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  1. The Themes of the Baroque Age

  2. Theories of the Universe before the Scientific Revolution
    1. Geocentrism: Aristotle and Ptolemy
    2. Empiricism, and inductive and deductive reasoning

  3. The Magical and the Practical in the Scientific Revolution
    1. The paradox in the movement
    2. The role of technology
    3. Astronomy and physics: from Copernicus to Newton
      1. Nicolas Copernicus: a heliocentric universe
      2. Johannes Kepler: the three planetary laws
      3. Galileo Galilei: revelations about the heavens and discoveries about motion
      4. Isaac Newton: gravity and synthesis
    4. Medicine and chemistry
      1. Ancient and medieval opinions
      2. Andreas Vesalius: early discoveries about the circulatory system
      3. William Harvey: the circulatory system explained
      4. Marcello Malpighi: identification of capillaries
      5. Robert Boyle: beginnings of chemistry
    5. Technology: the clock
    6. The impact of science on philosophy
      1. Francis Bacon: explaining the new learning
      2. René Descartes: skepticism and the dualism of knowledge
      3. Pascal: uncertainty and faith
    7. Ironies and contradictions of the Scientific Revolution
      1. Work of a minority
      2. Christian faith, superstition, and mysticism

  4. The Revolutions in Political Philosophy
    1. Impact of changing political systems
    2. Natural law and divine right: Grotius and Bossuet
      1. Hugo Grotius: natural law and international law
      2. Bishop Bossuet: divine right and God's plans
    3. Absolutism and liberalism: Hobbes and Locke
      1. Thomas Hobbes's The Leviathan
      2. John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

  5. European Exploration and Expansion
    1. Into the Americas, Africa, and the Far East
    2. Roles of various European nations in discoveries and settlements

  6. Responses to the Revolutions in Thought
    1. The spread of ideas
      1. Academies
      2. Fontenelle: popularizing science
      3. Bayle: classifying knowledge
    2. Impact on the arts
      1. Baroque painting
      2. Literature and drama

  7. The Legacy of the Revolutions in Scientific and Political Thought






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