THE CONFLICT THESIS

[wraggy]

Here is the first part of a comparison between Andrew Dickson White's and David C. Lindberg's approach to the history of the relationship between science and Christianity.
Conflict and Complexity in the Historiography of Science and Religion: A Comparison of Andrew Dickson White and David C. Lindberg, Part 1
conversationswithphilemon.blogspot.com/2010/03/conflict-and-complexity-in.html

[wraggy]

Part Two is here conversationswithphilemon.blogspot.com/

Conflict and Complexity in the Historiography of Science and Religion: A Comparison of Andrew Dickson White and David C. Lindberg, Part 2

If the link takes you to the Blogger Page with an apology that the page does not exist, just click "Go to Home Page"

[peterdamian]

1. Science/philosophy and religion are inherently opposed in that science/philosophy holds "there is no rationally disputable question that the philosopher ought not to dispute and determine, because reasons are derived from things. It belongs to philosophy under one or another of its parts to consider all things." The quoted passage is one of the famous propositions condemned in 1277 by Stephen Tempier. www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/Blackwell-proofs/MP_C22.pdf

2. Science/philosophy and the world of affairs/business/warfare are inherently opposed in that the world of affairs involves action and decision and immediate judgment, whereas science and philosophy demand contemplation and reflection and the ability to go back on a judgment.

3. Science/philosophy and religion are not opposed in that both demand contemplation and reflection. Knowledge and scholarship survived in the early Latin West only because the church and the monasteries acted as repositories of a store of ancient wisdom.

4. The viewpoint of Aristotelian physics, cosmology and science is inherently opposed to the viewpoint of modern science. It is truly difficult to distinguish the medieval struggle between science and the church from the struggle between science and Aristotle.

[perplexedseeker]

Interesting, and much more subtle than most comments on this issue. Thanks for your thoughts. A couple of comments...

1. I agree that so defined, the two are opposed. But I am not convinced that your definition is exhaustive. Whatever the medieval Catholic Church may have decided on this matter, I can see a modern religionist being perfectly fine that "there is no rationally disputable question that the philosopher ought not to dispute", including, of couorse, that proposition itself. Fideism is far from being the only option on the menu.

4. Presumably by "modern science" you mean the mechanistic concept of nature pioneered in the late middle ages and renaissance. I'm not sure if I wouldn't call that a battle between two rival philosophies of science, rather than having Aristotle on the one side and all of "science" on the other.

[peterdamian]

Apr 20, 2010 13:49:29 GMT perplexedseeker said:

Presumably by "modern science" you mean the mechanistic concept of nature pioneered in the late middle ages and renaissance. I'm not sure if I wouldn't call that a battle between two rival philosophies of science, rather than having Aristotle on the one side and all of "science" on the other.

No. I mean the conflict between the 'essentialist' view of science promoted by Aristotle and his followers in the middle ages, and the 'contingent' or 'empirical' view of science which was promoted and developed in the 17th century as a widespread and eventually wholesale reaction against Aristotle. The Peripatetic (i.e. school of Aristotle) view of science takes as its model the methodology of mathematics and geometry: start with a set of propositions that are self-evident (per se nota, known to be true of themselves), and proceed by deduction to other propositions which are not self-evident, but which are valid consequences of the self-evident ones. This idea was the model of all 'science' (scientia).

This led to the Aristotelian interest in 'essential propositions' i.e. propositions where the predicate notion is somehow contained in the subject notion. E.g. 'man is a rational animal', 'man is rational', 'man is an animal'. the Aristotelian view of such propositions is that the predicate signifies something real contained in the 'essence' of what is signified by the subject ('man'). All science is thus knowledge of 'essences'. There can be no science of the 'contingent' i.e. propositions true per accidens.

By contrast the 17th scientists and philosophers and their followers derided the concept of 'essences'. Essential propositions are essentially uninteresting, since they are true merely in virtue of their meaning. Since 'man' means 'rational animal' it is hardly surprising that when the meaning of the predicate is contained in the meaning of the subject, the proposition is necessarily true. But such propositions (according to the anti-Aristotelians) give us no real knowledge.

To get a strong sense of what the anti-Aristotelians were complaining about, read the chapters of Locke's Essay on human understanding about this, particular book 4, chapters 6 and 7.

oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Book4a.html

Locke was writing in the heyday of the 17th century. For a similar 19th century view, look at John Stuart Mill's System of Logic, Book I chapter 6.

books.google.co.uk/books?id=KnYDAAAAYAAJ

[edit] Note, when Locke refers to the 'Schools', he is referring to those whom we now call the 'scholastics'. This can mean any medieval scholar, but particularly means (and for Locke always means) a medieval follower of Aristotle. There was a battle in the early high middle ages, from the 12th to early 13th centuries, between Platonists and Aristotelians. The Aristotelian side pretty much completely won the battle in the late 13th century. This was cemented by Thomas's synthesis of Christianity and Aristotelianism that we now call 'Thomist'.

[edit] If you want a sense of what late scholasticism looked like, there is an excellent source here

homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/michael.renemann/suarez/index.html

which is the Vives edition of Suarez's Metaphysical disputations. Unfortunately most of his work (like the majority of scholastical works) is available only in Latin.

[wraggy]

I have a question regarding the movement from the Conflict Thesis toward the Complexity Thesis. Is the recognition that scholars have moved away from the Conflict Thesis a result of polls or questionaires given to historians, or just a recognition that the bulk of the literature has moved in that direction?

[Deleted]

May 13, 2010 8:22:01 GMT wraggy said:

I have a question regarding the movement from the Conflict Thesis toward the Complexity Thesis. Is the recognition that scholars have moved away from the Conflict Thesis a result of polls or questionaires given to historians, or just a recognition that the bulk of the literature has moved in that direction?

I would say the latter.