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September/October 2007 · Historically Speaking 13 Moral Progress and Early Modern Science Peter Harrison In his inaugural lectures, delivered at Harvard University in 1935-36, pioneer historian of science George Sarton confidendy announced that "the history of science is the only history which can illustrate the progress of mankind." "In fact," he went on to say, "progress has no definite and unquestionable meaning in other fields than the field of science."1 For most historians and philosophers of science this bold view has itself become a victim of the progress of their respective disciplines . Yet Sarton's contention that science is uniquely progressive—in contrast to such areas of human endeavor as the arts, literature, religion, philosophy , and ethics—remains remarkably widespread . His confidence in the progressive nature of science, moreover, was by no means unprecedented, and drew on a long tradition that had its origins in the Enlightenment and received robust expression in the philosophy of Auguste Comte (whom Sarton regarded as a kind of founding father of the history of science). Indeed, the association of science with human advancement is one that goes back even further to the beginnings of modern science in the 17th century. During this period, however , the idea of scientific progress was not divorced from the more subjective realm of moral and religious values, and "the advancement of learning," to use Francis Bacon's expression, was premised on a particular vision of moral advancement . The 17th century gave rise both to a new conception of science and a new conception of moral progress, and these were intimately related. In order to gauge the significance of this transition we must understand that science (or, stricdy speaking, "natural philosophy") was considered to be an integral part of philosophy itself. In keeping with classical and medieval models, moreover, philosophical activity then focused less on doctrines and arguments to do with epistemologa' and ontology , and aimed instead at personal transformation.' In our era, when science has largely eschewed questions of meaning and value, it is difficult to image how in the past the study of nature might have served the ends of philosophical formation. Yet if we attend carefully to what past thinkers said about their "scientific" activities, a case can be made that natural philosophy, no less than philosophy proper, was addressed to the question of the pursuit of the good life. The famous Condemnation of Aristotle, issued by the Bishop of Paris in 1277, has typically been understood as a reaction against those Aristotelian doctrines that were held to be inconsistent with Christian teaching. While it is true that a number of such doctrines are identified in the 219 propositions , it can be argued that the primary issue was the Aristotelian conception of the philosophical life From Petrus Apianus, Astronomicum Caesareum (The Emperor's Astronomy), 1 540. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. and the claim that it was superior to the prevailing understanding of the Christian life. Tellingly, the very first propositions to be censured are these: "That there is no more excellent state than to study philosophy," and "that the only wise men in the world are the philosophers." Similarly, the revolution in the sciences that took place over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries may be characterized , at least in part, as a series of attempts to revise the goals of natural philosophy—goals that had previously been subordinated to this broader understanding of philosophy as a formative process. Much of the recent skepticism about the "The Scientific Revolution" has righdy focused on the fact that there was at this time neither "science "—as we understand it—nor a revolution. Yet it is possible to identify a significant change in conceptions of the goals of philosophy and natural philosophy at this time, and this, in my view, accounts for the common sentiment among 17th-century writers that they were witnesses to a momentous change in the realm of learning. On this understanding, the Copernican revolution that saw a rejection of the Ptolemaic cosmos was accompanied by a parallel rejection of the Ptolemaic understanding of the moral goals of mathematical and philosophical investigation. Ideas about the formative role of the contemplation...

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