Jesuits tell the Church that Newton is right and the game’s over
Doesn’t challenge, PROVES.

Loss

• Not center of universe anymore

• 1500 years of ignorance

• Faith changes

• Loss of innocence (like realizing Santa isn’t real)

• God becomes known as The Great Watchmaker—God set the universe in motion but does not intervene.

Gain

• Gives way to deists

• New S.T.E.M. learning and better scientific method

• Religious toleration

• Better education

• Deeper understanding of nature

THE EFFECTS

I. Science becomes mathematical and demands logical, provable explanation.
Epistemology becomes the theory of how to obtain and verify knowledge—experience, reason, and doubt over unsubstantiated authority → Scientific Method.

II. The question: Which was more significant? Loss or gain? Optimism or pessimism?
Battle of Ancients vs. Moderns.

• Francis Bacon: induction (specific → general). Supported scientific thinking. New Atlantis (1627).

• René Descartes (1596–1650): applied scientific method to knowledge → modern philosophy.

  • Deduction (general → specific)

  • Principle of Doubt. “I think therefore I am.”

  • Invented Cartesian plane, analytic geometry

  • Discourse on the Method (1637)

Newton + Bacon + Descartes → Scientific Method
Collect data (induction) → hypothesize → experimentation (deduction)

• Blaise Pascal: mathematician; after 1654 mystical experience, focused on faith.
  Pensées: “The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know.”

III. Marin Mersenne builds scientific correspondence networks → Royal Society of London (1660).

Art and Literature

Mannerism
Esoteric, artificial images, weird perspective, distorted figures, unnatural colors.

• El Greco (1541–1614): Greek painter, mannerist.

• Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592): created the essay.

• Neostoicism: self-knowledge, passive acceptance (Justus Lipsius).

• Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote, satire.

• William Shakespeare (1564–1616).

Return of Assurance: The Baroque

A style of grandeur and opulence, opposing mannerist uncertainty.
Caravaggio starts Baroque.

Baroque characteristics:

• Pronounced light and shadow

• Subdued color

• Motion and emotion

• Secular themes

• Dimensional play

• Dramatic moments

Must-Know Baroque Works (Mr. Houser):

• Calling of Saint Matthew

• Judith and Holofernes (Caravaggio & Artemisia Gentileschi)

• David (Bernini / Michelangelo / Donatello comparison)

• The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (Bernini)

• Saint Peter’s Basilica (Bernini finishing vs. Michelangelo building)

• Rape of the Sabine Woman (Peter Paul Rubens)

• Saint George and the Dragon

• Girl with a Pearl Earring (Vermeer)

Baroque splits into Catholic Baroque (ornate, dramatic) and Dutch Baroque (domestic scenes).

Music
New instruments (keyboard, strings).
Opera rises.
Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), Orfeo (1607).

Classicism and Dutch Style

• Classicism: Baroque detail/drama with restraint and structure.

  • Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665).

• Dutch Style: shaped by Protestantism and republicanism.

  • Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669).

• French theater:

  • Pierre Corneille, Le Cid (1636), condemned by Richelieu.

  • Jean Racine (1639–1699).

Social Patterns and Popular Culture

I. Population fluctuations: rise in 16th c., decline in 17th c.

II. Status determinants shift to wealth & education.
Women still limited but Artemisia Gentileschi and Aphra Behn show new talent roles.

III. Peasant taxes rise; landowners increase demands (seigneurial reaction).
Famine + war affect lower classes.
Cities and crime rise. Torture common in courts.

IV. More royal officials.
Village life declines; many migrate to cities.
Urban literacy rises (⅓ of men literate by 1700).

V. Belief in magic and rituals → chaos.
Magic used for remedies, omens everywhere.
Great Witch Craze mainly in Central Europe.

After the Scientific Revolution → rise of political change debates (Absolutism)
Key figures: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

Thomas Hobbes

• From poor family, tutor to aristocrats, used scientific logic to study politics.

• Secretary to Bacon; mathematician for Charles I.

• The Leviathan (1651): people are selfish/ambitious → perpetual war → state of nature

• Radical nominalist; everything explained through appetite and aversion

• War of All against All → only government can restrain

• Social contract: created to avoid the state of nature

• Fear keeps order → create a powerful authority → the Leviathan

• Supports absolutism based on self-interest.

John Locke

• Quiet Oxford scholar; admired Hobbes but disagreed.

• Mind at birth = tabula rasa (blank slate).

• Reason teaches patterns; all men created equal.

• Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690); Two Treatises of Government (1689)

• Knowledge = perception + reflection

• Social contract: people are neutral, not bad; must respect life, liberty, property

• Morality exists (vs. Hobbes).

• Two-step contract → government + sovereign community

• Right to Revolution if government breaks the contract

• Separation of power and checks & balances

• Jefferson heavily borrows Locke’s ideas.