Pl 100 Philosophy and the Human Condition

Pl 100 Philosophy and the Human Condition

The transition from the Medieval World to the early Modern World

Some major historical events of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries in western Europe:

I. The Era of Exploration: Between 1492 and 1504, Christopher Columbus made four voyages from Spain to lands he later called the ANew World.@ AOn his first voyage, he explored parts of Cuba and Hispaniola in 1492 and 1493. From 1493 to 1496, he continued to explore those regions and also ventured to Puerto Rico and Jamaica. On his third voyage, from 1498 to 1500, he sailed along the northern coast of South America. On his final journey in 1502, Columbus explored the coast of Central America.@ ^[1] This led to European contact with new cultures and new ideas.

II. Modern Economy: the rise of money power and the change from a land-based economy (feudalism) to money (capitalism); expansion of trade and commerce; the new middle class. AMerchants and trade are as old as civilization itself, but capitalism as a coherent economic system had its origins in Europe in the 13th century, toward the close of the feudal era. Human beings, Adam Smith said, have always had a propensity to Atruck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.@ This inclination toward trade and exchange was rekindled and stimulated by the series of Crusades that absorbed the energies of much of Europe from the 11th through the 13th centuries. The voyages of discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries gave further impetus to business and trade, especially following the vast flood of precious metals that poured into Europe after the discovery and conquest of the New World. The economic order that emerged from these events was essentially commercial or mercantile; that is, its central focus remained on the exchange of goods rather than on their production.@^[2]

III. Politics: AThe beginnings of modern nationalism may be traced back to the Disintegration, at the end of the Middle Ages, of the social order in Europe and of the cultural unity of the various European states. The cultural life of Europe was based on a common inheritance of ideas and attitudes transmitted in the West through Latin, the language of the educated classes. All Western Europeans adhered to a common religion, Catholic Christianity. The breakup of feudalism, the prevailing social and economic system, was accompanied by the development of larger communities, wider social interrelations, and dynasties that fostered feelings of nationality in order to win support for their rule. National feeling was strengthened in various countries during the Reformation, when the adoption of either Catholicism or Protestantism as a national religion became an added force for national cohesion.@³ The rise of nationalism began first in France, then in England. The separation of church and state occurred with Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy in 1534.

IV. Naturalism: in philosophy, a movement affirming that nature is the whole of reality and can be understood only through scientific investigation. ADenying the existence of the supernatural and de-emphasizing metaphysics, or the study of the ultimate nature of reality, naturalism affirms that cause-and-effect relationships, as in physics and chemistry, are sufficient to account for all phenomena. Teleological conceptions, which suggest design and metaphysical necessity in nature, while not necessarily invalid, are excluded from consideration.@⁴ In politics, this view was illustrated in Machiavelli=s The Prince and in Hobbes= Leviathan.

V. The Reformation was the great 16th-century religious revolution in the Christian church, which ended the ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope in Western Christendom and resulted in the establishment of the Protestant churches. AWith the Renaissance that preceded and the French Revolution that followed, the Reformation completely altered the medieval way of life in Western Europe and initiated the era of modern history.@ ⁵The Church's corruption was illustrated by the sale of indulgences (15th century) and the worldliness of popes like Pope Leo X's hedonism (1513-21) - "God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it." Martin Luther (1483- 1546) and the 95 Theses; the development of Protestantism and a new theology (primacy of conscience over reason).

VI. Scientific Method: ADefinitions of scientific method use such concepts as objectivity of approach to and acceptability of the results of scientific study. Objectivity indicates the attempt to observe things as they are, without falsifying observations to accord with some preconceived world view. Acceptability is judged in terms of the degree to which observations and experimentations can be reproduced. Scientific method also involves the interplay of inductive reasoning (reasoning from specific observations and experiments to more general hypotheses and theories) and deductive reasoning (reasoning from theories to account for specific experimental results). By such reasoning processes, science attempts to develop the broad lawsCsuch as Isaac Newton's law of gravitationCthat become part of our understanding of the natural world.@⁶ A new empirical spirit: Leonardo da Vinci (1452- 1519); Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and the scientific method; Copernicus (1473-1543) and the heliocentric theory; Kepler (1571-1650) and the laws of the movement of planets based on mathematics; Galileo's (1564-1642) use of the telescope to observe the movements of planets around the sun and experiments about motion empirically verifies Copernicus' theory.

VII. Literature: Shakespeare (1564-1616) Macbeth was written around 1600.

In the Medieval World, people believed that everything had a spiritual significance (Asacramental world view@) and a purpose (Ateleological world view@). The Early Modern World became more secular in its outlook. People began to see the world as shaped not only by God, but also by human choices. The world became understood less in religious terms and more in terms of the new physics and scientific method.

Handout prepared by Anne Knop, Senior Associate Professor of Philosophy, Manor College