Exact sciences

Last updated
Ulugh Beg's meridian arc for precise astronomical measurements (15th c.) Ulugh Beg's Astronomic Observatory.jpg
Ulugh Beg's meridian arc for precise astronomical measurements (15th c.)

The exact sciences or quantitative sciences, sometimes called the exact mathematical sciences, [1] are those sciences "which admit of absolute precision in their results"; especially the mathematical sciences. [2] Examples of the exact sciences are mathematics, optics, astronomy, [3] and physics, which many philosophers from Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant to the logical positivists took as paradigms of rational and objective knowledge. [4] These sciences have been practiced in many cultures from antiquity [5] [6] to modern times. [7] [8] Given their ties to mathematics, the exact sciences are characterized by accurate quantitative expression, precise predictions and/or rigorous methods of testing hypotheses involving quantifiable predictions and measurements. [9]

The distinction between the quantitative exact sciences and those sciences that deal with the causes of things is due to Aristotle, who distinguished mathematics from natural philosophy [10] and considered the exact sciences to be the "more natural of the branches of mathematics." [11] Thomas Aquinas employed this distinction when he said that astronomy explains the spherical shape of the Earth [12] by mathematical reasoning while physics explains it by material causes. [13] This distinction was widely, but not universally, accepted until the scientific revolution of the 17th century. [14] Edward Grant has proposed that a fundamental change leading to the new sciences was the unification of the exact sciences and physics by Kepler, Newton, and others, which resulted in a quantitative investigation of the physical causes of natural phenomena. [15]

Linguistics and comparative philology have also been considered exact sciences, most notably by Benjamin Whorf. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of physics</span> Historical development of physics

Physics is a branch of science whose primary objects of study are matter and energy. Discoveries of physics find applications throughout the natural sciences and in technology. Historically, physics emerged from the scientific revolution of the 17th century, grew rapidly in the 19th century, then was transformed by a series of discoveries in the 20th century. Physics today may be divided loosely into classical physics and modern physics.

The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Protoscience, early sciences, and natural philosophies such as alchemy and astrology during the Bronze Age, Iron Age, classical antiquity, and the Middle Ages declined during the early modern period after the establishment of formal disciplines of science in the Age of Enlightenment.

Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics based on reason and the discoveries of science, the project of arguing for the existence of God on the basis of observed natural facts, and through natural phenomena viewed as divine, or complexities of nature seen as evidence of a divine plan or Will of God, which includes nature itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physics</span> Scientific field of study

Physics is the natural science of matter, involving the study of matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines. A scientist who specializes in the field of physics is called a physicist.

Science is a strict systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the world. Modern science is typically divided into three major branches: the natural sciences, which study the physical world; the social sciences, which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences, which study formal systems, governed by axioms and rules. There is disagreement whether the formal sciences are scientific disciplines, as they do not rely on empirical evidence. Applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as in engineering and medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Relationship between religion and science</span>

The relationship between religion and science involves discussions that interconnect the study of the natural world, history, philosophy, and theology. Even though the ancient and medieval worlds did not have conceptions resembling the modern understandings of "science" or of "religion", certain elements of modern ideas on the subject recur throughout history. The pair-structured phrases "religion and science" and "science and religion" first emerged in the literature during the 19th century. This coincided with the refining of "science" and of "religion" as distinct concepts in the preceding few centuries—partly due to professionalization of the sciences, the Protestant Reformation, colonization, and globalization. Since then the relationship between science and religion has been characterized in terms of "conflict", "harmony", "complexity", and "mutual independence", among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scientific Revolution</span> Emergence of modern science in the early modern period

The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology and chemistry transformed the views of society about nature. The Scientific Revolution took place in Europe in the second half of the Renaissance period, with the 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus publication De revolutionibus orbium coelestium often cited as its beginning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural science</span> Branch of science about the natural world

Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scholasticism</span> Medieval school of philosophy

Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translated scholastic Judeo-Islamic philosophies, and "rediscovered" the collected works of Aristotle. Endeavoring to harmonize his metaphysics and its account of a prime mover with the Latin Catholic dogmatic trinitarian theology, these monastic schools became the basis of the earliest European medieval universities, and thus became the bedrock for the development of modern science and philosophy in the Western world. Scholasticism dominated education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. The rise of scholasticism was closely associated with these schools that flourished in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aristotelianism</span> Philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle

Aristotelianism is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics. It covers the treatment of the social sciences under a system of natural law. It answers why-questions by a scheme of four causes, including purpose or teleology, and emphasizes virtue ethics. Aristotle and his school wrote tractates on physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, and government. Any school of thought that takes one of Aristotle's distinctive positions as its starting point can be considered "Aristotelian" in the widest sense. This means that different Aristotelian theories may not have much in common as far as their actual content is concerned besides their shared reference to Aristotle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of biology</span>

The history of biology traces the study of the living world from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of biology as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biological sciences emerged from traditions of medicine and natural history reaching back to Ayurveda, ancient Egyptian medicine and the works of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Galen in the ancient Greco-Roman world. This ancient work was further developed in the Middle Ages by Muslim physicians and scholars such as Avicenna. During the European Renaissance and early modern period, biological thought was revolutionized in Europe by a renewed interest in empiricism and the discovery of many novel organisms. Prominent in this movement were Vesalius and Harvey, who used experimentation and careful observation in physiology, and naturalists such as Linnaeus and Buffon who began to classify the diversity of life and the fossil record, as well as the development and behavior of organisms. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek revealed by means of microscopy the previously unknown world of microorganisms, laying the groundwork for cell theory. The growing importance of natural theology, partly a response to the rise of mechanical philosophy, encouraged the growth of natural history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural philosophy</span> Philosophical study of nature

Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celestial spheres</span> Elements of some cosmological models

The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and others. In these celestial models, the apparent motions of the fixed stars and planets are accounted for by treating them as embedded in rotating spheres made of an aetherial, transparent fifth element (quintessence), like gems set in orbs. Since it was believed that the fixed stars did not change their positions relative to one another, it was argued that they must be on the surface of a single starry sphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Gustav Hempel</span> German writer and philosopher (1905–1997)

Carl Gustav "Peter" Hempel was a German writer, philosopher, logician, and epistemologist. He was a major figure in logical empiricism, a 20th-century movement in the philosophy of science. Hempel articulated the deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation, which was considered the "standard model" of scientific explanation during the 1950s and 1960s. He is also known for the raven paradox and Hempel's dilemma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Positivism</span> Empiricist philosophical theory

Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning a posteriori facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience. Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, introspection, or religious faith, are rejected or considered meaningless.

The branches of science, also referred to as sciences, scientific fields or scientific disciplines, are commonly divided into three major groups:

Michael Friedman is an American philosopher who serves as Suppes Professor of Philosophy of Science and Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies at Stanford University. Friedman is best known for his work in the philosophy of science, especially on scientific explanation and the philosophy of physics, and for his historical work on Immanuel Kant. Friedman has done historical work on figures in continental philosophy such as Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer. He also serves as the co-director of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at Stanford University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European science in the Middle Ages</span> Period of history of science

European science in the Middle Ages comprised the study of nature, mathematics and natural philosophy in medieval Europe. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the decline in knowledge of Greek, Christian Western Europe was cut off from an important source of ancient learning. Although a range of Christian clerics and scholars from Isidore and Bede to Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme maintained the spirit of rational inquiry, Western Europe would see a period of scientific decline during the Early Middle Ages. However, by the time of the High Middle Ages, the region had rallied and was on its way to once more taking the lead in scientific discovery. Scholarship and scientific discoveries of the Late Middle Ages laid the groundwork for the Scientific Revolution of the Early Modern Period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity and science</span> Relationship between Christianity and science

Most scientific and technical innovations prior to the Scientific Revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method. Historically, Christianity has been and still is a patron of sciences. It has been prolific in the foundation of schools, universities and hospitals, and many Christian clergy have been active in the sciences and have made significant contributions to the development of science.

Peter Michael Harman was a British historian who was Professor of the History of Science at the University of Lancaster.

References

  1. Grant, Edward (2007), A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 43, ISBN   9781139461092
  2. "Exact, adj.1", Oxford English Dictionary, Online version (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2016
  3. Drake, Stillman; Swerdlow, N.M.; Levere, T.H. (1999). Essays on Galileo and the History and Philosophy of Science: Volume 1. University of Toronto Press. ISBN   978-0-8020-7585-7. JSTOR   10.3138/j.ctvcj2wt5.
  4. Friedman, Michael (1992), "Philosophy and the Exact Sciences: Logical Positivism as a Case Study", in Earman, John (ed.), Inference, Explanation, and Other Frustrations: Essays in the Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh series in philosophy and history of science, vol. 14, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 84, ISBN   9780520075771
  5. Neugebauer, Otto (1962), The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, The Science Library (2nd, reprint ed.), New York: Harper & Bros.
  6. Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1918), Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development, London / New York: Longmans, Green and Company, ISBN   9780598626806
  7. Harman, Peter M.; Shapiro, Alan E. (2002), The Investigation of Difficult Things: Essays on Newton and the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of D. T. Whiteside, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN   9780521892667
  8. Pyenson, Lewis (1993), "Cultural Imperialism and Exact Sciences Revisited", Isis, 84 (1): 103–108, Bibcode:1993Isis...84..103P, doi:10.1086/356376, JSTOR   235556, S2CID   144588820, [M]any of the exact sciences… between Claudius Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe were in a common register, whether studied in the diverse parts of the Islamic world, in India, in Christian Europe, in China, or apparently in Mesoamerica.
  9. Shapin, Steven (2018). The Scientific Revolution (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. pp. 46–47. ISBN   9780226398341.
  10. Principe, Lawrence (2011). The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 27. ISBN   9780199567416.
  11. Grant, Edward (2007), A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 42–43, ISBN   9781139461092
  12. Cormack, Lesley (1994). "Flat Earth or round sphere: misconceptions of the shape of the Earth and the fifteenth-century transformation of the world". Ecumene. 1 (4): 365. doi:10.1177/147447409400100404. JSTOR   44251730 via JSTOR.
  13. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I, Q. 1, Art. 1, Reply 2, retrieved 3 September 2016, For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself.
  14. Grant, Edward (2007), A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 303–305, ISBN   9781139461092
  15. Grant, Edward (2007), A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 303, 312–313, ISBN   9781139461092
  16. Benjamin Whorf, Linguistics as an exact science. In Language, thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Edited by J.B. CarrollM.I.T. Press, 1956, 20–232.