Western Civilization I / Unit 17 WC1 1619 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Natural Philosophy: Describing a Universe Already Known
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The idea
For a thousand years Europeans explained nature by Aristotle and the ancients plus Christian scholarship. Science was natural philosophy, cataloguing without explaining beyond authority, because, the anchor says, everyone already knew how the world worked from myth, the ancients and the Bible.
In practice
To describe the truth, not discover it, the anchor's frame.
Where people slip
Humanism started the change: ancient authors disagreed with each other.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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