Summary of Anthony Gottlieb's The Dream of Enlightenment

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The seeds of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment were sown in the seventeenth century, when some people began to think that history was the wrong way round. It was not Plato and Aristotle who were the ancients to be revered, but the admirable ancients are us.
#2 Bacon was an advocate of careful and systematic observation, and he adopted as the mascot of the Royal Society of London, one of Europe’s first clubs of scientific investigators.
#3 Descartes was a particularly knowledgeable man, but he is more famous for what he claimed to doubt than what he actually knew. He asked how he could be certain that he was not dreaming, and how he could be certain that some deceitful demon was not filling his head with falsehoods.
#4 Descartes was able to speak with authority about the new science, as he was one of its principal authors. He built a unified account of nature that was as all-encompassing as Aristotle’s, but based on the un-Aristotelian mechanical principle that physical phenomena are to be explained in terms of contact between moving bodies and the motions and shapes of their parts.

Sujets

• renaissance

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 26 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669365303
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Anthony Gottlieb's The Dream of Enlightenment
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The seeds of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment were sown in the seventeenth century, when some people began to think that history was the wrong way round. It was not Plato and Aristotle who were the ancients to be revered, but the admirable ancients are us.

#2

Bacon was an advocate of careful and systematic observation, and he adopted as the mascot of the Royal Society of London, one of Europe’s first clubs of scientific investigators.

#3

Descartes was a particularly knowledgeable man, but he is more famous for what he claimed to doubt than what he actually knew. He asked how he could be certain that he was not dreaming, and how he could be certain that some deceitful demon was not filling his head with falsehoods.

#4

Descartes was able to speak with authority about the new science, as he was one of its principal authors. He built a unified account of nature that was as all-encompassing as Aristotle’s, but based on the un-Aristotelian mechanical principle that physical phenomena are to be explained in terms of contact between moving bodies and the motions and shapes of their parts.

#5

Descartes was a man of science who spent much of his life experimenting and studying the world around him. He was also a secretive man, and did not allow his date of birth to be published in his lifetime.

#6

Descartes was a French philosopher who lived from 1596 to 1650. He was the first to explain the workings of the mind through a method of doubt, and he also developed the first mechanical calculator. He had a series of vivid dreams that changed his life, and he began to focus on the natural sciences and mathematics.

#7

Descartes was afraid of the consequences of his scientific work, which was why he presented it in the context of a wider philosophical project. He hoped that his scientific essays would be used in schools, and that his Discourse on Method would demonstrate how religion and science could coexist.

#8

The Discourse on the Method is a piece of philosophical writing by Descartes in which he demonstrates that he has tried to be extremely cautious and responsible before making any claims of knowledge. It shows that he believes his soul is separate from his body, and that God exists.

#9

The Discourse on the Method was written as an exercise in propaganda to promote Descartes and his work to the Church, but it seems to have been propaganda that Descartes himself believed. It is not clear what method he was talking about, though.

#10

The Meditations is a diary of six days of contemplation written by Descartes. It was written in response to the extreme doubts he had at the beginning of his meditations, which were useful not only because they could strip him of erroneous preconceptions, but also because they provided a route away from the senses.

#11

Descartes’s Meditations is a collection of diary entries that explores the thoughts and ideas of Descartes, from his own existence to the reality of things outside him. However, it can be difficult to see how he gets from his own existence to such large matters as the truth of the mechanical philosophy.

#12

Descartes’s system of knowledge is not based on his own existence, but on God’s. He simply had to find and stay within the limits of what the intellect clearly and distinctly reveals. He believed that God would not allow His creatures to be seriously deceived, provided they exercised some restraint and confined their beliefs to what they clearly and distinctly perceive to be true.

#13

The project of leading the mind away from the senses took a turn for the un-Platonic in the hands of Descartes. He used arguments against the trustworthiness of the senses in order to encourage a mathematically oriented physics that would, among other things, supposedly aid technology.

#14

Descartes’s investigation of what could be made clear and distinct in his ideas of matter led him to conclude that its essential nature is to be extended, that is, to occupy the three dimensions of space. He believed that all of the universe was a brimming sea of tiny particles.

#15

Descartes’s theological arguments are extremely weak. He assumes that God cannot be a deceiver, but then he doesn’t even consider the possibility that God might want to mislead him.

#16

Descartes’s project backfired. He not only failed to win over the theologians of his day, but he also weakened his philosophy in trying to do so. He raised some doubts that he was unable to assuage.

#17

Descartes’s distinction between the inner and outer worlds raised the question of how man could live in both of these worlds at once. He believed that people, but not dolls or animals, have souls which communicate with the mechanisms of their bodies through a particular junction in the brain.

#18

The pineal gland, which is located in the brain, is the only structure that is not duplicated in the brain’s two hemispheres. It secretes a hormone, melatonin, in response to darkness, and it acts as a biological clock.

#19

The myth that Descartes stressed a profound separation between our intellect and the physical world has been fancifully employed by environmental campaigners to blame him for the doctrine that we are separated from the earth and can exploit it as we like.

#20

Descartes’s work was condemned by the Catholic Church and by French universities throughout the rest of the seventeenth century. His work was not accepted by the traditional-minded academics of his time.

#21

The Cartesian revolution continued to make headway in many fields of science, from astronomy to physiology, while conservative university professors looked on nervously from the wings.

#22

The most important treatise on reasoning was written by Arnauld and another philosopher-theologian, Pierre Nicole, called the Logic. It endorsed Descartes’s most distinctive views about knowledge.