The Rationalisation of the World

2007

2023

This paper addresses the rationality of the revolution science

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) could be considered as the Father of the Modern Science and the pioner of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. In fact, Antonio Rebello (2019) found that Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was central to the Revolution and his work revolutionized the fields of motion and optics, amongst other subjects. He's considered the greatest scientific mind of his time and many compare him to Plato, Aristotle, and Galileo, given the extent to which his discoveries impacted Western thought. Furthermore, Sparknotes (2019) found that sir Isaac Newton's work was the capstone of the Scientific Revolution, utilizing the advances made before him in mathematics, astronomy, and physics to derive a comprehensive understanding of the physical world. Furthermore, Johannes Kepler enunciated his laws of planetary motion in 1618. Galileo determined the laws of gravity and explored the laws of motion on earth. Newton first conclusively affirmed the laws of motion and linked them with Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Before Newton, no one had demonstrated conclusively that the movements of heavenly bodies were related to terrestrial physics. Galileo had suggested this, but was censored by the Church before he was able to do further work to prove his theories.Then, despite the varieties and diverse roots of capitalism, the Newtonianism of the 16th century and the Scientific Revolution of 17th centuries seemed to be the driver of the Industrial Capitalism of the 18th century so called the Carbon-intensive and Resource-intensive Routinized Industrial Capitalism. In fact, The Roots of Progress (2017) found that the Scientific Revolution began in the 1500s ; the Industrial Revolution not until the 1700s. Since industrial progress is in large part technological progress, and technology is in large part applied science, it seems that the Industrial Revolution followed from the Scientific, as a consequence, if not necessarily an inevitable one. Certainly the modern world would not be possible without modern science. They also found that Computers are completely dependent on our understanding of electricity, moderne medicine and agriculture on biology, plastics and metals on chemistry, engine design on thermodynamics. Furthermore, Christian (2004) found that the Industrial Revolution has been one of the most remarkable events in human history, and in the long term its impact on economic development throughout the world has proven to be fundamantal. However, this revolution may have been supported and structured by the Scientific Revolution launched by Isaac Newton during the 17th and 18th centuries in UK. Moreover, Goldstone (2000) found that Newtonian culture, as the manifestation of a mechanistic world-view throughout society, facilitated the development of technological innovation necessary for the Industrial Revolution to take place. Nevertheless, Mieke Molthof (2011) found that it was perhaps not so much Newton's work that directly sparked a range of new inventions, but rather the wide public that put into practice his ideas. For example, Jacob and Steward (2004) state : 'The Principia will always remain a great book, possibly the greatest ever published in science. But it was the practitioners, the audience, the new public, the buyers and consumers of the new science, who made it the cornerstone of Western economic development' (p.15). Secondly, Goldstone (2000) found that the spread of the new approach to knowledge and technological development to those most closely connected to the production process has with little doubt been important for the new scientific methods to be of true significance for the Industrial Revolution. In scientific associations and in other educational institutions that had developed in Britain, mechanistic science was taught and discussed among scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, and the ways in which this knowledge could be useful for production were explored (Goldstone, 2001). Thirdly, science contributed to the development of the intellectual principles which underlaid the Industrial Revolution by providing the theories upon which technological creativity was ultimately based (Mokyr, 2000b). Furthermore, Mieke Molthof (2011) found that it was the spread of mechanical science to a wider public, in specific to those in close contact with the production process, that allowed for a Newtonian culture to emerge and which promoted the Industrial take off. However, despite all the outcomes it provided, the Newtonian Sciences are limited. In fact, Heylighen (2006) found that it's based in reductionism , determinism, materialism, and a reflection-correspondence view of knowledge. Although it's simple, coherent and intuitive, it ignores or denies human agency, values, creativity and evolution. As a result, emphasis in life science has started to be put on limit the reductionism. For example, emphasis has started to be on Limited or unlimited Rationality and Modernity (cf. Box 5). Furthermore, according to Kaiser MI (2011), the issue of reductionism has a long history in the philosophy of science. It is also a controversial topic in the life sciences themselves and scientific publications referring to reductionism have increased in the last decade. However, in the majority of cases the reference to reductionism is negative : life scientists highlight the « limits of reductionism » by investigating the behavior of complex systems (e.g. Ahn et al. 2006 a, 709 ; Mazzocchi 2008, 10) ; they offer substantial evidence « against reductionism » in biomedical research (Levenstein 2009, 709) ; and they call for a move « beyond » or « away from reductionism and toward a new kind of biology for the 21st century. As a result, Mazzocchi (2008) did build a Post-reductionist approach in science and biology that relies on key notions such as emergence, self-organization and complex causality. This shift has started to play a role into the emergence and development of Complexity Sciences. Key Words : Newtonianism ; Newtonian Sciences ; Scientific Revolution, Industrial Revolution

2010

Abstract This essay is an exploration of how to conceptualize the so-called scientific revolution. A central figure in this discussion is Thomas Kuhn, whose Structure of Scientific Revolutions has shaped much recent discussion of scientific change in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.

2020

2011

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2001

INTRODUCTION TO PART 2 A Revolution of Reason, 2024

This introduction to Part 2 of The Marcusean Mind, explores Herbert Marcuse's critique of one-dimensional society and the reduction of reason to serve technological and capitalist rationality. It traces the genealogical roots of Marcuse’s thought through engagements with figures such as Kant, Hegel, and Freud, and explores how their ideas shaped Marcuse’s critique of advanced industrial society. The section extends this analysis to contemporary issues, such as climate change, aesthetic socialism, and the role of popular culture in utopian thinking. By connecting Marcuse’s philosophical legacy to current global crises, the essays in this section offer a comprehensive view of reason’s potential for revolutionary transformation.

Applied Magnetic Resonance, 2007

The life course of the physicist and biologist George Feher may be seen as an epitome of science of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Feher, a native of Slovakia, barely escaped Nazism and communism and became a scientist in the USA. The Nazi concentration camps and the communist gulags have become a symbol of the 20th century. This symbol stands here to pose a question: How the two totalitarian systems, fraught with irrationality, may have arisen and thrived in parallel with an unprecedented expansion of science, the paragon of rationalism? The question has become even more urgent in the 21st century. The Ground Zero, an empty spot left after the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, has become the symbol of the entrance of humankind into the new millennium. We can do much, but we understand too little about who we are and what we are doing this is a message that the two symbols convey about the precarious stage of our evolution. The second message concerns the role of artifacts, specifically scientific instruments, in the advancement of science. Human cultural evolution has been steadily progressing, in a form of a ratchet, only because artifacts have been continually evolving. Contrary to the common Popperian wisdom, the demarcation in science may not consist in the amenability to theoretical falsification, but rather in the amenability to instrumental grasping. Scientific instruments have empowered humans for impressive feats of manipulation with Nature and themselves. Knowledge arising in the course of autonomous evolution of artifacts may surpass the horizon of human understanding and grasping. New knowledge may still be power, but no longer the power of humans. We may need a revision of some fundamental ideas of European thought. Our understanding of the human mind may entirely reshape our comprehension of the nature of physical knowledge, and vice versa.