4.3. Natural Philosophy and New Science

Philosophy of nature was born in XVI-XVII centuries in Europe, in Italy in particular. It was mainly concerned with materialistic views. This philosophy proved a new kind of worldview free of religion. They proposed a new picture of world in which God and nature and cosmos were a single whole. The Earth was not the center of the Universe. They insisted the possibility of knowing the world by sensual perception and reasoning but not by the revelation. The most brilliant representatives of such trend were Nicolas Copernicus, Yiordano Bruno and Galileo.

Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) studied in Cracow and in Italy, and was best known as a physician. But it was his new system in astronomy that brought him lasting fame. His heliocentric theory had many advantages, computationally, over the dominant Ptolemaic system. While some earlier thinkers had played with the idea that the earth went round the sun, Copernicus put the idea on a mathematical basis. His revolutionary view was not published till shortly before his death, but he had already expressed it widely, so that, at about the same time as the Protestant Reformation, here was another upheaval in thinking which was to have a profound impact spiritually, since it displaced humanity from the center of the cosmos. It was the symbolic and metaphysical effect of Copernicus that brought clashes between his worldview and that of the Churches.

The symbolic effects of Copernicus can be seen perhaps most plainly in the work of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), burnt at the stake for heresy, and some of its metaphysical effects in the thinking of Galileo Galilei, who also ran into problems with the Inquisition. Bruno drew much of his inspiration from the Hermetic writings, and while he thought that this ancient alternative religion might flourish within the structures of Catholicism, his vision was not primarily a Christian one. He saw the cosmos as a boundless living thing, somewhat after the manner of Cusanus, and he considered that there were innumerable other worlds. The whole he saw was in motion. He was thus greatly attracted by Copernicus’ theory, though he rather despised Copernicus as being a mere mathematician who did not see the secret and mysterious significance of his theory. On his return to Italy in 1591, from extensive travels in England, Germany and other parts of Europe, he was arrested by the Inquisition. Though after his first trial in Venice he recanted he was transferred to prison in Rome and in due course tried again. This time he would not recant and was burnt.

Galileo Galilei (1464-1542) was quite a different kind of person. He saw mathematics as a useful tool in astronomy and other sciences, and his various discoveries in mechanics led him to be highly critical of Aristotelianism. His use of the telescope revealed the mountainous character of the moon and four satellites around Jupiter. This destroyed the Aristotelian distinction between celestial and sublunary substances. He stressed the importance of empirical observation, and broke free from the opposition between Platonism and Aristotelianism: a true appraisal of the nature of physical nature could not be arrived at either by authority or by deductive metaphysics. He considered that religion and science should be kept apart - they had differing languages. He was thus critical of those who tried to settle questions in science by appeal to the Bible. In due course he was tried by the Roman Inquisition and was confined to house arrest. Even so he managed to complete and smuggle out his last work “Two New Sciences”, which was published in Holland (here, by the way, we see one of the positive consequences of the fragmentation of Europe: it was not possible, especially with the printing press, to keep anyone universally censored).