this video Doina-Cristina Rusu discusses the relationship between hypotheses and experimentation. How do metaphysical or theological assumptions influence experimental philosophy, both in designing experiments and in explaining the produced …
You have seen in the previous steps that the theological and metaphysical convictions can interfere with the scientific practice in various ways: in how the experiments are designed, which questions …
In the previous steps you learned about the functions and uses of instruments in the scientific method. Let’s see again which are functions that instruments can have. In order to …
Robert Hooke’s scientific project has as one of its main aims to construct those instruments which can help senses to better perceive the natural world. The microscope and the telescope …
The following two texts discuss the use of the microscope, one arguing in favour of its use in natural philosophy, the second claiming that it is not providing any new …
In this video Doina-Cristina Rusu exposes a classification of scientific instruments from the early modern period. Instruments are mathematical and scientific. The former are used especially for drawing and calculations, …
Let’s see what we have discussed so far. In Week 1 you learned about the new corpuscularian matter theory, which replaced the Aristotelian distinction between matter and form. As you …
In this video Doina-Cristina Rusu analyses the features of an experiment suggested by Francis Bacon. The three characteristics to be found in the text are the following: the criticism of …
But let’s see now what exactly it meant to design an experiment at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The following text is from Bacon’s collection of experiments Sylva sylvarum …
Among the most common terms that come to mind when we think of the scientific practice, we tend to find ‘knowledge’, ‘method’ and ‘experiment’. See the result of your word …