Wendy Moore’s The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery is fascinating but not for the squeamish. The key figure is John Hunter, an 18th-century anatomist and revolutionary surgeon of volatile temperament, with a hunger for knowledge that drove him to rob thousands of graves, record the tastes of corpses’ bodily […]
The Enlightenment of the long 18th century was an era of awesome intellectual and cultural transformation. This Enlightenment Vision flowchart is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the 17th century led to the 18th-century revolutions in science, technology, politics, and economics — which in turn led to
The Enlightenment Vision — updated flowchart Read More »
The Enlightenment of the long 18th century was an era of awesome intellectual and cultural transformation. My Enlightenment Vision flowchart [pdf] is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the 17th century led to the 18th-century revolutions in science, technology, politics, and economics — which in turn led
The Enlightenment Vision — Flowchart Read More »
I posted earlier on The Knife Man and John Hunter, the great 18th-century anatomist and surgeon. In Hunter’s era surgery was brutal, in large part due to surgeons’ ignorance of anatomy, and in that earlier post I wondered: Why there was still such ignorance of anatomy given that the 1700s were two centuries after Andreas
Anatomy and the Practicality of Philosophy Read More »
In his open letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), Galileo offered a defense of science against the prevailing heavy hand of religious orthodoxy: “But I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other
Galileo’s modern compromise: Letting science work *with* religion Read More »
From the “Did he/she really say that?” file. Here is adversarial-feminist philosopher Sandra Harding on Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica: “why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as ‘Newton’s rape manual’ as it is to call them ‘Newton’s mechanics’?”[1] How did she get there? Well, Francis Bacon did say that
Is Newton’s *Principia* a rape manual? Read More »
[At the beginning of the new academic year, a re-visiting of the beginnings of modern philosophy.] I vote for Francis Bacon. . . The standard answer gives the honor to René Descartes. Descartes’s claim to the title is based primarily on his epistemology — specifically his method of doubt. The method of doubt is both
The real father of modern philosophy — Bacon versus Descartes Read More »
Stephen Hicks summarizes Ayn Rand’s metaphysics and epistemology with a quotation from Francis Bacon. This is from Part 12 of his Philosophy of Education course. Previous: Cognitive tabula rasa. Next: Human nature: mind/body integration, volition, reason and emotion, tabula rasa morally. Return to the Philosophy of Education page. Return to the StephenHicks.org main page.
Francis Bacon’s “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” Read More »