INTELLECTUAL

REVOLUTIONS THAT
DEFINED SOCIETY
Prepared by:
Mr. JOEY C. LANDICHO
Instructor I
COPERNICAN IDEAS
• Throughout its early history, Western thought
was greatly shaped by an idea that our planet
was at the very center of everything in the
universe. This "geocentric model" seemed at
first to be deeply embedded in everyday life and
common sense.
The Ptolemaic System
• To go around these complications, Greek astronomers introduced the
new idea of "suborbits" around which the planets circled as the
central points that were carried around the sun. This system was later
developed and given substance by the great Greco-Roman
astronomer and geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria in the 2nd century
AD.
• Even in the classical world, however, there were differences of
opinions, the Greek thinker Aristarchus of Samos, for instance, used
eccentric trigonometric measurements to calculate the relative
distances of the sun and moon in the century BC. He was able to find
out that the sun was very large, and this inspired him to suggest that
the sun was a more likely pivot point for the movement of the
universe.
Arabic Intellectuals
• The new science of "positional astronomy“ - calculating
the positions of heavenly bodies - reached its zenith in
Spain, which had become a dynamic and evolving center of
Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thoughts.
• In the late 13th century, King Alfonso X of Castile sponsored
the compilation of the Alfonsine Tables, which combined
these latest observations with centuries of lslamic records
to bring new calculations to the Ptolemaic system and
provide the needed data that would be used to analyze
planetary positions well into the early 17th century.
Ptolemy Doubts
• At this point the Ptolemaic model was becoming absurdly
complicated and questionable, with yet more doubts added to
keep prediction hard in line with observation.
• In 1377, French philosopher Nicole Oresme addressed this
problem straightforward in the work, "Book of the Heavens
and the Earth." He demonstrated the lack of real proof that
the earth was static and vehemently argued that there was no
reason to think that it was not in motion. Yet, despite his
demolition of the evidence for the Ptolemaic system, Oresme
concluded that he did not personally believe that the earth
was moving.
• By the beginning of the 16th century, the situation had
become very fluid. The twin forces of the Renaissance
and the Protestant Reformation saw many old religious
doctrines opened up to doubts.
• It was in this context that Nicolaus Copernicus, a
Polish Catholic canon, put forward the first modern
heliocentric theory: that of shifting the center of the
universe from earth to the sun.
• Copernicus first published his revolutionary ideas in a short paper
known as the Comméntariolus, which was circulated among friends
in around year 1514.
• His theory was similar in forth to the system proposed by
Aristarchus, and while it overcame many of the earlier model's
defects, it remained deeply attached to certain foundations of
Ptolemaic thought - the most important was the idea that the
orbits of celestial objects were mounted on' many spheres that
rotated in perfect circular movement.
• As a result, Copernicus had to introduce the concept of "epicycles"
to regulate the speed of planetary motions on certain paths of
their orbits. One important consequence of his model was that
vastly expanded the size of the universe. If the earth, indeed, was
moving around the sun, this should provide a changing point of
view: The stars could appear to shift back and forth across the sky.
If they did so, they must be very far away, indeed.
Mathematical Instrument
• Published posthumously, Copernicus' work; “On the Revolutions of
the Heavenly Spheres,” was not initially greeted with madness
though any suggestion that the earth was moving directly
contravenes several passages of the bible and was thought of by both
Catholic and Protestant theologians.
• To make this nonissue, a brief introduction was inserted that
explained the heliocentric model as purely a mathematical
instrument and not a description of the physical universe. In his
life, however, Copernicus himself had shown no such inhibitions.
Despite its heretical assumptions, the Copernican model was used
for the computations involved in the great calendar reform made
by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
• New problems with the model's predictive accuracy
soon began to emerge and prosper, thanks to the
meticulous observations of the Danish astronomer
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), which illustrated that the
Copernican model did not adequately describe
planetary movements. Brahe attempted to resolve
these problems with a model of his own in which the
planets revolved around the sun and moon remained
revolving around the globe. The real solution - that of
"elliptical" orbits - would only be thought of by his
student, Johannes Kepler. **
• It would take sixty years before Copernicanism became truly
emblematic of the divide caused in Europe by the Reformation
of the Church with gratitude to the controversy surrounding
Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. **
• Galileo's 1610 views of the different phases displayed by Venus
and the presence of moons orbiting around Jupiter convinced
him that the heliocentric theory was right, and his vigorous
support for it, from the center of Catholic Italy, was ultimately
expressed in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems. This led Galileo at odds with the papacy, one result of
which was the retrospective censorship of controversial
sections' in De Revolutionibus in 1616. This prohibition would
not be lifted for the next two hundred years.
DARWIN’S THEORY
• Charles Darwin
• British Naturalist; Famous for his work named “On
the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection.”
• He also supported the ideas of earlier scientists that
species evolve through time. But his greatest
contribution to this idea was to show how evolution
took place by a process he called “Natural Selection”.
The Role of God
• In the beginning of the 19th century, fossils were widely
discussed in common society. Many treated them as
normal rock shapes that had nothing to do with living
things. Some also believed that they were corpse of
organisms still alive somewhere since God created living
things in perfection. **
• In 1796, Georges Cuvier, a French naturalist, suggested
that the fossils were the remains of animals that had
become extinct. He reconciled this with his religious ideas
by invoking catastrophes, such as flood from the bible.
• Each disaster swept away a whole kind of living
things; God then replenish earth with new breed
of species. This theory was known as
“Catastrophism” and it became famous after the
publication of Cuvier’s Preliminary Discourse in
1813. **
View from the Beagle
• HMS Beagle is the ship Darwin used in his expedition from
1831 to 1836. He collected fossil, plant, and animal
specimens, packaging them back to Britain.
• After his return to England, Darwin organized his
massive data and made a report called “The Zoology of
the Voyage of HMS Beagle.”
• Wherever the Beagle docked, Darwin keenly observed
all the views of nature. This epic voyage opened the eyes
of young Darwin to the incredible variety and different
species of life.
Comparing Species
• Darwin’s thoughts on possible evolution had been mounting
throughout the Beagle’s voyage, especially during his visit to the
Galapagos island. **
• He saw giant tortoises and got impressed by a species of
mocking birds. They differ island to island, yet they have
similarities not only among themselves but with the other
species that lived on the South American content.
• Evolved from one common ancestor that had somehow flown
across the Pacific from the mainland; then; each variety of
birds evolved by adapting to its present environment.
Jigsaw Puzzle
• Darwin absorbed the ideas of geological renewal introduced by James
Hutton into a theory known as “uniformitarianism”.
• Yet, Charles Lyell’s revolutionary ideas transformed the way Darwin
interpreted the landscape formations , rocks, and fossils he found in
his travels, which he now saw “through Lyell's eyes.”
• Another part of the jigsaw is revealed in 1983 when Darwin read “An
Essay on the Principle of Population” by the English demographer
Thomas Malthus, which had been circulated 40 years earlier.
• Thomas Malthus stated that human populations increase rapidly,
with the potential to double after a generation of 25 years, then
double again in the next generation, and so on. However, food
supplies could not multiply in the same way. Malthus’ way of thinking
was one of the main reasons for Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Years of Silence
• Darwin withdrew from the public’s attention due to his
health problems. In 1892, he was just in his house
settled in peace where he continued to amass many
evidences to support his theory of evolution.
• Scientists around the world sent him various
specimens and data. He also started breeding
different kinds of rock doves, and they would shown
in the first two chapters of The Origin of Species.
Joint Action
• In June of 1858, Darwin received a short essay by a
young British naturalist named Alfred Wallace. He was
surprised because the idea of Wallace replicated his
ideas that he himself had been working on for more
than two decades.
• Encourage by such reaction, Darwin finished his book
which was published on November 24, 1859. “On the
Origin of Species,” sold out all its copies on its very
first day.
Darwin’s Theory
• He describes the process of evolution as a slow and
gradual process. As a population of organisms adapts to
the new environment, it becomes a new species.
• Meanwhile, those ancestors may remain as they are,
or they may evolve in response to their changing
environment, or they may lose the struggle for
survival and suddenly become extinct.
Aftermath
• Most scientist soon accepted Darwin’s concept of
“Survival of the Fittest”.
• Coincidentally, at the same period where Darwin
published his book, a monk named Gregor Mendel
was experimenting with pea plant as he was trying to
prove the process of heredity.
• Darwin’s principle of natural selection remains a vital
cog to understand this.
FREUDIAN THOUGHT
Sigmund Freud
• Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist; He popularized the idea
of the Unconscious, short of introducing the notion that it is
the part of the mind that defines and explains the working
behind our ability to think and experience.
• Freud’s introduction to the world of the unconscious came in
the year 1885 when he stumbled upon the work of the French
neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, who seemed to be
successfully treating patients for symptoms of mental illness
using hypnosis.
• Charcot’s perspective was that hysteria was a neurological
disorder defined by abnormalities of the nervous system. **
Hypnosis or Hysteria
• Freud struggled to find a workable technique on this new-
found knowledge. He then chanced upon Joseph Breuer, a
well-respected doctor, who had found that he could greatly
reduce the severity of his patient’s symptoms of mental
illness simply by asking her to describe her fantasies and
hallucinations.
• They claimed to have found a process to release the
repressed memory from the unconscious, allowing the
patient to consciously recall the memory and confront
the experience. The alleged process set free the trapped
emotion, and the symptoms to disappear.
Inside Our Mind
• It is quite easy to take for granted the reality of the conscious and naively
believe that what we think feel, remember, and experience make up the
entirety of the human mind.
• Freud says that the active state of consciousness, that is, the
operational mind of which we are directly aware in our daily experience
is just a fraction of the total psychological forces at work in our
psychical reality.
• Beneath the conscious lies the powerful dimensions of the
unconscious, the large warehouse from which our cognitive state and
behavior are dictated. The conscious is effectively the puppet in the
hands of the unconscious. Thus, the conscious mind is merely the
surface of a complex psychic realm.
• Freud says, it contains within it the smaller spheres of the conscious
and that area called the “preconscious.” Everything that is conscious –
that we actively know—has at one time been in the unconscious before
rising to consciousness. **
Dynamic Thought
• Freud was also soon influenced by the physiologist Ernst Brucke,
who was one of the eventual founders of the 19th century’s “new
physiology.” Brucke claimed that like every other living organism,
the human being is essentially a bundle of energy system, and so
must follow the Principle of the Conservation of Energy.
• Freud applied this kind of thinking to mental processes,
resulting in the idea of “psychic energy.” **
• This energy can undergo modification, transmission, and
conversion, but it cannot be destroyed. So if we have thought
that the conscious mind finds unacceptable, the mind
redirects this way away from conscious thought into the
unconscious, in a process Freud termed as “repression”.
Motivating Drives
• Id – obeys the Pleasure Principle, which says that every
wishful impulse must be immediately gratified: It wants
everything now.
• Ego – recognizes the Reality Principle, which states that
we cannot have everything we desire.
• Superego – is a judging force, the source of our
conscience, guilt, and shame.
Psychoanalytic Treatment
• His approach to the treatment is called Psychoanalysis.
• This is only performed by a certified therapist trained
in Freud’s specific approach. It is the therapy that
encourages a patient to lie on a couch and talk.
• Freud’s unique approach to the treatment of
psychological ailments. He sought to free the patient
from repressed memories to decrease their mental
pain.
Accessing the Unconscious
• Freudian Slip – is a verbal error or “slip” of the tongue,” and it is said
to really reveal a repressed belief, thought, or emotion. It is an
involuntary substitution of one word.
• He believed that this process allowed the unconscious to break
through because our minds uses automatic associations, so
“hidden” thoughts come out before the conscious mind has a
chance to interrupt.
• Analysis allowed trapped memories and feelings to come out, and
the patient is often surprised to feel the hidden emotion that has
been buried.
• “Catharsis” – describes the act of relief, releasing and feeling the deep
emotions associated with these repressed memories.
School of Psychoanalysis
• Freud founded the prominent Psychoanalytic
Society in Vienna, with which he exerted his
very powerful influence on the mental health
community of experts at the same time, training
others in his methods and acting as the main
authority in the subject
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