WEBVTT 1 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:22.359 Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve Episode two hundred and sixty. The Scientific 2 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:30.359 Revolution begins, as they once said in Monty Python, now for something completely 3 00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:35.079 different, though not really, as we're going to see, the Age of 4 00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:42.439 Exploration and the Scientific Revolution are inexorably linked. The Scientific Revolution would not have 5 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:48.960 been possible without the Age of Discovery, since the latter shattered so many misconceptions 6 00:00:49.240 --> 00:00:54.280 Europeans held about the world around them. Face with the reality that the world 7 00:00:54.359 --> 00:01:00.719 was so much larger than they had believed, Europeans had to face facts the 8 00:01:00.759 --> 00:01:06.480 way they were interpreting the world around them was wrong. Something had to change, 9 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:11.239 something had to change in a big, big way. There have been 10 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.680 a lot of revolutions in the history of the world. The French Revolution usually 11 00:01:15.719 --> 00:01:19.640 gets top billing if you look up just revolutions. But if you're looking for 12 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:26.680 a series of events that forever shifted how humans viewed themselves and the world around 13 00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:34.480 them, then the Scientific Revolution is the most important event in the history of 14 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:41.480 mankind, at least modern mankind. I was blown away by just how fundamentally 15 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:48.480 things changed after the Scientific Revolution and through the course of it. Sure we 16 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:53.400 all know Galileo and Copernicus But this is about so much more than just the 17 00:01:53.480 --> 00:02:00.719 stars. This is about a fundamental shift in understanding. This is an earthquake 18 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:07.159 that alters literally everything around it. It's about changes in languages and thinking. 19 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:14.280 It is, in other words, nothing less than a total rewiring of the 20 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:20.960 human psyche in computer terms. But for the scientific Revolution, humans were running 21 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:24.560 basically doss for those of us who still know what that is. Afterwards, 22 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:29.199 we're up to at least Windows ninety five, which if you live through the 23 00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:31.039 tech boom of the eighties and nineties you'll know it was a big, big 24 00:02:31.080 --> 00:02:46.919 deal. So, without further ado, let's begin a scientific revolution. When 25 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:53.479 William Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar in fifteen ninety nine, he made a small anachronistic 26 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:59.840 error of referring to a clock striking. There were no mechanical clocks in a 27 00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:06.400 Rome. In Corleones, there is a reference point to the compass, but 28 00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:12.000 the Romans didn't have a nautical compass. These errors reflect the fact that when 29 00:03:12.039 --> 00:03:19.599 Shakespeare and his contemporaries read Roman authors, they encountered constant reminders that the Romans 30 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:25.120 were Pagans, not Christians, but very few reminders of any technological gap between 31 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:31.280 Rome and the Renaissance. The Romans did not have the printing press, but 32 00:03:31.319 --> 00:03:37.159 they had plenty of books and slaves to copy them. They did not have 33 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:43.120 gunpowder, but they had artillery in the form of the ballista. They did 34 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:50.039 not have mechanical clocks, but they had sundials and water clocks. They did 35 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:54.159 not have large sailing vessels that could sail into the wind, but in Shakespeare's 36 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:59.719 day, warfare in the Mediterranean was still conducted by galleys, which were road 37 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:04.439 and of course, in many practical ways, the Romans were much more advanced 38 00:04:04.439 --> 00:04:13.680 than the Elizabethans, better roads, central heating, plumbing. Shakespeare perfectly sensibly 39 00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:20.000 imagine ancient Romes just like contemporary London, but with sunshine and togas. He 40 00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:29.079 and his contemporaries had no reason to believe in the idea of progress. The 41 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:36.839 scientific revolution was the thing that made the Enlightenment's chief conviction, namely that progress 42 00:04:36.959 --> 00:04:46.199 was unstoppable possible. Without the scientific revolution, there is probably no Enlightenment. 43 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:54.800 Certainly without the scientific revolution, there's no industrial revolution. If you don't believe 44 00:04:55.480 --> 00:05:00.319 change on that scale is good or even possible, then it will never happen. 45 00:05:02.199 --> 00:05:06.959 In order to grasp the scale of this revolution. Let's take a moment 46 00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:14.920 and consider a typical well educated European in the year sixteen hundred. I'm going 47 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:18.279 to use someone from England, but it really wouldn't make any difference what European 48 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:26.519 country you chose. Our gentleman believes in witchcraft, and perhaps has read the 49 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:30.959 Demonology written in fifteen ninety seven by King James the sixth of Scotland the future 50 00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:38.279 James the First of England, which paints both an alarming and credulous picture of 51 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:43.439 the threat posed by the devil's agents. He believes witches can summon up storms 52 00:05:43.480 --> 00:05:46.839 that sink ships at sea. King James, in fact, had almost lost 53 00:05:46.839 --> 00:05:53.160 his life in such a storm. Our gentleman believes in werewolves, although there 54 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:57.959 happened not to be any in England, but he knows they're found in Belgium. 55 00:05:58.079 --> 00:06:03.720 He believes the witch Arsa really did turn Odysseus's crew into pigs. He 56 00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:11.839 believes mice are spontaneously generated in piles of straw. He believes in contemporary magicians. 57 00:06:12.920 --> 00:06:17.680 He's heard of men like John Dean, perhaps Agrippa of Netashin whose black 58 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:24.800 dog Monseigneur was thought to have been a demon in disguise. If he lives 59 00:06:24.839 --> 00:06:30.839 in London, he may know people who have consulted the medical practitioner and astrologer 60 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:36.399 Simon Foreman, who uses magic to help them recover stolen goods. He's seen 61 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:43.560 a unicorn's horn, but he has not seen a unicorn. He believes it's 62 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:47.199 possible to turn base metal into gold, although he doubts that anybody knows how 63 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:54.079 to do it. He believes that rainbows are a sign from God and that 64 00:06:54.199 --> 00:06:59.720 comments portend evil. He believes that dreams protict the future if we know how 65 00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:04.720 to interpret them. He believes, of course and without question, that the 66 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:10.959 Earth stands still, and that the sun and stars turn around the Earth once 67 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:16.600 every twenty four hours. He has heard of mention of Copernicus, but he 68 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:21.240 does not imagine that he intended his sun centered model of the cosmos to be 69 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:27.959 taken literally. He believes in astrology, but he doesn't know the exact date 70 00:07:28.040 --> 00:07:32.600 and time of his own birth. He believes that Aristotle is the greatest philosopher 71 00:07:32.639 --> 00:07:39.519 who ever lived, and that men like Pliny, Galen, and Ptolemy are 72 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:45.879 the best authorities on natural history, medicine, and astronomy. He owns let's 73 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:51.680 say a few dozen books. What our gentleman doesn't believe in is change. 74 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:59.079 What he doesn't believe in is progress. But what's fascinating is within only a 75 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:05.160 few years change was in the air. In sixteen eleven, the English thinker 76 00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:09.759 John Dunne, when reflecting on Galileo's discoveries made the previous year, declared that 77 00:08:09.959 --> 00:08:18.839 quote new philosophy calls all into doubt end quote. Several decades earlier, Ticobrie 78 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:24.160 had turned astronomy into the world's first truly modern science. Interestingly, it took 79 00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:28.519 some time for historians to recognize what was going on and that it was truly 80 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:35.840 a monumental change. The historian Herbert Butterfield first lectured on what would become known 81 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:39.720 as the scientific Revolution at the University of Cambridge, but he didn't do that 82 00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:46.360 until nineteen forty eight. The first ever known lecture on the subject had been 83 00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:52.240 given by a different professor the year prior. Nineteen forty seven. This triggered 84 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:58.080 a fight over precisely what was the scientific revolution. Was it Galileo and Sir 85 00:08:58.120 --> 00:09:07.559 Isaac Newton or was it Rutherford Einstein and nuclear physics. The former won out, 86 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:13.919 but just barely. In this respect, the Scientific Revolution is distinct from 87 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:18.480 say, the American or French Revolutions, which were declared revolutions when they happened. 88 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:26.919 This was a revolution constructed by historians looking back. Like the term Industrial 89 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:33.639 revolution, there is an inherent dating problem when it comes to the Scientific Revolution. 90 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:37.639 When did it start? When did it end? Is it still going? 91 00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:43.639 In terms of our narrative, we're in kind of the middle of the 92 00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:48.000 sixteenth century. We've been here for a while now, But Galileo did not 93 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:52.840 make his discovery until the early seventeenth century. So why am I bringing this 94 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:58.519 up right now? Well, I'm not sure there is a perfect time in 95 00:09:58.559 --> 00:10:03.559 this kind of narrative to bring up a movement that arguably spans centuries. That 96 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:09.559 historian Butterfield at Cambridge declared the period in question to range from the year thirteen 97 00:10:09.639 --> 00:10:13.080 hundred to eighteen hundred, And if that is the case, I guess I'm 98 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:18.480 quite tardy in introducing it now. So the short answer for me is Copernicus 99 00:10:18.559 --> 00:10:24.480 dies in fifteen forty three. He is the man with Columbus who I'm starting 100 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:28.080 this journey with. But please know, I certainly could to move this around 101 00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:35.399 and not felt the least bit negligent in doing so. Copernicus, Galileo, 102 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:39.759 Newton, and Darwin and all the rest absolutely knew what they were doing. 103 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:45.639 During this long and protracted revolution. These men were responsible for huge changes in 104 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:50.759 the intellectual reconfigurations that accompanied all their discoveries, and they introduced them partly for 105 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:58.840 that reason, specifically to break the existing machine. None of them worked together, 106 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:01.080 mind you, and none of them had the same end goal in mind. 107 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:09.159 Bacon and Descartes were the other two scientific thinkers whose changes to your communal 108 00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:13.879 processing system remained a little bit more than castles in the air, Yet changes 109 00:11:15.159 --> 00:11:20.840 they were. The fact that the final outcome of the scientific revolution was not 110 00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:24.360 foreseen by any of its members or component parts doesn't make it any less of 111 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:31.080 a revolution. I think it's important to frame our world in fourteen ninety one 112 00:11:31.159 --> 00:11:35.639 a bit before we begin. One cannot understand the revolution if one does not 113 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:41.120 know what has changed in terms of intellectual activity. The way people saw their 114 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:46.000 world, You know, there was little to distinguish Western Europe from fourteen ninety 115 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.799 one, twelve ninety one, or the year nine ninety one for that matter. 116 00:11:52.200 --> 00:11:58.120 Europeans firmly believed in their own intellectual inferiority to the past. Thinkers like 117 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:05.279 ra Stotle and the early Church Fathers were considered to have made all the discoveries. 118 00:12:05.559 --> 00:12:11.480 If modern Europeans quote unquote discovered something a word I will delve into here 119 00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:16.720 and more in a moment, they weren't really discovering something new. Rather, 120 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:22.799 they were uncovering something which had already been known hundreds, if not thousands of 121 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:31.240 years earlier. There was nothing new period Europeans believed the ancients had beaten them 122 00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:37.840 to it. All. This has an important side effect worth discussing. Because 123 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:46.639 there wasn't anything new. There wasn't any point in empirical evidence. Empirical evidence 124 00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:52.759 is objective and sensory. A person's test scores are empirical because I can see 125 00:12:52.799 --> 00:12:56.919 them and they stand for how well the person did on the examination. But 126 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:03.879 the emphasis on empirical it was something that came out of the scientific revolution. 127 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:11.360 Before the revolution, the emphasis was on discussion and logical reason. You didn't 128 00:13:11.399 --> 00:13:16.159 have to measure how quickly two objects fell when you dropped them. You reasoned 129 00:13:16.159 --> 00:13:20.440 it out. I know this sounds strange to us today, and it should, 130 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:26.919 but there was no scientific method yet. There was no concept of science 131 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:33.879 the concept of testing an idea in the real world would have struct university educated 132 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:41.039 Europeans as insane. In the mid fifteenth century, you used logic. If 133 00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:46.639 the logical solution didn't meet what you were seeing and experiencing, right, then 134 00:13:46.759 --> 00:13:56.360 well then your senses must be wrong. And that brings us to Columbus. 135 00:13:56.080 --> 00:14:01.159 Before Columbus discovered the New World in fourteen ninety two, there was no clear 136 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:09.600 cut idea of discovery. If there's no notion one can discover something, there 137 00:14:09.639 --> 00:14:18.200 can be no modern science period. Hence, to discover is a precondition for 138 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:26.039 science. Now, as I mentioned in previous episodes, most Europeans accepted the 139 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:33.720 proposition that the world was round. Columbus's voyage didn't break any models there, 140 00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:39.440 but there was a consensus that there could not be any antipodean land mass. 141 00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:46.519 All right, what is that? So? In geography, the antipode of 142 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:50.960 any spot on Earth is the point on the Earth's surface diametrically opposed to it. 143 00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:58.159 So the exact opposite. A pair of points antipodal to each other are 144 00:14:58.200 --> 00:15:03.639 situated such that a straight line connecting the two would pass through the Earth's center. 145 00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:11.320 So, according to European logic, there couldn't be a North, South, 146 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:16.519 or Central America. And that's because there can't be a land mass directly 147 00:15:16.559 --> 00:15:20.759 opposite from Europe, Asia or Africa. The world was just too small. 148 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:28.279 It couldn't be. Hence, the consequence of Columbus's discovery was a radical transformation 149 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:37.399 in understanding how the world was constructed. More importantly, it was unequivocal proof 150 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:43.360 that the ancients had been wrong. And if they were wrong about that, 151 00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:50.679 well, for the rest of this first episode on the scientific Revolution, I 152 00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:54.279 want to dig into the idea of discovery. On the night of October eleventh, 153 00:15:54.399 --> 00:16:00.919 twelve, fourteen ninety two, Columbus discovered America, but of course he 154 00:16:00.919 --> 00:16:04.919 had no idea what he had just found. It would not be until fifteen 155 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:11.159 oh seven that the first European cartographer showed the Americas as a vast land mass, 156 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:17.559 not quite continents. But more to the point, having discovered a new 157 00:16:17.559 --> 00:16:23.320 world, Columbus had no word to describe what he had done. Literally. 158 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:30.559 Columbus wasn't a formally educated man, but he spoke Italian, Portuguese, Castilian, 159 00:16:30.679 --> 00:16:37.039 Spanish, and Latin, and of those, only Portuguese had a word 160 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:47.600 for to discover, which was disco brier, and even that word had only 161 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:56.720 entered the lexicon twelve years prior, in fourteen eighty five. In all other 162 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:03.400 major European languages, the word for uncover was soon adopted to describe the voyages 163 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:10.079 of discovery, and again uncover has a very different meaning. It suggests that 164 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:12.519 it was always there, Perhaps that the ancient Romans knew about North America and 165 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:19.880 they were just uncovering this. The new word discover began to spread through Europe 166 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:25.799 with the publication in fifteen oh four of the second of two letters written by 167 00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:29.839 a Minigo of Vespucci, the man for whom the Americas ultimately get their name. 168 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:36.079 The new words spread almost as fast as news of the New World itself. 169 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:41.759 In fifteen fifty one, Fernalo Lopez de Castahda published The History of the 170 00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:47.839 Discovery and Conquest of the New World. The book was translated into French, 171 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:52.200 Italian and Spanish, and shortly thereafter into English and German, and this book 172 00:17:52.240 --> 00:17:59.519 sealed the deal. Discovery was now a thing one might do. Of course, 173 00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:03.839 the highlights the reality that the scientific revolution was also This will not be 174 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:07.000 the only time I say this. Driven by the dramatic rise in printing. 175 00:18:08.279 --> 00:18:12.920 In fourteen fifty five the Gutenberg Bible came off the press. And I don't 176 00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:18.880 think it's any coincidence at all that the scientific Revolution came so hot on the 177 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:26.759 heels of the printing revolution. Just consider some of these figures in the thousands 178 00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:30.000 for production of individual copies of printed books. Now, some of these are 179 00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:36.000 estimates, of course, but the printing revolution was a very large scale but 180 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:41.079 at the same time drawn out process, which definitely coincides the Scientific Revolution in 181 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:45.480 fifteen hundred was only starting to pick up speed. So again, these numbers 182 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:51.599 are in the thousands, so between fourteen fifty and fifteen hundred. Best estimates 183 00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:56.960 are around twelve thousand, five hundred, fifteen hundred to fifteen fifty. That 184 00:18:57.079 --> 00:19:04.000 number balloons about eighty thousand, fifteen fifty to sixteen hundred. Now we're over 185 00:19:04.039 --> 00:19:10.359 the one hundred thousand mark, one hundred thousand, thirty eight, sixteen hundred 186 00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:15.480 to sixteen fifty, two hundred, sixteen fifty to seventeen hundred. Now we're 187 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:21.319 at three hundred thirty one thousand. These are books in the thousands. Finally, 188 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:26.519 seventeen hundred to seventeen fifty, three hundred fifty five thousand, seventy three 189 00:19:26.599 --> 00:19:33.240 in the thousands of books printed, So what you can really see is between 190 00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:40.039 fourteen fifty and fifteen hundred. The numbers remarkably small, but that number quadruples 191 00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:44.880 by fifteen fifty, so the ability of printing to sort of keep up with 192 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:52.440 the demand is increasing exponentially. Now. The core meaning of the word discovery 193 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:59.039 continued to change for some time, but certainly after Columbus it did acquire one 194 00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:06.400 of its most central to discover meant to get something or somewhere. First, 195 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:12.039 you could not discover something that had already been found. This idea then further 196 00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:17.119 eight away at the hold of the wisdom of the ancients, the hold that 197 00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:23.200 that wisdom still held over European thinking like a golden cage. Now. Interestingly, 198 00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:27.759 there were discoveries, of course, before fourteen eighty six, when the 199 00:20:27.799 --> 00:20:37.559 word first comes into Portuguese. European sailors first discovered the Azores sometime around thirteen 200 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:45.599 fifty one. The differences no one Cared the Azores were rediscovered in fourteen twenty 201 00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:52.279 seven, and interestingly, it still seems like no one cared sorry Azores. 202 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:56.920 Although there were different ways in Latin of saying something had been found for the 203 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:03.960 first time. Prior to fourteen ninety two, the reality was nobody used phrases 204 00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:08.079 like that. That was because of the ongoing assumption that there was nothing new 205 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:15.559 under the sun. That's why this linguistic change is so crucial. Usually, 206 00:21:15.039 --> 00:21:19.240 a linguistic change is an indicator that people are changing the way they think. 207 00:21:21.640 --> 00:21:26.759 Thus, a linguistic change both facilitates the change and makes it easier for us 208 00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:33.279 to recognize it. So, although there were discoveries and inventions before fourteen eighty 209 00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:41.720 six, the invention of the word discovery marks a decisive moment in Western history 210 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:49.920 because it makes discovery an actor's concept. What I mean is suddenly, to 211 00:21:51.119 --> 00:21:57.759 discover is something you can do. You can set out to discover now. 212 00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:06.599 Prior to Columbus, the primary objective, even of Renaissance intellectuals was to recover 213 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:11.920 the lost culture of the past, not to establish new knowledge of their own. 214 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:19.039 Until Columbus demonstrated that classical geography was hopelessly misconceived, the assumption was that 215 00:22:19.079 --> 00:22:25.640 the arguments of the ancients needed to be interpreted never challenged. But even after 216 00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:32.079 Columbus, the old attitudes lingered. The big problem was the three main pillars 217 00:22:32.079 --> 00:22:38.400 of medieval European thinking, religion, Latin literature, and Aristotelian philosophy all agreed 218 00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:44.759 on one thing. There was no such thing as new knowledge. Even history 219 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:51.559 was assumed to go in circles. Even Plato considered the ying to Aristotle's yang 220 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.440 was no good. Here. Plato insisted there never was anything new because the 221 00:22:56.519 --> 00:23:02.039 soul knew the truth. It always knew the truth. Your soul knew the 222 00:23:02.039 --> 00:23:06.680 truth before you existed in your physical form, and thus there could be nothing 223 00:23:06.759 --> 00:23:12.720 new. The idea of discovery is tied up with ideas like exploration, progress, 224 00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:18.559 originality, authenticity, and novelty. These, though are all ideas of 225 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:26.000 the Late Renaissance, they did not exist before the mid fifteenth century. Of 226 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:29.880 course, it's natural for us to think that there was much that was new 227 00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:34.440 before fourteen ninety two. But what looks new to us generally did not look 228 00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:41.160 so new, or I guess, at least not so incontrovertibly new to contemporaries. 229 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:48.000 An interesting test case is provided by revolutionary developments in art that took place 230 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:55.200 in Florence in the early fifteenth century, so before Columbus's voyage. Leon Battista 231 00:23:55.240 --> 00:24:00.559 Alberti returning there in fourteen thirty four after long years in Eggs, was astonished 232 00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:06.759 at the change that he saw. The new dome of Florence's Cathedral, designed 233 00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:12.000 by Bruna Skelli, was quote vast enough to cover the entire Tuscan population with 234 00:24:12.079 --> 00:24:18.319 its shadow end quote. It towered over the city, and a group of 235 00:24:18.359 --> 00:24:26.279 brilliant artists Bruna Skelli, Donatello Masaccio Guiberti, Lucio de Robia were producing work 236 00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:33.440 which seemed unlike anything that had ever gone before. Again, Alberti writes, 237 00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:38.880 quote, I used both to marvel and to regret that so many excellent and 238 00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:45.400 divine arts and sciences, which were possessed in great abundance by the talented man 239 00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:51.680 of antiquity, have now disappeared and are all entirely lost. He wrote that 240 00:24:51.759 --> 00:24:57.160 in fourteen thirty six. But now, gazing upon the achievement of the Florentine 241 00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:03.680 artists, he thought very differently, writing quote, our fame should be all 242 00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:10.160 the greater, if without preceptors, and without any model to imitate what we 243 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:18.039 invent in arts and sciences, hitherto unheard and unseen end quote. Brunus Kelly's 244 00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:23.160 dome was quote surely a feat of engineering, if I am not mistaken, 245 00:25:23.480 --> 00:25:29.279 that people did not believe possible these days, and was probably equally unknown and 246 00:25:29.400 --> 00:25:34.839 unimaginable among the ancients. End quote. Faced with achievements that seemed to have 247 00:25:36.279 --> 00:25:41.839 no classical parallel, Alberti nevertheless felt obliged to express himself with great caution, 248 00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:51.119 used words like surely, if I am not mistaken, and probably. Alberti 249 00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:56.000 in fact stuck to his guns, claiming that the idea of perspective paintings was 250 00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:00.720 probably, which is what he wrote, unknown to the ancients, even though 251 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:06.839 he was one of the four runters in discovering it. By fourteen sixty one, 252 00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:11.079 though people had changed their mind on perspective painting. Another artist, Ferraretti, 253 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:17.559 in fourteen sixty one, insisted that perspective painting was completely unknown to the 254 00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:22.319 ancients. But if we're looking for another example of continuity to take even Machiavelli, 255 00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:27.519 thought to be the father of modern political theory, even he believed that 256 00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:33.680 the Romans had gunpowder, and hence the military innovations of the fifteenth century weren't 257 00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:37.440 new at all. The crucial distinction here is not between old knowledge and new 258 00:26:37.480 --> 00:26:42.759 knowledge. I think It's between what we might call common knowledge, things generally 259 00:26:42.799 --> 00:26:47.839 known by most people, and what was known only by a privileged few. 260 00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:53.319 These were the people who had access to secret wisdom, knowledge, it was 261 00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:59.599 assumed, was never really lost. That's why the discovery of America was so 262 00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:04.400 crude. Perhaps not initially, but within forty years certainly, no one could 263 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:10.640 argue or dispute that it was an unprecedented event that could not be ignored. 264 00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:15.839 This was new, and Aristotle did not know about it period. What was 265 00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.799 remarkable about the knowledge produced by the voyages of discovery was not just that it 266 00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:25.519 was undisputably new, or that it was public. Geography had been transformed, 267 00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:30.559 not by philosophers teaching in universities, not by learned scholars reading books in their 268 00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:37.200 studies, not by mathematicians. The nord had been deduced by recognized truths as 269 00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:41.960 recommended by Aristotle, or even found in the pages of ancient manuscripts. It 270 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:47.400 was found instead by half educated seamen prepared to stand on the deck of a 271 00:27:47.400 --> 00:27:52.960 ship in all weather. And this brings us to the idea of experience. 272 00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:57.960 What is important, rather the idea that experience isn't simply useful because it can 273 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:04.400 teach you things people already know. Experience can actually teach you things that what 274 00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:11.839 people believed to be true is frankly false. Of course, geographical discoveries were 275 00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:18.240 only the beginning. From the New World came a flood of indisputably new plants, 276 00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:26.200 tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, and new animals and eaters turkeys. This 277 00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:32.319 provoked a long process of trying to document and describe this previously unknown flora and 278 00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:37.200 fauna of the New World, but also by reaction a shocked recognition that there 279 00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:41.960 were all sorts of European plants and animals that had never been properly observed or 280 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:48.119 recorded. Once the process of discovery had begun, it turned out that what 281 00:28:48.279 --> 00:28:53.519 was possible was to make discoveries anywhere, if only one knew where to look. 282 00:28:55.480 --> 00:29:00.640 The old world itself was finally being viewed through new eyes. The noun 283 00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:06.400 discovery first appears in its new sense in English in fifteen fifty four, the 284 00:29:06.519 --> 00:29:11.920 verb to discover in fifteen fifty three, while the phrase voyage of discovery was 285 00:29:11.960 --> 00:29:18.759 being used by fifteen seventy four. Already in fifteen fifty nine, it was 286 00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:23.440 possible in the first English application for a patent made by the Italian engineer Jacobus 287 00:29:23.559 --> 00:29:30.440 Acontius to talk of discovering not a new continent, but a type of machine. 288 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:34.640 Nothing is more honest than those who, by searching have found out things 289 00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:38.160 useful to the public, and should have some fruit of their rights and labors, 290 00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:42.759 as meanwhile they abandon all other modes of gain, are much at expensive 291 00:29:42.759 --> 00:29:48.039 experiments, and often sustained much loss, as has happened to me, I 292 00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.720 have discovered the most useful things new kinds of wheel machines and of furnaces for 293 00:29:52.839 --> 00:29:56.160 dyers and brewers, which when none will be used without my consent, except 294 00:29:56.160 --> 00:30:00.720 there be a penalty, and I, poor with expense and labor, shall 295 00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:06.599 have no return. Therefore a big a prohibition patent against using any wheel machines, 296 00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:10.720 either for grinding or bruising any furnace ers like mine, without consent, 297 00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:18.200 And his suit was eventually granted with the following statement, it is right that 298 00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:22.759 inventors should be rewarded and protected against others making profit out of their discoveries. 299 00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:29.400 This might seem like a shift, an extraordinary shift in meaning, for it's 300 00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:33.279 easy to see how you might uncover something that is already there. Much harder 301 00:30:33.519 --> 00:30:38.920 to see how you could uncover something that has never previously existed, but it 302 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:45.119 must have facilitated by the range of meanings in present Latin for the word invenio, 303 00:30:45.559 --> 00:30:52.720 which covered both finding and inventing. In sixteen oh five, this new 304 00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:59.279 idea of discovery was generalized by Francis Bacon. Indeed, Bacon, in his 305 00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:03.839 work of the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning, claimed that he had discovered how 306 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:11.920 to make discoveries quote and like as the West Indies by the Americas had never 307 00:31:11.960 --> 00:31:15.440 been discovered, if the use of the mariner's needle the compass had not been 308 00:31:15.480 --> 00:31:21.480 first discovered, though the one be vast regions and the other a small motion, 309 00:31:22.119 --> 00:31:26.400 so it cannot be found strange if sciences be no further discovered, if 310 00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:34.720 the art of invention and discovery hath been passed over end quote. Aristotle's philosophy 311 00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:40.960 was based on the idea that one ought to be able to deduce sciences from 312 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:45.680 generally accepted principles. In other words, he believed all the sciences could be 313 00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:52.480 reduced to geometry. Bay can flip this. Where before interpretation meant the interpretation 314 00:31:52.519 --> 00:32:00.640 of ideas or maybe books, now it meant the interpretation of nature may insisted 315 00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:06.279 that effective knowledge would require cooperation between the learned gentlemen and the craftsman, between 316 00:32:06.279 --> 00:32:10.799 the book learning and experience in the shop. Crucially, the difference between these 317 00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:16.920 two sciences could not have been more different. Greek philosophy was about contemplative understanding. 318 00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:24.640 For Bacon, the goal became new technology. The discovery of America, 319 00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:30.319 for Bacon, brought a new commitment to what he called interchangeably advancement and or 320 00:32:30.440 --> 00:32:35.039 progress. The discovery of the New World went hand in hand with the discovery 321 00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:39.359 of progress. Bacon was the first person to attempt to systematize knowledge with the 322 00:32:39.400 --> 00:32:45.960 goal of making progress. Bacon's ideas were much less important when he wrote them 323 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:50.640 in the seventeenth century than they are today. Today. We recognize the value 324 00:32:50.680 --> 00:32:54.440 in Bacon's ideas. Back then, his books got very little traction, and 325 00:32:54.519 --> 00:33:01.279 for one simple reason. Bacon himself never made any discovery. But the key 326 00:33:01.319 --> 00:33:07.240 to discovery is finding something new, and that last word means a lot. 327 00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:12.880 If someone got there first, then your efforts were in vain. Hence, 328 00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:17.880 for the first time, we need rules to regulate discoveries. An early example 329 00:33:17.960 --> 00:33:22.839 of someone confident in his understanding of how these new rules of discovery work was 330 00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:29.599 the anatomist Gabrielli Faliopo. He recounted when he first went to teach at the 331 00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:34.720 University of Pisa in fifteen forty eight, he told his students that he identified 332 00:33:34.759 --> 00:33:37.599 a third bone in the air, other than the hammer and anvil, which 333 00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:43.880 the great anatomist Andreas Velasius had not noticed. It is, after all, 334 00:33:44.039 --> 00:33:47.680 the smallest bone in the human body. One of his students advised him that 335 00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:52.440 Giovanni Philippio and Gracia, who was teaching in Naples, had already discovered this 336 00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:59.119 bone and had named it the stapes or stirrup. Gracia had actually made the 337 00:33:59.160 --> 00:34:02.799 discovery in fifteen forty six, but his work was published only posthumously in sixteen 338 00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:09.599 oh three. When Falipo published in fifteen sixty one, he acknowledged Ingrassia's priority 339 00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:15.880 and adopted the name that he had proposed for the new bone. Now some 340 00:34:15.079 --> 00:34:21.840 argue that these claims are effectively pointless, because no one ever records their discovery 341 00:34:21.960 --> 00:34:25.840 in the moment. Moreover, you might not recognize that you had made a 342 00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:31.880 discovery until years or even decades later. There may not be such a thing 343 00:34:32.039 --> 00:34:38.920 as even one discoverer, but that never stops historians from writing and selling books 344 00:34:38.960 --> 00:34:45.599 on this subject, self deprecating dig their on purpose. So too, as 345 00:34:45.599 --> 00:34:49.239 the category of discovery has developed over time, it has come to include many 346 00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:53.920 radical different types of events. Some discoveries are observations sun spots, for example. 347 00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:59.039 Others, such as those of gravity and natural selection, are commonly called 348 00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:04.599 theories saw mar technologies, for instance, the steam engine. The idea of 349 00:35:04.679 --> 00:35:08.559 discovery is no more coherent or defensible than the idea of a game, which 350 00:35:08.639 --> 00:35:15.119 means that the idea presents philosophers and historians with all kinds of difficulties. That 351 00:35:15.159 --> 00:35:19.480 doesn't mean we should stop using it in this respect. Indeed, it's typical 352 00:35:19.480 --> 00:35:23.880 of the key concepts that make up modern science. It's interesting to think about 353 00:35:23.880 --> 00:35:29.559 the evolution of modern science and the sort of discovery theory and how it passes 354 00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:35.960 through so many different scientific fields. So, for example, Joss Bergei discovered 355 00:35:36.320 --> 00:35:40.440 logarithms around fifteen eighty eight, but he didn't publish until after John Napier did 356 00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:47.400 so in sixteen fourteen. Three different men, Galileo, Harriott and Beekman independently 357 00:35:47.480 --> 00:35:52.199 discovered the law of the fall, but only Galileo published in sixteen o four. 358 00:35:53.519 --> 00:36:00.960 Boil and Marriott, about ten years apart, independently discovered what's called Boyle's 359 00:36:00.039 --> 00:36:07.400 law. Darwin and Wallace independently discovered evolution and published jointly in eighteen fifty eight. 360 00:36:08.840 --> 00:36:14.880 Ultimately, here is what matters when we're talking about this. The existence 361 00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:21.199 of competition among scientists is in itself evidence. Where there is no competition, 362 00:36:21.280 --> 00:36:25.440 there is no concept of discovery. Once again, printing is a key ingredient 363 00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:30.400 in all of this. Sure, it's not impossible to imagine priority disputes before 364 00:36:30.440 --> 00:36:35.920 the printing press, but the reality is that we don't have evidence for any 365 00:36:36.159 --> 00:36:42.400 prior to printing. Galen got into essentially debates in ancient Rome with other doctors, 366 00:36:43.159 --> 00:36:45.920 but there was no mention of who came up with what first. What 367 00:36:46.039 --> 00:36:52.760 printing made possible was to disseminate knowledge over a wide area, relatively quickly and 368 00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:58.000 cheaply. In other words, printing made it possible for the various scholars throughout 369 00:36:58.039 --> 00:37:02.719 Europe to read review and then declare a winner. It doesn't matter if you 370 00:37:02.760 --> 00:37:08.800 discover something first if there's no way to tell anyone about it. Scholars argue 371 00:37:08.840 --> 00:37:14.239 that there can be no science without public knowledge, which is what the printing 372 00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:20.440 press allowed. Scientific knowledge has to be made available for others to question and 373 00:37:20.559 --> 00:37:24.880 test. Private knowledge is not subject to this testing, and hence it could 374 00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:30.800 never be scientific. Discoveries that are never made public aren't really discoveries at all. 375 00:37:32.159 --> 00:37:36.599 Thus, what we have in the late fifteenth century is the perfect storm 376 00:37:36.599 --> 00:37:44.159 of discoveries and technology that made the scientific revolution possible. There was an immediate 377 00:37:44.199 --> 00:37:50.480 realization that there was something new about the geographic discoveries in what is a decision 378 00:37:50.519 --> 00:37:55.480 in fifteen oh seven to call the lands explored by a medico Vespucci America. 379 00:37:55.840 --> 00:38:00.800 Very quickly this became the name of the continent as a whole. Eponomy. 380 00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:06.760 The naming of things after people had not been previously a common practice in the 381 00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:10.079 West. Of course, it wasn't unknown. Christianity, after all, was 382 00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:15.599 named after Christ, and on the same model, heresies tended to be named 383 00:38:15.639 --> 00:38:21.960 after these originators Donatism and Arianism, for example, there were cities named after 384 00:38:22.039 --> 00:38:29.360 founders Alexandria for Alexander, the Great Cesarea for Augustus Caesar, and Constantinople after 385 00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:32.840 Constantine. But epontomy gets a huge boost from the practice of naming new Lands 386 00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:38.320 after the monarchs that patronized their discovery. Example, Philippines after Philip the Secret 387 00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:45.480 of Spain, Carolina after King Charles the First, and Virginia after Queen Elizabeth 388 00:38:45.800 --> 00:38:51.159 the Virgin Queen. Like the idea of discovery, eponomy was soon carried over 389 00:38:51.199 --> 00:38:55.960 into science. Galileo was quick to name new stars after patrons. Again, 390 00:38:57.519 --> 00:39:00.519 that's worth pointing out there is simply no press for this in the ancient classical 391 00:39:00.559 --> 00:39:06.519 world. The only real attempt was in the time of Augustus Caesar, who 392 00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:12.320 tried to name Haley's comment after his dead uncle. This didn't work, of 393 00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:15.119 course. Haley's common only comes close to the Earth to be visible every seventy 394 00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:21.599 seven to seventy nine years. In fifteen sixty. Eponymy came to science, 395 00:39:21.639 --> 00:39:27.000 but only became widespread after sixteen forty eight, when Torres Sally named a standard 396 00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:34.480 tube vacuum experiment after himself. From there the race was on. Discovery itself 397 00:39:34.519 --> 00:39:38.639 is not a scientific idea. Rather, it is foundational for science. It's 398 00:39:38.639 --> 00:39:43.360 difficult to see how modern science could exist without the idea of progress, which 399 00:39:43.639 --> 00:39:49.079 in and of itself could not exist without the acquisition of new information. Hellenistic 400 00:39:49.159 --> 00:39:53.400 science that of Archimedes had no concept of discovery. No one got a gold 401 00:39:53.440 --> 00:39:57.719 medal with the word eureka stamped on it, like we give out the Nobel 402 00:39:57.800 --> 00:40:04.920 Prizes today. Another important ingredient for science is acceptance. For example, it 403 00:40:04.960 --> 00:40:07.960 didn't matter whether you lived in England or Spain. When news of Columbus's first 404 00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:14.440 voyage hate you, you believed it to a large extent. This explains why 405 00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:20.000 Europe held such a monopoly on the scientific revolution for so long. Renaissance Europe 406 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:23.760 was willing to accept new ideas. In places like China and the Ottoman Empire, 407 00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:30.199 new ideas met stiff resistance, and the scientific revolution took a lot longer 408 00:40:30.239 --> 00:40:35.639 in coming. By then, both the Chinese and Ottomans were woefully behind, 409 00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:42.199 which resulted in the period of dominance normally called imperialism. We'll get there someday, 410 00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:47.239 I promise. The discovery of American fourteen ninety two created a new enterprise 411 00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:53.360 that intellectuals could engage in the discovery of new knowledge. This enterprise required that 412 00:40:53.400 --> 00:40:59.440 certain social and technical preconditions to be met. The existence of reliable methods of 413 00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:04.800 communication, critic press, a common body of expert knowledge, and an acknowledge 414 00:41:04.840 --> 00:41:10.320 group of experts able to adjudicate disputes. First cartographers, then mathematicians, then 415 00:41:10.360 --> 00:41:15.039 anatomists, and then astronomers began to play the game, which was inherently competitive 416 00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:22.960 and immediately gave rise to priority disputes and more slowly economic naming inseparable from the 417 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:29.960 idea of discovery with the ideas of progress and intellectual property. Next time, 418 00:41:29.960 --> 00:41:34.440 we're going to go beyond this and think about from a European perspective, as 419 00:41:34.480 --> 00:41:39.880 the news of a new world came in, what exactly is Earth? Anyway? 420 00:41:43.039 --> 00:41:45.199 If you're interested in more content, check out all the links in the 421 00:41:45.239 --> 00:41:47.440 show notes. There's a seven day free trial if you want to become a 422 00:41:47.480 --> 00:41:51.920 patron now so you can see the bonus materials that we've got on there and 423 00:41:51.960 --> 00:41:54.519 see if that's something that interests you. Otherwise, there's always the website and 424 00:41:54.599 --> 00:42:00.119 Western SIP two point oh. We just keep hugging along into the wars of 425 00:42:00.199 --> 00:42:04.119 Alexander's successors. Also a seven day free trial. Check it out.