World History II

Chapter 18: New Worldviews and Ways of Life
1540 to 1790

5: Wed, Sep 18, 2019

Please post in the forum for the day a short essay in response to this question:

Your text presents an interesting summary of conflicts between those Scientific Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophers who believed that direct observation, rightly interpreted, could lead to objective knowledge of the nature of the world, those who doubted sense perception, those who doubted rational analysis could lead to knowledge, and those who believed nothing could ever be known with certainty.

Read through the following selections on the nature of human reason and knowledge. What factors do these thinkers identify as affecting our ability to observe natural and human events? What factors affect our ability to reason clearly? Can we ever prove a scientific principle based on observation with complete certainty? If not, what things or principles can be known and trusted?

• Sir Francis Bacon
• René Descartes
• John Locke
• David Hume