earth;
and the fact that it was a material heaven hardly made it less valuable.
Nevertheless, it was the Industrial Revolution that put the Scientific
Revolution on the map. Bacon's dream of a technological society was not
realized in the seventeenth century or even in the eighteenth, although
things were beginning to change by 1760. Ideas, as we have said, do not
exist in a vacuum. People could regard the mechanical world view as the
true philosophy without feeling compelled to transform the world according
to its dictates. The relationship between science and technology is
very complicated, and it is in fact in the twentieth century that the
full impact of the Cartesian paradigm has been most keenly felt. To
grasp the meaning of the scientific Revolution in Western history we
must consider the social and economic milieu that served to sustain
this new way of thinking. The sociologist Peter Berger was correct when
he said that ideas "do not succeed in history by virtue of their truth
but by virtue of their relationships to specific social processes."25
Scientific ideas are no exception.
2
Consciousness and Society
in Early Modern Europe
From whence there may arise many admirable advantages, towards the
increase of the Operative , and the Mechanick Knowledge, to which
this Age seems so much inclined, because we may perhaps be inabled to
discern all the secret workings of Nature, almost in the same manner
as we do those that are the productions of Art, and are manag'd by
Wheels, and Engines, and Springs, that were devised by humane Wit.
-- Robert Hooke, "Micrographia" (1665)
The collapse of a feudal economy, the emergence of capitalism on a broad
scale, and the profound alteration in social relations that accompanied
these changes provided the context of the Scientific Revolution in
Western Europe. The equating of truth with utility, or cognition with
technology, was an important part of this general process. Experiment,
quantification, prediction and control formed the parameters of a world
view that made no sense within the framework of the medieval social
and economic order. The individuals discussed in Chapter 1 would not
have been possible in an earlier age; or, perhaps more to the point,
would have been ignored, as were Roger Bacon and Robert Grosseteste,
who pioneered the experimental method in the thirteenth century. Modern
science, in short, is the mental framework of a world defined by capital
accumulation, and ultimately, to quote Ernest Gellner, it became the
"mode of cognition" of industrial society.1
It is not my intention to argue that capitalism "caused" modern science.
The relationship between consciousness and society has always been
problematic because all social activities are permeated by ideas
and attitudes and there is no way to analyze society in a strictly
functional way.2 We are confronted, then, with a structural totality, or
historical gestalt, and my point in this chapter will be that science.
and capitalism form such a unit. Science acquired its factual and
explanatory power only within a context that was "congruent" to those
facts and explanations. It will be necessary, therefore, to look at
science as a system of thought adequate to a certain historical epoch;
to try to separate ourselves from the common impression that it is an
absolute, transcultural truth.3
Let us begin our examination of this theme by comparing the Aristotelian
and seventeenth-century world views, and then consider the changes
wrought by the Commercial Revolution of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries on the social and economic world of feudalism (see Chart 1).
The most striking aspect of the medieval world view is its sense of
closure, its completeness. Man is at the center of a universe that is
bounded at its outermost sphere by God, the Unmoved Mover. God is
and the fact that it was a material heaven hardly made it less valuable.
Nevertheless, it was the Industrial Revolution that put the Scientific
Revolution on the map. Bacon's dream of a technological society was not
realized in the seventeenth century or even in the eighteenth, although
things were beginning to change by 1760. Ideas, as we have said, do not
exist in a vacuum. People could regard the mechanical world view as the
true philosophy without feeling compelled to transform the world according
to its dictates. The relationship between science and technology is
very complicated, and it is in fact in the twentieth century that the
full impact of the Cartesian paradigm has been most keenly felt. To
grasp the meaning of the scientific Revolution in Western history we
must consider the social and economic milieu that served to sustain
this new way of thinking. The sociologist Peter Berger was correct when
he said that ideas "do not succeed in history by virtue of their truth
but by virtue of their relationships to specific social processes."25
Scientific ideas are no exception.
2
Consciousness and Society
in Early Modern Europe
From whence there may arise many admirable advantages, towards the
increase of the Operative , and the Mechanick Knowledge, to which
this Age seems so much inclined, because we may perhaps be inabled to
discern all the secret workings of Nature, almost in the same manner
as we do those that are the productions of Art, and are manag'd by
Wheels, and Engines, and Springs, that were devised by humane Wit.
-- Robert Hooke, "Micrographia" (1665)
The collapse of a feudal economy, the emergence of capitalism on a broad
scale, and the profound alteration in social relations that accompanied
these changes provided the context of the Scientific Revolution in
Western Europe. The equating of truth with utility, or cognition with
technology, was an important part of this general process. Experiment,
quantification, prediction and control formed the parameters of a world
view that made no sense within the framework of the medieval social
and economic order. The individuals discussed in Chapter 1 would not
have been possible in an earlier age; or, perhaps more to the point,
would have been ignored, as were Roger Bacon and Robert Grosseteste,
who pioneered the experimental method in the thirteenth century. Modern
science, in short, is the mental framework of a world defined by capital
accumulation, and ultimately, to quote Ernest Gellner, it became the
"mode of cognition" of industrial society.1
It is not my intention to argue that capitalism "caused" modern science.
The relationship between consciousness and society has always been
problematic because all social activities are permeated by ideas
and attitudes and there is no way to analyze society in a strictly
functional way.2 We are confronted, then, with a structural totality, or
historical gestalt, and my point in this chapter will be that science.
and capitalism form such a unit. Science acquired its factual and
explanatory power only within a context that was "congruent" to those
facts and explanations. It will be necessary, therefore, to look at
science as a system of thought adequate to a certain historical epoch;
to try to separate ourselves from the common impression that it is an
absolute, transcultural truth.3
Let us begin our examination of this theme by comparing the Aristotelian
and seventeenth-century world views, and then consider the changes
wrought by the Commercial Revolution of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries on the social and economic world of feudalism (see Chart 1).
The most striking aspect of the medieval world view is its sense of
closure, its completeness. Man is at the center of a universe that is
bounded at its outermost sphere by God, the Unmoved Mover. God is
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