Unit Three: The Scientific Revolution And The Enlightement

Unit Three: The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment World History 10 Mr. Stanfield

From the 16th century to the 18th century, an intellectual revolution shook Europe. We are still living in the world that revolution created. Men and women began to use what they called “reason” to understand and control the world around them. In the 16th and 17th centuries, this took the form of a Scientific Revolution, where modern science took shape, and people began to use experiments and the scientific method to understand the physical world. Beginning in the late 17th century, this critical mindset was carried over into the human world of politics, economics, morality, and philosophy, in a movement which came to be called “the Enlightenment.” Together, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment created much of what we consider to be the “modern” way of thinking—critical, rational, and scientific. It was, in addition, a uniquely European revolution. Though this modern “worldview” has spread to all corners of the globe, it had its origins in the Europe of the 1500s-1700s. In this unit, we will seek to understand what these movements were about, why they were seen as so radical at the time, and why they emerged when and where they did.

Picture source: http://www.worldciv1.homestead.com/files/seebeyond.jpg

Essential questions

How did the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment change the European worldview? What are the strengths and shortcomings of the worldview that emerged from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment?

Readings

Day 1: The Scientific Revolution Due: Bentley, pp. 655-657; Questions: What was the Ptolemaic description of the universe? What was Copernicus’s suggested model, and why did it meet with resistance? What eventually convinced scientists that Copernicus was right? What two methods revolutionized the study of the natural world? What was Kepler’s contribution to the Scientific Revolution? What were Galileo’s? How did Newton’s work serve as the capstone of the Scientific Revolution? Why was it so influential?

Day 2: Scientific Revolution Handouts Due: In class documents by Bacon and Descartes Day 3: The Enlightenment Due: Bentley, pp. 658-59 Questions: How does the Scientific Revolution relate to the Enlightenment? What role did the idea of “natural law” play in the Enlightenment? What were the ideas of John Locke, Adam Smith, and the Baron de Montesquieu? What was a philosophe, and what role did they play in the Enlightenment? Who was Voltaire and what were his ideas? What is Deism? Why would it be so attractive to Enlightenment thinkers? Why did Enlightenment thinkers believe in the inevitability of progress? Were they right or wrong, optimistic or just naïve? What effect did the Enlightenment have on Europe?

Day 4: The Politics of the Enlightenment Due: Supplemental handouts

Day 5: Enlightenment Thinkers Due: Supplemental handouts

Day 6: Religion and the Enlightenment Due: Supplemental handouts

Day 7: Enlightenment Conversation

Day 8: Test Review

Day 9: Test

Supplemental Readings:

Alan Lightman, “In God’s Place”; documents by Galileo and the Inquisition http://nrumiano.free.fr/Images_cg/ptolemee_E.gif http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/ptolemy_ss.gif http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Orbits/ptolemy.gif

Kant and D’Holbach documents