The Authority of Reason

REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA HIST 1301 | History The Authority of Reason The Enlightenment cannot be boiled down to a single, overarching theory or collection of knowledge. However, the emphasis of the seventeenth century on applying reason to address issues of human nature, the complexities of political power and the social order, and the rules of logic and scientific thinking motivated Enlightenment thinkers in intellectual circles in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Many of the elements of Western science that influenced Enlightenment philosophy, along with the theories of the Italian Renaissance, originated in the Islamic world, which had assimilated old Greek and Indian knowledge systems. Specifically, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled region of Spain and Portugal that sprang to prominence in 711, started to exert a major effect on European intellectual activity. The European Renaissance of the twelfth century and the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were both fuelled by Muslim academics in Spain who preserved and translated the writings of ancient Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle and Plato, that were unavailable in Europe at the time. Averroes, a scholar from the twelfth century, was among the Muslim scientists in mediaeval Al-Andalus who not only preserved important Greek manuscripts but also composed and translated Arabic philosophical treatises that were extensively read by academics in Christian Europe. Arabic, Indian, and Persian texts on astronomy, medicine, and mathematics have long had a profound impact on European philosophy and science, as well as other parts of the Muslim world. Scholars of the Scientific Revolution were able to create innovative theories about the nature of planetary motion and the universe thanks to the contributions of sixth-century Indian philosopher Aryabhata and mediaeval Persian mathematicians like Muhammad ibn Musa alKhwarizmi and Omar Khayyam in the study of algebra and trigonometry, respectively. However, these developments would not have been possible without the invention of fractions in the Arabic numeral systems of North Africa by the eleventh century and the decimal number system in ancient India. The Scientific Revolution was sparked by scientists' capacity to compute complex mathematical formulae and explain the nuances of planetary motion, which also replaced superstition and deeply held religious beliefs with verifiable knowledge. Thus, cross-cultural networks of study and knowledge sharing that promoted the advancement of science were responsible for the Enlightenment. The concepts of deductive and inductive reasoning were two of the tenets that shaped Enlightenment ideas about knowing. These strategies, which date back to the Scientific Revolution's theoretical underpinnings, offer many ways to arrange data and formulate theories. Deductive reasoning, on the other hand, starts with a basic statement or theory and applies it to particular conclusions, whereas inductive reasoning accumulates individual examples and observations to arrive at a wide generalisation. The Greek philosopher Aristotle's teachings from the fourth century BCE are where deductive thinking first appeared. However, it was French philosopher René Descartes who made deductive reasoning a key element of the Scientific Revolution. The scientific method was founded by Descartes, who fused empiricism—the learning of information from sensory experiences—with deductive reasoning. On the other hand, the English natural philosopher Francis Bacon relied heavily on inductive reasoning. According to Bacon, inductive thinking arrived at a conclusion only after gathering evidence, in contrast to the deductive technique, which started with a hypothesis and eliminated any evidence that did not support it. Only inductive reasoning, in Bacon's opinion, allowed researchers to back up their findings with actual evidence as opposed to mere speculation. In the end, both deductive and inductive reasoning contributed to the Enlightenment's intellectual milieu by offering two methodical approaches to extrapolating conclusions about the natural world from data and observations. Enlightenment intellectuals, in whatever form, accepted the scientific method as a way to apply objectivity and reason to the gathering and evaluation of data.