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| The substance Descartes (and others) thought was located in the cavities of the brain. When this substance moved via the nerves from the brain to the muscles, the muscles swelled and behaviour was instigated. |
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Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 B.C.)
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| Sometimes called the Copernicus of antiquity, speculated that the planets, including the earth, rotate around the sun and that the earth rotates on its own axis, and he did so almost 1,700 years before Copernicus. |
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| Francis Bacon (1561-1626) |
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Definition
| Urged an inductive, practical science that was free from the misconceptions of the past and from any theoretical influences. |
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| Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) |
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Definition
| Accepted the mystical non-Christian philosophy of Hermetism and Copernicus's heliocentric theory because he mistakingly believed that it supported Hermetism. He was burned at the stake for his beliefs. |
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Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
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| Argued that the earth rotated around the sun and therefore the earth was not the center of the solar system and the universe as the church maintained. |
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| The method of reasoning by which conclusions must follow from certain assumptions, principles, or concepts. If there are five people in a room, for example, one can figure out that there are also four; or if it is assumed that everything in nature exists for a purpose, then one can conclude that humans, too, exist for a purpose. Proceeds from the general to the particular. |
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Definition
| The belief that God's creation of the universe exhausted his involvement with it. |
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| Rene Decartes (1596-1650) |
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| Believed that much human behaviour can be explained in mechanical terms, that the mind and the body are separate but interacting entities, and that the mind contains innate ideas. Also focused attention on the nature of the relationship between the mind and the body. |
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Definition
| One who believes that a person consists of two separate entities: a mind, which accounts for one's mental experiences and rationality, and a body, which functions according to the same biological and mechanical principles as do the bodies of nonhuman animals. |
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| Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) |
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Definition
| A Renaissance humanist who opposed fanaticism, religious ritual, and superstition. He argued in favor of human free will. |
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| Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) |
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Definition
| Founded a Platonic academy in 1462 and sought to do for Plato's philosophy what the Scholastics had done for Aristotle's. |
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Definition
| Showed several of Aristotle's "truths" to be false and, by using a telescope, extended the known number of bodies in the solar system to 11. Argued that science could deal only with objective reality and that because human perceptions were subjective, they were outside the realm of science. |
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Definition
| The theory, proposed by Ptolemy, that the sun and planets revolve around the earth. |
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| The theory, proposed by Copernicus, that the planets, including the earth, rotate around the sun. |
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| A viewpoint that existed during the Renaissance. It emphasized four themes: individualism, a personal relationship with God, interest in classical wisdom, and a negative attitude toward Aristotle's philosophy. |
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| Bacon's term for personal biases that result from one's personal characteristics or experiences. |
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Term
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| Bacon's term for error that results when one accepts the traditional meanings of the words used to describe things. |
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Term
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| Bacon's term for the inhibition of objective inquiry that results when one accepts dogma, tradition, or authority. |
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| Bacon's term for biases that result from humans' natural tendency to view the world selectively. |
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| The method of reasoning that moves from the particular to the general. After a large number of individual instances are observed, a theme or principle common to all of them might be inferred. Proceeds from the particular to the general. |
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Definition
| Ideas, like perfection and the axioms of geometry, that Descartes believed could not be derived from one's own experience. Such ideas, according to Descartes, were placed in the mind by God. |
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| The version of dualism that accepts the separate existence of a mind and body and claims that they interact. |
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| In Descartes's philosophy, the introspective process by which clear and distinct ideas are discovered. |
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| Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) |
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Definition
| By observation and mathematical deduction, determined the elliptical paths of the planets around the sun. Also did pioneer work in optics. |
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| Martin Luther (1483-1546) |
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Definition
| Was especially disturbed by corruption within the church and by the church's emphasis on ritual. He believed that a major reason for the church's downfall was its embracing of Aristotle's philosophy, and he urged a return to the personal religion that Augustine had described. He accepted Augustine's concept of predestination but denied human free will. His attack of the established church contributed to the Reformation, which divided Europe into warring camps. |
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| Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) |
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Definition
| Like the earlier Greek and Roman Skeptics, believed there was no objective way of distinguishing among various claims of truth. His doubts concerning human knowledge stimulated a number of subsequent thinkers such as Bacon and Descartes. |
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| Extended the work of Galileo by showing that the motion of all objects in the universe could be explained by his law of gravitation. Although Newton believed in God, he believed that God's will could not be evoked as an explanation of any physical phenomena. Newton viewed the universe as a complex machine that God had created, set in motion and then abandoned. |
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| Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) |
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| A Renaissance humanist referred to by many historians as the father of the Renaissance. He attacked Scholasticism as stifling the human spirit and urged that the classics be studied not for their religious implications but because they were the works of unique human beings. He insisted that God had given humans their vast potential so that it coudl be utilized. His views about human potential helped stimulate the many artistic and literary achievements that characterized the Renaissance. |
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| One who introspectively studies the nature of intact conscious experience. Descartes was one. |
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| Giovanni Pico (1463-1494) |
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| Maintained that humans, unlike angels and animals, are capable of changing themselves and the world. He believed that all philosophical positions should be respected and the common elements among them sought. |
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| The belief that only those objects or events that can be experienced directly should be the object of scientific inquiry. The positivist actively avoids metaphysical speculation. |
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| Attributes of physical objects: for example, size, shape, number, position, and movement or rest. |
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| The religious movement that denied the authority of the pope and of Aristotle. It argued against church hierarchy and ritual and instead wanted a simple, deeply personal, and introspective religion like that described by St. Paul and St. Augustine. |
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Definition
| A conception of the solar system that has the earth as its center. During the Middle Ages, the system was widely accepted because it (1) agreed with everyday experience; (2) was able to predict and account for all astronomical phenomena known at the time; (3) gave humans a central place in the universe and thus agreed with the biblical account of creation. |
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| The attempt of Luther and others to reform the Christian church by making it more Augustinian in character. This effort resulted in the division of western European Christianity into Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. |
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| The period from about 1450 to about 1600 when there was a rebirth of the open, objective inquiry that had characterized the early Greek philosophers. |
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| Those apparent attributes of physical objects that in fact exist only in the mind of the perceiver--for example, the experiences of colour, sound, odor, temperature, and taste. Without a perceiver, these phenomena would not exist. |
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