21 Scientific Exploration
21.1.2: Scientific Exploration
Science, based on empiricism and rational thought and embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress, came to play a leading role in the movement’s discourse and thought.
Learning Objective
Describe advancements made in science and social sciences during the 18th century
Key Points
- Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and ideas. The movement greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. Similar rules were applied to social sciences.
- Building on the body of work forwarded by Copernicus, Kepler and Newton, 18th-century astronomers refined telescopes, produced star catalogs, and worked towards explaining the motions of heavenly bodies and the consequences of universal gravitation. In 1781, amateur astronomer William Herschel was responsible for arguably the most important discovery in 18th-century astronomy: a new planet later named Uranus.
- The 18th century witnessed the early modern reformulation of chemistry that culminated in the law of conservation of mass and the oxygen theory of combustion.
- David Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a “science of man.” Against philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passion rather than reason governs human behavior and argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge is ultimately founded solely in experience. Modern sociology largely originated from these ideas.
- Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, often considered the first work on modern economics, in 1776. It had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century. Enlightenment-era changes in law also continue to shape legal systems today.
- The Age of Enlightenment was also when the first scientific and literary journals were established. As a source of knowledge derived from science and reason, these journals were an implicit critique of existing notions of universal truth monopolized by monarchies, parliaments, and religious authorities.
Key Terms
- chemical revolution
- The 18th-century reformulation of chemistry that culminated in the law of conservation of mass and the oxygen theory of combustion. During the 19th and 20th century, this transformation was credited to the work of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (the “father of modern chemistry”). However, recent research notes that gradual changes in chemical theory and practice emerged over two centuries.
- science of man
- A topic in David Hume’s 18th century experimental philosophy A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). It expanded the understanding of facets of human nature, including senses, impressions, ideas, imagination, passions, morality, justice, and society.
- empiricism
- The theory that knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience. It emphasizes evidence gathered through experimentation and by use of the s