Primary Sources Flashcards
The Starry Messenger
Galileo
- Breaks down difference between heavenly and earthly spheres
- Evidence for copernicanism?
Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems
Galielo
- Trying to help people decide whether they believe in the copernican hypothesis
- Second trial & condemnation comes 3 years after
On the motion of the heart
Harvey
- challenges existing beliefs about the circulatory system and the heart’s function, particularly in contrast to Aristotelian views
Discourse on the Method
Descartes
- written in french
- quasi-autobiographical spiritual essay
- The need to rebuild knowledge
- radical doubt
- i think, therefore i am
- presumption of a perfect Deity who guarantees knowledge
- Talks about ‘the method for conducting reason’ without laying it out
New experiments physico-mechanical
Boyle
- introduces Boyle’s groundbreaking invention, the air pump, which became an example of “big science” in its time
- Boyle meticulously describes the structure and operation of the pump, highlighting its innovative design
- laid the foundation for the experimental method
A free inquiry into the vulgarly received notion of nature
Boyle
- Boyle challenges the Scholastic notion of nature as “vulgar” and incorrect
- asserted that studying nature had become an expression of Christian piety for him
- considered it worthwhile to scrutinize the commonly accepted concept of nature, particularly because atheists attributed much to nature, eliminating the need for a deity, while many theists linked the conventional notion of nature to proof of God’s existence and providence
Micrographia
Hooke
- presented to the Royal Society expressing gratitude for the support of experimental learning under royal patronage
- reflects on human sensory imperfections, memory, and reason, proposing that the remedy lies in the pursuit of experimental philosophy
- mechanist (corpuscular) ontology
- empiricist epistemology
- expresses hope that his modest contributions will serve as foundations for future natural philosophers
Letter to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Newton
- reveals his groundbreaking work on optics
- experimenting with a triangular glass prism to observe the colors produced by sunlight
Selections from Principia
Newton
- principle of his law of universal gravitation
- same physics govern earth and celestial bodies (post-galileo)
- people are dissatisfied
Thirty-first Query to the Opticks
Newton
- the nature of attractive forces among small particles and their potential role in various natural phenomena
- existence of certain powers or forces within small particles
Letter about her Scientific Work
Merian
- details her meticulous observations of worms and caterpillars in the Dutch colony
- mentions that she has preserved animals and specimens
- global science, connection between science & colonialism
Butterfly, Hawk-moth, Caterpillar
Merian
- depictions of three different entities
- merging of art and science
