Cartesian Revolution and Revolutionary Science - Essay Example

Cartesian Revolution and Revolutionary Science Compare and contrast the Cartesian revolution with Kuhns notion of revolutionary science. Introduction With the ideas presented by Thomas Kuhn, the concept of revolutionary science gain importance as a part of the philosophy of science and other fields of inquiry (Percival, 1976). This importance was previously lacking in the empirical tradition since Kuhn’s ideas came to link scientific revolutions to a historical context (Doppelt, 2006). Of course there have been those thinkers who refute the views taken by Kuhn but on a deeper examination as well as through the support of those who accept his views, it can be shown that the Cartesian revolution had a lot in common with Kuhn’s notion of revolutionary science. The Paradigm Shift The essence of Kuhn’s ideas when it comes to a scientific revolution is a paradigm shift which causes fundamental changes in the way science is approached by the scientists of the time. A scientific revolution as defined by Doppelt (2006) is: “A large-scale change in the fundamental concepts, theories, or methods that scientists in some area of inquiry employ to understand the course of nature. Such a change is also thought to be revolutionary in so far as it provokes similarly dramatic alterations in the way lay-people see the world around them (Doppelt, 2006, Pg. 3)”. The Cartesian revolution certainly fits the bill in this case since it brought about significant changes in how fundamental concepts were addressed. For instance the approach taken by Descartes to the world around him was unique to the extent that he wanted to see everything as seeing it for the first time. The ideas presented by Descartes can be summed as being in doubt about everything which is not already known to him in a perfect sense. The only thing that he does not doubt is his personal ability to be cognizant of himself and his ability to think about the things which surround him (Pessin, 2007). Looking for Reason However, his notion of science begins with a disbelief in the senses which is certainly a paradigm shift from the earlier natural philosophers such as Plato or Aristotle who had firm belief in some value of their senses. Descartes doubts that anything is actually as his senses tell him as they are. Essentially, all that Descartes is surrounded by could be a just dream or created imagery which is forced upon him by some other (more powerful) being while the reality of things could be quite different (Pessin, 2007). The doubts about his senses and the material world as expressed by Descartes go far beyond the simple doubts a person would have about being what day it is or what date it was a week ago. The scientific approach taken by Descartes to the natural world considers these to be commonplace doubts that can afflict any person in the world. The Cartesian doubts presents situations that go to the very core of a person’s being as he can doubt his ability to hear, see, feel, smell and even taste. For a while Descartes even considers himself to be merely a thought in someone else’s mind as if he does not even have body parts that would let him be taken as a human (Pessin, 2007). When a scientist takes this approach to the world around him/her, the commonly and previously accepted parameters used to define our physical location and presence in the world become meaningless. This is indeed a shift in the scientific paradigm since the body is merely seen as a phantom of the mind. In such a way of thinking, shape, presence, location and movement in three dimensions would also be imagined properties of everything around us. Beginning at this location Descartes starts to try and understand the world around him and comes up with interesting and new ways of approaching scientific phenomenon with the application of reason. The Application of Reason By using an approach of reasoning and understanding the Cartesian revolution leads to the scientific revolution which created the industrial revolution (Bird, 2004). In essence, it touched the scientist, the thinker as well as the layperson due to the paradigm shift which came about when the Cartesian approach was used to view the natural world. The creation of the machines themselves was based on the principles created by the Cartesian revolution and scientific study which allowed for refinements in how iron was produced that allowed the creation of new tools and equipment (Hobsbawm, 1999). The revolution of ideas was also supported by other elements at the same time which were required for improved communications for the transfer of ideas between individuals. These means also provided from the quick delivery of goods since rudimentary transport networks were more or less in place before the revolution. The change in thinking allowed people to expand the trade between cities as well as countries with the use of waterways, scientific application of ideas to the development of roads and the creation of steam powered railway networks. All of these helped the flow of ideas as well the flow of goods and people who could be moved from one location to another in a manner which was far more economical than earlier means (Hobsbawm, 1999). Additionally, Mr. Watt had tamed the genie contained in steam power and had unleashed it on the world by 1760. It must be noted that even before his approach to the steam engine gained acceptance, earlier designs had existed showing that the ideas behind the Cartesian revolution certainly had an impact on scientific thought as well as the mechanical arts. Steam power was soon added to river going boats, sea going ships and other means of mass transport but the impact it had on the workshops and industrial plants was the greatest in terms of how it would change society and affect the layperson as s/he toiled away in factories instead of the fields (Hobsbawm, 1999). The Paradigm Shifts in Management If this was not enough to establish the acceptance of a paradigm shift, the coming of the age of enlightenment provided a new system which accepted the business related applications of the scientific revolution. It used the knowledge that had been accumulated by the best minds of the world and applied them to making higher levels of profit. In this context, the development and perfection of tools such as the steam engine can be takes as only a small part of the whole equation since the process initiated by the Cartesian revolution was guided by scientific analysis and the development new political and social orders which remain intact in some form to this day (Hobsbawm, 1999). With the Cartesian revolution, science was taken from the hands of the landed gentry and shared with modern thinkers and natural philosophers who were as likely to be working in a factory as they were to be working in a bank. Thought experiments which were conducted by Descartes could be conducted by anyone who had the basic knowledge to understand what Descartes and others who were a part of the Cartesian revolution were talking about. For example, Fredrick Winslow Taylor displayed his skills at measuring efficiencies of various systems and developing methods to improve their efficiency (Kanigel, 1997). In fact, efficiency improvement and the quest for efficient operations of a system or a factory take their inspiration directly from the scientific revolution which sought to find the most efficient solutions to natural problems. Fredrick Winslow Taylor had the ability to apply the same principles of science to the process of production management and that made him one of the leading thinkers of the industrial age. Just as Descartes found solutions for mathematical problems with his shift in paradigm, Taylor found ways to improve productivity for a given production system. The revolution created by Taylor can find its origins in the scientific and Cartesian revolutions since the thinkers of the era were working under a shift in their paradigms of approaching various problems. For example, the ideas of the age of enlightenment and the scientific revolution certainly influenced the issues which were faced in the industrial revolution. With the aid of a scientific approach, it was correct to think that machines could be used to replace manual labor and that production and output could be increased while maintaining quality at acceptable levels. The enlightenment of the era and the increases in productivity owes a lot to the ideas presented by the paradigm shift brought on by the Cartesian revolution. The links between Taylor and the Cartesian revolution become clear when we examine the system he suggested in which productivity could be improved if the right person was doing the right job and that the person was given rewards for high performance. This scientific approach to management got popular enough in his own lifetime that he became the first scientific management consultant. He helped companies to increase their productivity while reducing their labor costs to the extent that the work which was formerly done by hundreds of workers could be done with just a few (Nelson, 1980). The application of the ideas of the Cartesian revolution is most obvious in his most famous work i.e. The Principles of Scientific Management which was written to describe a system which could be easily used by different companies who wished to bring a bit of science into their management systems. The usefulness of Taylor’s ideas is still accepted today since his ideas about improving the lives of the workers and the performance of a company continue to remain important for management experts to this day. In fact, the modern fields of organizational psychology, organizational behavior and the analytical approach to management techniques owe a lot to the ideas given by Taylor (Nelson, 1980). A Change in Medicine As suggested by Hatch (2002), the paradigm shift of the Cartesian revolution affected all areas of scientific thought but probably the greatest effect on the human condition came from the effect that it had on medicine and health. A large part of the credit for this shift goes to the developments that came with the scientific and industrial revolutions which allowed the production of certain chemical in large quantities. This meant that things such as disinfectants and other chemicals required for basic medicinal purposes could be produced cheaply and shared with others without causing a scarcity of the concerned material (Wikipedia, 2007). While the industrial revolution brought changes in production, the scientific revolution brought changes in the approach taken to medicine which made sure that experiments, reliable data and empirical studies remain far more important than cures based in folklore. Discoveries such as the concept of harmful and helpful bacteria, the idea of cleanliness being important for good health, the germ theory and even the idea of human evolution helped modern medicine develop as a scientific field (Wikipedia, 2007). Additionally, medicine was helped by the successes of various processes based in scientific discovery connected with the paradigm shift of the Cartesian revolution. Methods and tools such as vaccination, pasteurization and the idea of nursing are all based in taking a new look at medicine and health care which developed during the same times. As a direct result of these, lethal diseases started being eradicated by governments when huge investments were made in public health and government run hospitals (Wikipedia, 2007). These steps also lead to the development of other fields within medicine such as pharmacology and surgery which became more established with experimentation and scientific research. Since the advent and use of gunpowder, more lives had been lost due to warfare which could now be saved if correct medicinal methods could be applied quickly. It were these methods and further exploration of the same methods which leads us to experience and use tools which we take for granted today such as X-rays, penicillin and antibiotics (Wikipedia, 2007). Conclusions Knowing what we know about the Cartesian revolution and the resulting effects it had on scientific thinking as well on the social orders, it becomes easy to see how it matches the idea of a scientific revolution as it was given by Kuhn. Regarding Kuhn’s notion of a scientific revolution, Doppelt (2006) says that: “The philosophical thrust of Kuhn’s notion of scientific revolution can be tersely expressed as the following claim. It is in the very nature of science that it undergo not simply changes in the content of its theories, but more fundamentally changes in the very language, problems, goals, and standards that (re)-define science, the criteria of scientific knowledge, and membership in the scientific community (Doppelt, 2006, Pg. 5)”. Clearly, the Cartesian revolution managed to do all of the above and in connection to every sphere of life ranging for administration to zoology. It changed the theories regarding what people thought to be true and what they thought to be false. While the Copernican revolution only changed how people thought about the world around them and their position in the heavens, the Cartesian revolution changed how people thought about themselves and others around them. Scientific language became the search for answers rather than the search for the right question or the right path and the goal of science changed from the simple acquisition of knowledge to the application of acquired knowledge and then to gain new knowledge out of that application. Most importantly, the Cartesian revolution changed the idea of who could be a scientist. While the natural philosopher who had time on his hands and money to spare could be considered a scientists indulging in experimentation, the Cartesian revolution and its after effects allowed a great many more people to become scientists and take part in the advancement of science. That is why that the ideas presented by Descartes continue to remain important for us even today as we add to our base of scientific knowledge and make new discoveries. I feel that just as Descartes was, any seeker of the truth today is a scientist and that was made possible by the Cartesian revolution which certainly fits the paradigm shift envisioned by Kuhn. As further developments take place in the approaches taken to both the Cartesian revolution and as we gain a better understanding of the ideas presented by Kuhn, I believe that future thinkers will continue to highlight the importance of the Cartesian revolution as a paradigm shift that was accepted by Kuhn as the basis of a scientific revolution. Works Cited Bird, A. 2004, ‘Thomas Kuhn’, Stanford.edu, [Online] Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/ Descartes, R. Meditations on First Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. Doppelt, G. 2006, ‘Scientific Revolutions’, UCSD, [Online] Available at: http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/~bill/teaching/philsci/doppelt.ScientificRevolutions.pdf Hatch, R. 2002, ‘The Scientific Revolution’, University of Florida, [Online] Available at: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Home/08sr-htch.htm Hobsbawm, E. 1999, Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day, Norton. Kanigel, R. 1997, The One Best Way. Viking. Nelson, D. 1980, Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management. University of Wisconsin Press. Percival, K. 1976, ‘The Applicability of Kuhns Paradigms to the History of Linguistics’, Language, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 285-294. Pessin, A. 2007, ‘Descartess Theory of Ideas’, Stanford.edu, [Online] Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-ideas/ Wikipedia. 2007, ‘History of Medicine’, Wikipedia.org, [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medicine#Modern_medicine Word Count: 2,535 Read More