Great Ideas of Philosophy

Lecture Twenty-OneThe Reappearance of Experimental ScienceScope: The medieval universities yielded not only that famous form of “logic-chopping” that today would behonored by the title “Analytical Philosophy” but a renewed commitment to natural science. This amountedto a renewed interest in the creation as a reflection of the divine, a belief that will be bequeathed to aWestern community able to move forward with it to a new kind of science. It is at Oxford in the 13 thcentury that Roger Bacon and others will recover the spirit of experimental modes of inquiry. Here, then, isthe first of the two great Renaissances.OutlineI. Intellectual historians point to a “renaissance” in the 13 th century partly to call attention to the fact that the termRenaissance, used of the 15 th century, was itself an invention of the 19 th century, coined chiefly by scholars inthe fields of the history of art and architecture.A. What does one mean by a renaissance? A “rebirth” presupposes that something once born in the past hasdied and is now to be revived.B. The Italian Renaissance considered the ancient and humanistic values of Greece and Rome to have been setaside during the “medieval” period. But in light of the rich philosophical undertakings of the later medievalperiod, there is no basis on which to suggest that this part of the classical achievement had in any sense“died.”C. It would be no exaggeration to say that if we wish to consider the rebirth of one of the defining features ofthe classical world, our attention should be focused on the Islamic commentators on Aristotle in the 11 thcentury and on the medieval universities of Britain and the European continent in the 12 th and 13 thcenturies. It is in these developments that we find a more secure and settled West recovering its owntraditions.1. Consider Peter Abelard (1079–1142), one of the most celebrated teachers of his time; his treatise Sic etNon (“Yes and No”) allowed readers to see the contradictions and inconsistencies in the works of theearly church fathers. His autobiography, which he titled Historia Calamitatum (“An Account of [My]Misfortunes”), is a summary of the envy and resentment aroused by his formidable intelligence andphilosophical powers and by his tragic love affair with the brilliant Heloise.2. Sic et Non employs a method of teaching that calls for the presentation of a major thesis orproposition, the arguments favoring it, the arguments opposing it, and a conclusion judged to bewarranted by the force of argument on each side.3. In Sic et Non, 158 such propositions are submitted to analysis, covering a range of problems inmetaphysics, theology, and ethics. A burning issue at the time—and one that still warrants carefulconsideration—concerns the ontological status of universals. Abelard drew attention to the idleness ofsuch controversies and to the limitations of radical positions on both sides of the issue.II. The first half of the 13 th century also hosted a revival of experimental science.A. By way of background, we should note that secondary sources routinely highlight the achievements inabstract philosophy of the ancient world at the expense of its scientific achievements.1. As we’ve seen, the ancients made a number of contributions in medicine, biology, physics, astronomy,and so on.2. Further, thanks to Islamic commentaries on Hellenic texts, the West began to recover the naturalscience works of Aristotle and see in these the possibility for progressive knowledge.B. Two figures of immense importance are found at the University of Oxford, both members of the Catholicclergy and both among the most instructed minds of their century. First, in Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253), bishop of Lincoln, we find a scholar as much at home with optics as with theology. Grossetestestudied and wrote on Aristotle’s ethical treatises, as well as the Physics. By the time of his death, he hadcreated at Oxford an interest in what his student Roger Bacon would come to call experimental science.C. Roger Bacon and the late-Scholastic dons of Oxford would lay the foundations for the fruitfulcontroversies and new methods of the 16 th - and 17 th -century modern scientific movement.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 25