PHL217H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: History Of Science, A Priori And A Posteriori, Lesson Learned
Document Summary
One commonly characterizes modern science by distinguishing it from medieval science. Medieval science started from general speculative propositions and concepts, while modern science starts from the facts . However, both medieval and ancient science observed the facts, and modern science, no less than medieval science, works with universal propositions and concepts. In fact, galileo (1564-1642), one of the founders of modern science, was criticized by his contemporaries with the same reproach that galileo and his followers had made against scholastic science. Critics of galileo complained his theories were too abstract . Another way of attempting to distinguish the new science from the old is to claim that modern science proceeds experimentally and proves its claims using experiments. However, experimenting (or testing) as a way to gain information about the world was not a process unfamiliar to the ancients or the scholastics.
