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Galileo Galilei
Most famous for his declaration “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”), Descartes was an important 17th-century French philosopher. In addition to linking the study of algebra to the study of geometry, Descartes pioneered what Kuhn calls the “mechanico-corpuscular” view of the universe. According to this view, all things in the universe were made of tiny bodies (corpuscles), and all motion was created by these corpuscles bumping into one another. Mechanico-corpuscular physics then cast doubt on Aristotle’s belief that objects had innate properties.
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René Descartes Character Timeline in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The timeline below shows where the character René Descartes appears in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4. Normal Science as Puzzle-solving
...to glean information. Second, there are “higher-level, quasi-metaphysical” beliefs that guide each paradigm. For example, Cartesian thinking (pioneered by René Descartes) told scientists that the entire world could be understood in...
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Chapter 9. The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions
...objects had innate natures. This idea had been popularized by Aristotle, but by the 1700s, Descartes’s idea of moving bodies (his “mechanico-corpuscular” view of nature) had taken its place. Many people...
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...Kuhn does not see any one paradigm as more legitimate than the others. For example, Cartesian scientists (those working in the paradigm established by Descartes) gave up looking for gravity because...
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