Research Paper-Discuss societal factors including intellectual movements that promoted the progress of science from the time of Galileo
In Astronomy, the Ptolemaic system reigned supreme for over 1000 years. Briefly describe its most important characteristics, especially what everything revolved around and how motion was supposed to be explained. Describe contributions to its demise from: members of the Parisian school (1277-1377), Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. List some empirical data that eventually required a heliocentric system in its place.
2) Much has been written about the role of Galileo in science and trying to interpret the Galileo affair. In this essay, please cover Galileo’s philosophy and scientific method, comparing with his predecessors: (a) his philosophical stances that conflict with the realism of St. Thomas Aquinas, (b) how the way in which he employed mathematics in science differed from the way it had been viewed by Pythagoreans such as Nicholas of Cusa, Regiomontanus, Copernicus, and a young Johannes Kepler, (c) how his philosophy of science – his conception of it, its role, and the methods he used – differed from the Scholastics (from Grosseteste down to Ockham, Nicholas of Autrecourt, and on to Oresme), particularly in relation to treatment of Aristotle’s four causes (formal, material, efficient, and final).
3) Discuss societal factors including intellectual movements that promoted the progress of science from the time of Galileo (1564-1642) to the end of the lifetime of Isaac Newton (1643-1727). Include the influences of philosophers such as any or all of Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, Christian Wolf, David Hume, (and the later synthesis of their ideas found in Immanuel Kant).
4) Discuss in detail the main features of the scientific method put forth by Isaac Newton and compare it, especially in terms of causes and other Aristotelian philosophical principles, with the method of the Scholastics (Grosseteste, Duns Scotus, Ockham, Autrecourt), that of Galileo, and the ideas of his own contemporary G.W. Leibniz.
