For all that, western colonialism is but mentioned in passing and given much less ink than say the Catholic church. There is a gross misproportion here.
Although all of those factors should be accounted for as all played a role. Europe is indeed unique in specific cultural ways, such a clanless society due to the Churches Marriage Program, separation of religion and the state, strict primogeniture in some areas. They even jad unique technological tradition even before 1700 that other regions never invented, like clear glass and verge and foliot mechanical clocks. For example, the 5 metaphysical preconditions for science were achieved only in Europe, that the universe is rational, but contigent so people have to test it to know the truth, human mind is capable of rarional thought and therefore understanding the universe, the universe is governed by eternal laws of Nature that the God does not change them in a whim, the human mind is destined to understand nature as a rectification of the original sin. This uniquely pushed intellectuals to actively experiment and learn the world, whereas in all other regions, this was deemed as a completely futile endevour. So i specifically lean on a theological reason for Europes Scientific Revolution which easily tested and identified, but this clear reason was based on an immense mesh of secondary factors, like Roman jurisprudence, Greek thought and Jewish theology, geographical conditions( inceptisols and alfisols, huge pastures, vast and shallow and near water coal deposits), and historical contingencies like the Normans of Italy saving the Pope from Imperial domination. The Great Divergence remains one of the biggest, most riddling questions to be solved.
Ehm, may I ask whether the author actually knows anything about the history of science?
Take the following section, I am but an interested layman; however, I already noticed several obvious 'misunderstandings':
"Yet the Catholic Church, even though it had long supported academic inquiry and even trained the Jesuits to be their scholarly warriors, set itself firmly against the modern science of Isaac Newton, which seemed to posit a “clockwork universe” with no need for an active, intervening God, and defended Aristotelian and Biblical ideals such as the absence of a vacuum in nature and the centrality of Earth in the universe (even the Jesuits, in adapting to modern astronomy, adopted Tycho Brahe’s alternative to the Copernican system, retaining Earth as the center of solar, lunar, and planetary motions.)
Thus, for all the value of the Catholic Church in promoting an organizational structure that was conducive to growth, it was only the failure of the Catholic Church to retain its hold on orthodoxy of thought and monopoly of power, as manifested in the rise of Reformation states and Protestant thinkers who fought the Counter-Reformation to a standstill and eventually triumphed, that enabled a radical modern science to triumph."
1: It is false that Isaac Newton was against the idea of 'an active, intervening God'. He even used divine intervention to 'solve' the three body problem; he reasoned that if the planets are brought too far out of their proper orbits by each others' gravitational influence, God would simply place them back in their places. I had besides read that Newton had also used divine intervention to 'solve' Bentley's paradox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentley%27s_paradox ).
2: The claim that 'the Catholic Church's hold on orthodoxy of thought and monopoly of power' was ended by the Protestant reformation also does not make a lot of sense; even in Catholic countries outside of Italy the Vatican's power was very limited.
For example, in France the booksellers simply ignored that the Vatican had placed Galileo's Dialogo on the index but published Galilei's book anyway.
3: The claim that 'the Reformation enabled a radical modern science to triumph' because 'the church defended Aristotelian and Biblical ideals', also does not make much sense; or at least considering the provided example of astronomy.
Before the reformation Nicholas of Cusa ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_of_Cusa#Science_and_mathematics ) already wrote about such things as 'the Earth being a star like other stars, neither at rest, nor the centre of the universe' and that did not prevent him from becoming a cardinal in the Catholic Church.
If anything, I suspect that blaming the Reformation for leading to increased religious extremism would accord more to the evidence. However, even so, that is certainly insufficient to explain the Catholic Church condemning heliocentrism.
For example, if you look at the chronology of the 'Galileo affair' you will notice that the inquisition was fine with ignoring Galileo's Copernicanism until he started to interpret the Bible as favouring heliocentrism as a layman, which would have been unwise anyway as the theologians saw that as a 'mere mathematicus' intruding in their field, but now even more so due to the whole 'Thirty Years War against Protestants who think laymen should be allowed to interpret the Bible'. Not to mention that Galileo was only placed in his luxurious house arrest after he had attempted to play the Pope, an absolutist ruler, for a fool. In between, Galilei had also insulted other important people; among others he had first falsely accused the Jesuit astronomer Scheiner of plagiarism only to then plagiarising Scheiner himself; with the result that the Jesuits, who had originally supported Galileo, turned against him.
This is a wonderful response. Do you have any recommendations of books and articles on the history of Chinese guilds? Or other institutions for collective action like commons or confraternities?
For all that, western colonialism is but mentioned in passing and given much less ink than say the Catholic church. There is a gross misproportion here.
Although all of those factors should be accounted for as all played a role. Europe is indeed unique in specific cultural ways, such a clanless society due to the Churches Marriage Program, separation of religion and the state, strict primogeniture in some areas. They even jad unique technological tradition even before 1700 that other regions never invented, like clear glass and verge and foliot mechanical clocks. For example, the 5 metaphysical preconditions for science were achieved only in Europe, that the universe is rational, but contigent so people have to test it to know the truth, human mind is capable of rarional thought and therefore understanding the universe, the universe is governed by eternal laws of Nature that the God does not change them in a whim, the human mind is destined to understand nature as a rectification of the original sin. This uniquely pushed intellectuals to actively experiment and learn the world, whereas in all other regions, this was deemed as a completely futile endevour. So i specifically lean on a theological reason for Europes Scientific Revolution which easily tested and identified, but this clear reason was based on an immense mesh of secondary factors, like Roman jurisprudence, Greek thought and Jewish theology, geographical conditions( inceptisols and alfisols, huge pastures, vast and shallow and near water coal deposits), and historical contingencies like the Normans of Italy saving the Pope from Imperial domination. The Great Divergence remains one of the biggest, most riddling questions to be solved.
Ehm, may I ask whether the author actually knows anything about the history of science?
Take the following section, I am but an interested layman; however, I already noticed several obvious 'misunderstandings':
"Yet the Catholic Church, even though it had long supported academic inquiry and even trained the Jesuits to be their scholarly warriors, set itself firmly against the modern science of Isaac Newton, which seemed to posit a “clockwork universe” with no need for an active, intervening God, and defended Aristotelian and Biblical ideals such as the absence of a vacuum in nature and the centrality of Earth in the universe (even the Jesuits, in adapting to modern astronomy, adopted Tycho Brahe’s alternative to the Copernican system, retaining Earth as the center of solar, lunar, and planetary motions.)
Thus, for all the value of the Catholic Church in promoting an organizational structure that was conducive to growth, it was only the failure of the Catholic Church to retain its hold on orthodoxy of thought and monopoly of power, as manifested in the rise of Reformation states and Protestant thinkers who fought the Counter-Reformation to a standstill and eventually triumphed, that enabled a radical modern science to triumph."
1: It is false that Isaac Newton was against the idea of 'an active, intervening God'. He even used divine intervention to 'solve' the three body problem; he reasoned that if the planets are brought too far out of their proper orbits by each others' gravitational influence, God would simply place them back in their places. I had besides read that Newton had also used divine intervention to 'solve' Bentley's paradox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentley%27s_paradox ).
2: The claim that 'the Catholic Church's hold on orthodoxy of thought and monopoly of power' was ended by the Protestant reformation also does not make a lot of sense; even in Catholic countries outside of Italy the Vatican's power was very limited.
For example, in France the booksellers simply ignored that the Vatican had placed Galileo's Dialogo on the index but published Galilei's book anyway.
3: The claim that 'the Reformation enabled a radical modern science to triumph' because 'the church defended Aristotelian and Biblical ideals', also does not make much sense; or at least considering the provided example of astronomy.
Before the reformation Nicholas of Cusa ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_of_Cusa#Science_and_mathematics ) already wrote about such things as 'the Earth being a star like other stars, neither at rest, nor the centre of the universe' and that did not prevent him from becoming a cardinal in the Catholic Church.
If anything, I suspect that blaming the Reformation for leading to increased religious extremism would accord more to the evidence. However, even so, that is certainly insufficient to explain the Catholic Church condemning heliocentrism.
For example, if you look at the chronology of the 'Galileo affair' you will notice that the inquisition was fine with ignoring Galileo's Copernicanism until he started to interpret the Bible as favouring heliocentrism as a layman, which would have been unwise anyway as the theologians saw that as a 'mere mathematicus' intruding in their field, but now even more so due to the whole 'Thirty Years War against Protestants who think laymen should be allowed to interpret the Bible'. Not to mention that Galileo was only placed in his luxurious house arrest after he had attempted to play the Pope, an absolutist ruler, for a fool. In between, Galilei had also insulted other important people; among others he had first falsely accused the Jesuit astronomer Scheiner of plagiarism only to then plagiarising Scheiner himself; with the result that the Jesuits, who had originally supported Galileo, turned against him.
(Sources for the last paragraph are among others: https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2020/01/08/the-emergence-of-modern-astronomy-a-complex-mosaic-part-xxvii/ & https://intellectualmathematics.com/blog/galileo-and-the-church/)
This is a wonderful response. Do you have any recommendations of books and articles on the history of Chinese guilds? Or other institutions for collective action like commons or confraternities?