Interesting book review about science in the "dark ages"

[Crackpot]

(That rubato will either not read or fail to comprehend)

http://www.strangenotions.com/gods-philosophers/

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well, the article does offer an early explanation of why that pertains:

One of the occupational hazards of being an atheist and secular humanist who hangs around on discussion boards is to encounter a staggering level of historical illiteracy. I like to console myself that many of the people on such boards have come to their atheism via the study of science and so, even if they are quite learned in things like geology and biology, usually have a grasp of history stunted at about high school level. I generally do this because the alternative is to admit that the average person's grasp of history and how history is studied is so utterly feeble as to be totally depressing.

[Lord Jim]

Super link CP, looks like an excellent fact-packed treatise on the topic...

Thanks for posting that.

[Big RR]

The book looks like it could be interesting, as it presents a different spin on popular orthodoxy, but I do think the biggest problem with the natural or religious philosophers at that time was that they started from a scriptural perspective, and then rejected scientific discoveries that could not be easily reconciled with the scriptural orthodoxy of the time. So Galileo's heliocentrism was rejected because there is a biblical account of a battle where the leader (Jacob, I think) prayed for additional time to fight and the bible says the sun ceased it motion in the sky--in a heliocentric universe the sun didn't move at all so it couldn't cease the motion (and of course the scriptures can't be wrong). Rather than just laugh up his sleeve at this, Galileo went to great lengths to show that the sun moved (rotated actually, which he showed by sunspot observations), but this was rejected by the religious authorities. Perhaps Galileo rejected and/or ignored the positions of some noted natural philosophers (I'd like to read the book sometime to get a better understanding of this), but he didn't seek to prevent them from publishing or discussing their discoveries the way the church did to him. And the ever widening gap between religious thought and science was brought eventually to a head and led to two separate camps in modern times. Perhaps both sides might have fared better if the scientists, natural philosophers, and church leadership weren't such arrogant jerks, but it's the way it evolved.

Religion and science need not be enemies (Einstein still published his stochastic theories even though he is quoted as saying god doesn't throw dice), but they are different disciplines that can only be reconciled by open discussion and understanding, not angry or sarcastic rhetoric.

thanks CP.

[rubato]

(That rubato will either not read or fail to comprehend)

http://www.strangenotions.com/gods-philosophers/

You read a book! Well congratulations. I'm sure that's quite an achievement for you ... hold on, it's just a book review?

Now that you're warmed up with a few paragraphs perhaps you can read A WHOLE BOOK and then come back and have something worth saying.


And the term for what the Church promoted is called "scholasticism" and it was rejected by empirical science. In other words the most reliable guide to understanding was to look at the world yourself as opposed to relying on scripture or "the canon"; secular writings given the imprimatur of reliability by the Church. An emprircist can open his wife's mouth and find out she has as many teeth as he does rather than relying on Aristotle who said women have fewer.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

(That rubato will either not read or fail to comprehend)

[MajGenl.Meade]

A basic misunderstanding of scholasticism, rubato. It was a dialectic method to study philosophy and theology. It came into disfavor (even in the church) not because of empirical science but because of the developments of humanist thought in the 15th and 16th centuries, which were themselves encouraged by the Protestant Reformation and such thinkers as Erasmus, a theologian who annoyed Martin Luther (always a Roman-thinking man) considerably. Thomas More, Erasmus' close friend and humanist, died because he refused to agree to the denials of the Pope as the authority of the church.

Life is so much more complicated than you pretend it is, rubato. And history remains a bit unfathomable, doesn't it?

[rubato]

A basic misunderstanding of scholasticism, rubato. It was a dialectic method to study philosophy and theology. It came into disfavor (even in the church) not because of empirical science but because of the developments of humanist thought in the 15th and 16th centuries, which were themselves encouraged by the Protestant Reformation and such thinkers as Erasmus, a theologian who annoyed Martin Luther (always a Roman-thinking man) considerably. Thomas More, Erasmus' close friend and humanist, died because he refused to agree to the denials of the Pope as the authority of the church.

Life is so much more complicated than you pretend it is, rubato. And history remains a bit unfathomable, doesn't it?

Pure twaddle.

The essence of scholasticism was that all wisdom was to be found in existing texts with a light application of (fairly crude) logic such as one might find in Aristotle. They began with certain conclusions and then searched the texts for excuses for believing them true. The force which overwhelmed this was empiricism out of which humanism has grown. The greatest example of this is the enormous amount of valueless crap which Newton produced on the subjects of theology and alchemy which were scholastic in genesis versus his laws of motion which were empirical. No one recalls the former because scholasticism is nothing..

The great divide in the history of consciousness was when it was accepted that empiricism was the only method which produced reliably accurate results. Truth. The laws of nature which work everywhere and always and allow us to grow better crops, make better antibiotics, reduce suffering and extend life. It is only then that history became progressive and there was continual improvement in the conditions of life.

The major historical driver of the reformation was the harmful effects of church corruption on the communities they (mis-)governed in the low countries and German states. The sale of bishoprics meant that the purchasers had to extract ever-larger amounts from their parishes to pay back the people who loaned them the money to buy the office. It was not moral outrage at the corruption itself ( as I once thought) but the direct misery caused which drove the whole thing. Rather like the citizens of Ferguson rising up against their own enslavement by a corrupt government.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

The underlying belief which drove scholasticism was the notion, universal in the Church, that human society was inherently degenerate. The human species was not only tainted by "the fall" but had descended to a lower level than the sages of antiquity or the 'divinely inspired' scripture (myths written down and accidentally preserved). This belief made them suspicious of any modern insight however supported by reference to nature or observable facts and made them prefer the canon above all. While they might twiddle about differences in the scriptures and other received wisdom and call it a 'dialectical' approach* the fact that no reference to empiricism was ever afforded even equal force, let alone the greater force which history has proved it deserved, proves they were just wankers. Less intelligent than an octopus who routinely solve problems novel to historical cephalopod experience, something no scholastic achieved in 10 centuries of trying.


yrs,
rubato

* A dialectical method of argument is to present opposing ideas with the notion that the truth will be revealed in the process of opposition and argument. The scholastics pretended to use a dialectical method but in fact only permitted argument from the canon, the dogma, and excluded all others proving that their method was more enforced conformity than an honest argument.