Henry Dlhopolsky Row 6 AP World Essay 9-28-11 Western Philosophy and Our World View The ideas and

actions of four great thinkers of the past have greatly affected the views and ideas that are currently present in western philosophy. The idea that prevailed was that only matter matters. But is this the only correct answer? The philosophers in question in chronological order are Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, and Newton. They all played a major role in the development of the scientific method. This method leads to telling us what can and cannot be fact. And also tells us what to do with the world that we live in. This scientific method proves that only matter matters. With these things in mind, we can see the next step being how they got their answers. Could some of their methods have been questionable under the standards of the other scientists? Or even the standards set by themselves? The first idea is that something cannot be fact if it was not found using the strict scientific method of Galileo and Newton. They believed that because the things that they had observed using only observation of matter, that any proof or theory must be backed up by experimentation. These things must be true for all space, and all matter. But the scientific method meant that they could not use outside theories and or ideas. But Newton clearly violated this, being inspired by his work in alchemy, a science with no backing and no observation. This is a difference between the two. Galileo was never inspired by anything outside of his observations. But Newton said one thing and did the opposite, similar to what Descartes did. He interpreted his dreams into an idea, I think therefore I am that he felt proved that he and others existed, but this idea came from something outside of the box (the idea of what his method accepts). These were the ideas of his dreams, and interpretations of those dreams. These dreams lead him to his own version of a mathematical method, which he could prove from just fundamental ideas. This meant that he had derived ideas about absolute sciences and mathematics based upon dreams, something totally up to interpretation. Lastly Bacons ideas also clash with his methods. He said that we must torture usefulness out of nature, and thus put natural things outside of his box. These things were fish, animals, and anything that he viewed as un-useful. But how can you extract any useful things

from something that you cannot observe for data? How can you truly learn that which you must ignore? These questions must be asked to Bacon, because he wanted to skip steps in the process of the scientific method, being that no data can be ignored. To use something you must understand how it works. To do that, according to Bacon and Descartes, you must use the idea of reductionism. This means to reduce something to all of its component parts. This is a huge difference between them and Bacon. Bacon didnt want to follow this step. Using this on the earth, you could find most that you needed to know about the world. But to ignore some of these parts, namely organic beings other than humans, would be a corruption of the ideas of reductionism. The rigor of the Scientific Method of Newton and Galileo allows us to know that some things are absolute truths. They allow us to know what information is accurate, and what must be tested. This lead to the questioning of all ideas presented to anyone, and Newton, Galileo, and Descartes all did this in their own ways. Plato and later Galileo searched for an answer to a seemingly impossible question, The problem of the planets He needed to discover the answer to these, but by only using his scientific method. Descartes went even deeper. He doubted even his own existence, but came up with the acclaimed statement I think therefore I am. Then Newton finished it off. He finished his scientific method. Bacon was the one to talk of what we must do with our world. That was the purpose of his method. He wanted to extract the usefulness out of the earth by whatever means necessary. This caused many problems in our society. All of these ideas have small differences, but they all have one huge thing in common, they all require us to doubt everything that we are told. But these ideas have, in some cases, given a positive effect. It allows us to find the answers to our universe in the same, standard way, which can then not be questioned, and should not be questioned if it does in fact follow the rules. Also, it gives us the ability to make theories, and prove our hypotheses, and makes us a stronger nation in science. But, these do come with their drawbacks. First of all, the ideas of Bacon are clearly making an impact on our world today. We are trying to extract everything out of this machine that is our world, and will do anything to get everything. We will and have made off shore oil wells, so that we can get more and more. But it still doesnt help us stop ourselves from destroying the one thing that can help us, the earth itself. There have been huge oil spills, for example the BP oil spill that happened recently. These

factors force the world into deeper and deeper problems, because soon, this machine of our earth will break down and no longer have any usefulness for us, and we will die out. This means that even though we have progressed scientifically, we have not yet progressed enough morally to handle that progress. This is because we are abusing the abilities that it gives to us. So matter does matter, without it we could not survive, but when dealing with anything other than pure science, you should focus much more on the meanings and ideas of the world around you. We need to progress morally before we can handle more progress in science.