Review of chapter

1. In Review
The Scientific Revolution and the
Enlightenment

2. A few things about the move from the
Dark ages to this new age
• For most of history, man had used “common
sense” to explain the world around him, which
led to many false beliefs.
• During the Middle Ages, Arabs and Jews in the
Islamic Empire preserved ancient Greek and
Roman science.
• Thomas Aquinas (and others) helped people to
understand that Christianity and reason could
work together.
• A Theory is an explanation for how or why
something happens.

3. What you need to know
• Copernicus and heliocentric
• Kepler, the planets, ellipses
• Galileo and science
• Newton and gravity
• Robert Hooke and cells
• Descartes, “I think…”
• Rationalism
• Bacon and the scientific method
• Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu

4. Some new information on some old
people
• Voltaire
– Famous playwright in the 1700’s
– Thought people should be free to choose their
own beliefs
– Supported Deism: Religious belief based on
reason where God created the universe and its
laws, then set it in motion to run.

5. A few more old people worthy of
mention
• Mary Wollstonecraft:
– Considered to be the found of the women’s
movement
– Said that women should have the same rights as
men, which was a pretty new idea
• Rousseau:
– 1762: published The Social Contract
– Government is based on a social contract where
everyone in a society agrees to being governed by
the general will.