University of Maryland - Fall 2004
HIST 401
Study Questions for Topic 5
Science in the 17th century

Questions numbered in multiples of 5 are essay questions, others are short-answer

*indicates questions that will not be on final exam but may be used for extra credit

Identify means give nationality, profession or field of research, major contribution to science/philosophy and its date within ± 50 years.

1. How did Bacon arrive at the conclusion that "Heat is a motion, expansive, restrained, and acting in its strife upon the smaller particles of bodies" but with an inclination upwards?
2. What is the "Ortega Hypothesis"? How does it pertain to Bacon's views? Is the hypothesis correct?
3. Summarize the story of Atalanta as told by Bacon. What point was he trying to make with the help of this story?
4. Identify: Pierre Gassendi.
5. Discuss the views and achievements of Francis Bacon, and their influence on science.
6. What is Baconian induction? Why did Bacon consider it superior to the Aristotelian syllogism method?
7. Identify: Thomas Hobbes.
8. What was Robert Merton's thesis on English science? What was Feuer's counter-thesis?
9. Identify: Henry Oldenburg.
10. Discuss: "truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion." Who said it?
11. How and when was the Earth-Sun distance first determined accurately?
12. What was the experiment performed by Pascal's brother-in-law; what theory did it support?
13. Who discovered Boyle's Law? What was the role of Franciscus Linus in the discovery?
14. Name and define each of Bacon's 4 "idols." Give an example of one of them (either Bacon's example or one of your own).
15. Bacon vs. Aristotle: discuss the aphorisms of Bacon that you consider may apply to Aristotle's philosophy or to those who follow it. To what extent is Bacon's criticism valid?
16. Explain Bacon's aphorism about the ant, the spider and the bee.
17. Bacon says the second school of Platonists (Proclus et al.) is tainted by "mathematics, which ought only to give definiteness to natural philosophy not to generate or give it birth." Give your own argument either for or against the quoted statement using one example.
18. Explain why, for Descartes, "geometry was able to represent faithfully and without omission the very essence of the subject matter of physics" (Matthews).
19. Matthews calls Descartes an "ambiguous corpuscularian." What does this mean? Is it true?
20. Discuss and compare the theories of light proposed by Descartes and Huygens. What experiment would provide a crucial test of which is correct?
21. What is "fallibilism" and why does Matthews say Descartes adopted it?
22. What does Descartes mean by "quantity of motion"? Give an example in which conservation of total quantity of motion is not equivalent to conservation of total momentum.
23. How did Descartes resolve the problem of objects that continue to move after they have left the hand that throws them, which seemed to contradict Aristotelian physics?
24. How does Descartes justify his law that a body tends to move along a straight line, not in a circle?
25. Compare the views of Bacon and Paracelsus about the nature and purpose of science.
26. Descartes' law that "a body coming into contact with a stronger one, loses none of its motion" seems obviously wrong in general. But there is one special case in which it is correct, and this may have misled him. Explain.
27. Descartes asserts that bodies (things) do not possess secondary qualities (color, sound, smell, etc. ) intrinsically (as substantial forms and real qualities in Aristotelian terminology), rather these exist in our own minds through our perception of primary qualities (figures, sizes, and movements). State one specific example and one general argument that he uses to support this assertion.
28. Explain what Boyle means by "the mechanical philosophy" and "the corpuscular philosophy." How are they related?
29. Boyle is sometimes credited with proposing the first theory of chemical elements in the 19th century sense (i.e., elements are qualitatively different from each other, so one cannot be changed into another).  How is such a theory inconsistent with (or at least significantly different from) the mechanical philosophy he advocates?
30. Discuss the development of the mechanistic "clockwork universe" ("world-machine") theory in the 17th century and its relation to religion. Who were 2 of its major advocates?
31. What are 2 principal reasons why (according to Huygens) light consists in the motion of a certain material (rather than particles of matter).
32. Why did Huygens consider that Descartes' argument for instantaneous propagation of light is incorrect?
33. What was Descartes' "law of conservation of motion" and why did it fail to describe all motion and collisions in the real world? What was Huygens' revised version of this law and how did it fail to achieve Descartes' goal of ensuring that the world-machine never runs down?
34. Explain how Boyle and Roemer get credit for the wrong discovery, i.e. each made an important discovery but is instead credited for another discovery related to it but actually made (in part) by someone else.
35. (No question)
36. Identify: Pyrrhonism.
37. How did Descartes' philosophy support feminism?
38. Identify William Harvey. What was his famous theory? How does his career illustrate the importance of patronage?
39. Explain the historical context and motivation for Descartes' use of cogito ergo sum.
40. Discuss the role of Descartes in the history of science.
41. How did Descartes prove the existence of God? How does this result affect our knowledge of the physical world?
42. How did Descartes arrive at the conclusion that the vortex is the basic kind of motion in the universe?
43. Although Descartes rejected Aristotle's philosophy, he agreed with him on one basic fact about space. Explain how they arrived at the same conclusion by different routes.
44. How did Descartes use a principle of relativity to stay out of trouble with the Catholic Church?
45. (No question)
46. Identify: Jacques Rohault.

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