Scientific

revolution
Introduction
The Age of Exploration
brought a profound
change in society, not just
in political and economical
terms, but also in the way
people perceived reality

The exploration and

domination of the
continent we know as
America, gave the
european empires
intellectual and material
richness
 Timeline
1543: Copernicus discovered the earth
revolves around the sun
1535: the first anatomical text based on
human dissections is made
1590: the first complex microscope was
created
1609: creation of the first telescope
1632: Galileo proposes the concept of
inertia
1665: Calculus is developed as a central
part of mathematics thanks to Leibniz
1687: Newton’s Laws of motion are
published
 Role of monarchy
During the scientific revolution (1543-1687)
monarchs of different areas of europe contributed
by funding the research of many famous
mathematicians, philosophers and scientists. They
strongly believed that research and discovery
would influence trade, promote centralized
governments and bring confidence in society.

The three essential categories of the revolution

were:
- Anatomy
- Astronomy
- Physics
 Effects and impacts
- The revolution provided hundreds of
technological, astronomical and anatomical
advancements for over 200 years.
- It also gave science the importance it deserved
since it explained the world through logical
reasoning instead of superstition
- Trusting science as a fundamental source to
understand reality also led to economic and
political new developments like capitalism and
enlightenment.
The scientific revolution was not
born in Europe
Newton’s discoveries would not have been possible if
it wasn’t for the previous advancements made by
arabs, ancient greeks or people in India.

Besides this, the immediate impact the revolution had

was limited to close circles of intellectuals.

Last but not least, during the XVIth century, there was
no such thing as what we called science nowadays. It
was called natural philosophy
 Scientific societies
During the middle ages in
After, during the scientific
Europe, the development
revolution, the appearance
of the most important
of institutions like The
universities occurred.
Royal Society of London,
Knowledge was based on
The Royal Society of
Aristotelian principles
Science in France
known as scholasticism.
promoted observation,
The most important skill to
experimentation and
develop was
objectivity as the main
argumentation
skills to build knowledge
 Negative impacts of the
scientific revolution
The connection between science and power became very
evident since most royal families funded scientific research.
This economical support meant the possibility of developing
new technologies that displaced other types of knowledge: for
example, the use of medicinal plants mainly know by women.
This way we got to be excluded from the production of
knowledge and even discredited as witchcraft
 What is the meaning of a
revolution?
Revolutions are not
only a change of
mindset in society. They
are also the
instauration of an
hegemony; this means
the mindset proposed
by the revolution
becomes the dominant
Often science is considered as an absolute truth
that has no historical context, that is opposed to
informal knowledge. But science itself, can be
considered as a specific knowledge built within
the european context. Somehow, it has become
universal and manages a lot of aspects of
contemporary life
 Science and philosophy
One consequence of the scientific revolution
was the determinant division between the
comprehension of nature (science) and the
comprehension of human beings
(philosophy).
This led to an understanding of nature that
was divided from human beings.
The active role we play nowadays as global
citizens consists somehow on understanding
how we as humans are part of the system, of
nature and how we depend on it.