Poetry Influenced by the Scientific Revolution 69
A change in attitude towards science began to develop in the
beginning of the seventeenth century during the period in which Galileo,
Kepler and a number of other scientists were uncovering the mysteries of
nature, which eventually led to Newton’s great breakthroughs. This new
attitude was reflected in the philosophical writings of three great thinkers
of this period, namely Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Thomas Hobbes
(1588–1679), and Rene Descartes (1596–1650).
Francis Bacon was one of the first philosophers to extol the virtues of
science. He was a strong advocate of the empirical approach. He felt that
it was solely through the observation of nature that all knowledge would
be discovered. His view was a trifle naive because he did not properly
take into account the role deductive thinking would play in physics. His
influence in stimulating experimental work, however, certainly made a
positive contribution to the scientific activity of his day. He also
accurately predicted the central role that science would come to play in
the life of humankind and the importance that joint research projects
would play.
Hobbes is the first thinker we encounter not directly involved in
scientific activity like Bacon and Descartes, whose philosophy is
nevertheless intricately connected with the new science. He was a great
admirer of mathematical thought, being particularly interested in
geometry. He was also a thorough going empiricist, on the other hand,
with a healthy respect of the inductive method. Philosophically he
addressed himself to political questions. A pessimist concerning human
nature, his philosophical system presents a drab deterministic and
materialistic view of life. His description of humans and their institutions
was extremely mechanical, not unlike our stereotyped picture of how a
mad scientist, like the movie character Dr. Strangelove, regards life.
Descartes, the third philosopher under consideration was also a
mathematician and a physicist. His greatest contributions were in
mathematics and philosophy. His philosophy was greatly influenced by
his scientific thinking. He adopted a position of skepticism, never
accepting any philosophical truth from the past that he could not verify
for himself. This spirit of skepticism, known as Cartesian doubt, is
identical to the spirit in which modern science is conducted. It become
one of the cardinal principles of modern philosophy and is perhaps
science’s greatest contribution to the development of philosophic
thinking or, perhaps vice versa, philosophy’s greatest contribution to
science.