Reading Guide:
H. Butterfield, Origins of Modern Science
Chapter:
1
2
3
4
5
 6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Chapter 1, "The Historical Importance of a Theory of Impetus"
 

14.
 What is the supreme paradox of the scientific revolution?
15.
 The confrontation and overcoming of what intellectual hurdle is, for Butterfield, the most amazing in character and stupendous in consequences in 1500 years?
15.
 What is the fundamental nature of the Aristotelian theory of motion?
17.
 Was "inertia" an idea discovered by newer and closer observations?
17.
 What two areas of Aristotelian theory of motion continued to pose problems for the theory?
19.
 For Butterfield, what is the "peculiar character" of Aristotle's theory, and is there any indication that medieval thinkers had reflected on it?
21.
 What discovery about Aristotle was one of the "generative factors" in the "formation of the modern world" and the "development of the scientific revolution"?
23-25.
 What was impetus, and how successful was impetus theory?
25.
 How does "inertia" differ from impetus, and what role did Archimedes' thought help play in leading to the formulation of the idea of inertia?
26-27.
 In what way was the scientific revolution not a reaction against the doctrines of Aristotle?
28.
 What would lead some to claim that there was no scientific "revolution," but simply gradual evolution in scientific thought from the 11th and 12th centuries?

Chapter 2,  "The Conservatism of Copernicus"
 

31.
 When elements are out of their places, they are bound to be what?  Might that lie behind the corruption and change that characterize the sublunary regions? 
31.
 What would a map of the world [earth] look like in the medieval world view [represented by Dante]? 
33.
 [Critical reading] Why is Butterfield mistaken when he answers what had compromised the original beauty of the essentially Aristotelian system of concentric transparent spheres? 
34.
 Just what phenomena did the The Ptolemaic System not exactly cover as observed? [Is Butterfield correct, here?  distinguish between cosmology and mathematical astronomy]
35.
 If the 16th and 17th centuries were the beginning of 'modern' times, what apparently retrogressive study was simultaneously on the increase? 
36.
 If not with Copernicus, when did a passion for new observations come into astronomy? 
36.
 What did Kepler think of Copernicus' critical ability concerning observations? 
37.
 What does B. mean that Copernicus "had an obsession and was ridden by a grievance?" 
40.
 What special irony is there in Copernicus' system not being exactly heliocentric? 
40.
 When B. claims that the key factors for Copernicanism dealt with "its greater economy, ..cleaner mathematics, .. and more symmetrical arrangement", is he speaking of mathematical astronomy or cosmology? 
40.
 Is B correct in saying that for calculation, the Copernican theory provided a simpler and shorter method? 
41.
 What great sacrifice did adopting Copernicus' theory entail?
43.
 If Copernicus was also 'obsessed' with the sphere, what two important questions did he use the sphere to answer? 
44/45.
 Was Copernicus able to clinch his argument? Why not?
46.
 In the apparently modern attempt of the 16th and 17th centuries to see "the whole of nature as a single self-explanatory system", and to "eliminate transcendental influences" what ironically occurred? 

Chapter 3, No Questions Assigned
 

Chapter 4, "The Downfall of Aristotle and Ptolemy"
 

67. How long did the Copernican revolution take, before further scientific development might occur? 
67.
 When was the period of crucial transition concerning Copernicanism?
68.
 If the Old Testament was not Copernican, was it Ptolemaic?  Aristotelian?
68f.
 What factors intensified the Copernican problem?
73.
 Who led the radical reformation of astronomy called for by Maestlin, and how?
74.
 Was Kepler an isolated genius?
75.
 What new experimental 'science" curiously assisted the renovation of astronomy?  What service did it perform?
--
 What are Kepler's Three Laws?  Were they the result of "scientific method" as we understand it?
78.
 Is B. historically accurate when he claims that, "...this worship of numerical patterns, ... became the foundation of a new kind of astronomy?"
79.
 Besides Kepler's laws, what other important additions were made to the anti-Aristotelian and Ptolemaic corpuses?
80.
 Galileo's magnum opus?
80.
 Note: use of jigsaw puzzle metaphor for paradigm.
82.
 How is it that Galileo's treatment of the tides, Book IV of the Dialogues, shows him not yet to have clinched the heliocentric argument? 
83/84.
 Who carries the Galilean research program one stage further, and where and when? 
84.
 What affects this group "perhaps most of all"?
85.
 How did Christians "help the cause of modern rationalism"?
86f.
 What other social or technological factors aided the development of modern science?
87.
 Who seems to have acted as the nerve center of the front line researchers in the 1630s and 40s?

 

Chapter 5, "The Experimental Method in the Seventeenth Century"
 

89.
 What role does the Renaissance play in science?
91.
 When and what was the last recovery of ancient science to be influential in the formation of modern science?
92.
 What does B. think of experimental method and experiment as a major explanation of the birth of modern science?
96.
 In what fields was the scientific revolution most significant?
96.
 What process does Butterfield see as important in making possible the scientific revolution?
99.
 In what lies the importance of the new method?
101.
 Can you justify B's claim that, "without the achievements of the mathematicians, the scientific revolution as we know it, would have been impossible?"
102.
 Why was mathematics important to Descartes?
103.
 Is B. correct in saying Bacon failed to hitch his experimental policy onto the general mathematising mode of procedure?
104f.
 What does B. see as the role of technology in the scientific revolution?
106.
 What is the significance of the 17e creation of scientific instruments, especially measuring instruments?

 

Chapter 6, "Bacon and Descartes"
 

108.
 Why were men of the 17e aware of the need for a revolution in science?
109.
 Who were the principal leaders of the problem of a general scientific method?
110.
 Why does B. cite Ramus and Sanchez?
111.
 Why did Bacon think that "scientific knowledge had made such extraordinarily little progress since the days of antiquity?"
112.
 Why did Bacon liken true scientists to bees, rather than ants or spiders?
114.
 Since Bacon makes both logical faults and factual errors, in what does his importance lie?
116.
 What does Butterfield see as the "root of the error" in Bacon?
117.
 For Bacon, which generalizations were of the greatest utility?
118.
 Given Bacon's awareness of the errors of sense perception, why did he not emphasize the mathematical and geometrical approach to science, like Galileo?
121.
 How did Bacon respond to Galileo's work?
122.
 What does Butterfield think of Descartes' Discourse on Method?
122.
 Why, and for whom, did Descartes write his Discourse?
124/125.
 What Platonic and/or Pythagorean influences are seen in Descartes?   Is hierarchy important?
126.
 What made Cartesian physics dependent on metaphysics, and no so much on experiment?

Chapter 7, "The Effect of the Scientific Revolution on the Non-Mechanical Sciences"
 

130.
 What was the great contribution of seventeenth century science to eighteenth century reason?
130.
 To what are the most fundamental changes in outlook (Weltanschauung) ultimately referable?
133.
 What was the great defect of the ancient thinkers?
134.
 What technical (instrumental) developments may have stimulated the corpuscular philosophy?
134-5.
 How do Harvey, Sanctorius, and Borelli show mechanistic influence?
141.
 What two things did Boyle write consciously against?
145.
 For Boyle, what sufficed "to explain all the variety that exists in nature"?
146.
 What constitutes Boyle's most important contribution to chemistry?
149.
 How was Boyle's career as a chemist inaugurated?
150.
 Given the distinguished level of Boyle's chemical thought, what puzzling historical question does it raise?

 

Chapter 8, "The History of the Modern Theory of Gravitation"
 

156. Into what did Kepler turn the whole problem of gravity?
157. How did Kepler know that 'Jupiter threw shadows and Venus had no light on the side away from the sun?"
160.
 Does Butterfield's view of who first enunciated the theory of universal gravitation agree with Cohen's?
165.
 For Butterfield, what is one of the greatest decades in the scientific revolution?  Why?
168.
 What aided Newton's work in the 1680s?
170.
 What significance has the ultimate victory of Newton over Descartes?

Chapter 9, "The Transition to the Philosophe Movement in the Reign of Louis XIV"
 

172.
 Why does Butterfield choose Fontenelle to illustrate the developments in scientific impact from 1680-1750?
174.
 What typical pattern is there for French scientists of the late 17th century?
175-6.
 How well did science in France fare socially?
177.
 Who carried out the translation of scientific results into a new world view?
178.
 Was the great movement of the eighteenth century literary or scientific?
179f.
 What role do the French bourgeoisie play in the assimilation of the scientific revolution?
183f.
 In what way is the scientific revolution a condition for the French Revolution?

 

Chapter 10, "The Place of the Scientific Revolution in the History of Western Civilisation"
 

188f.
  How does Butterfield account for the development of Western Civilisation?
190.
 What does Butterfield think of the notion that esentially new ingredients were introduced in our civilisation at the Renaissance?
191.
 What does Butterfield think of the scientific revolution in the context of general history?
193.
 What really opens the "new chapter in the history of civilisation"?
201-2.
 What does Butterfield think of the notion that ours is a Graeco-Roman and Christian civilisation?

 

Chapter 11, "The Postponed Scientific Revolution in Chemistry"
 

204ff.
 What was the intellectual obstruction checking the progress of chemical thought?
208.
 What affords "remarkable evidence" of the low status of weights and measures in chemical doctrine before the 1780s?
210.
 What does Butterfield thihnk of the place of phlogiston theory in the history of chemistry?  Do you agree?  [Why does everyone always mention phlogiston in the history of science, almost as if phlogiston were a shibboleth?]

 

Chapter 12, "Ideas of Progress and Ideas of Evolution"
 

224.
 What are the consequences of the Renaissance's "antique-modern" view of history?
228.
 What was, for the Moderns, the decisive fact that destroyed the Ancients?
231.
 What influenced the attempt to develop an idea of progress?
236ff.
 The essential ingredients of evolution were on hand by 1800 -- what are they, and who developed them?
If you had to provide an overview of the development of the theory of evolotion by natural selection, from 1700 to 1859, what would the key ingredients of that history be?
How would you characterize Butterfield's historiography?  For example, is it evolutionary or revolutionary?  social or intellectual?  provincial or global?  detailed and narrow or general and sweeping?  Whiggish?  nationalistic?  hagiographical?  etc


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