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