The Classical Conception of Science

Abstract

Physical Mechanics and the theory of mechanism constructed upon it can be considered prototypes of early modern science and philosophy of nature. Since from the moment it was established this new type of mechanical science exemplified the redefinition of the relation between science and nature, the principles of mechanics continued to constitute the overall ideal of scientific knowledge of nature right up to the twentieth century. Yet not only in terms of content but also in terms of the formal conditions for the validity of knowledge, a far-reaching change occurred as mechanics became the predominant science. Compared to medieval scholastic ideas, on the one hand empirical experience was upgraded and redefined; on the other hand the rational principles of knowledge founded on reason became central for grounding and deducing scientific knowledge. These two clearly distinct and yet closely related trends, both sharing the goal of the complete command of nature, can be called the empiricizing and rationalizing of the notion of science. If today we were still inclined to consider these features the characteristic mark of science, their origin would fall in the period of early modern times.57 But for analyzing Helmholtz's mechanism, I find it more appropriate to arrange European conceptualizations of science into different periods. This arrangement of periods does not take the empiricizing and rationalizing of science that occurred in early modern times as the major criterion but instead, sees the major criterion as being science's claim to truth — advanced from ancient times onward. Measured against that claim, the changes involved in establishing early modern mechanics were still basically part of the framework of a superior, “classical” concept of science58 that was just as compulsory in the Middle Ages as it was throughout the entire modern age until well into the nineteenth century. Classical science has been characterized by its emphatic commitment to truth ever since Aristotle first systematically argued the methodological foundation of rational knowledge for occidental philosophy: knowledge was only acknowledged as scientific if it could be claimed to be true and to serve the purpose of achieving truth in the comprehensive meaning of complete knowledge. The early modern traditions of mechanics and mechanism pursued that goal in very different ways but they were both thoroughly obligated to its pursuit59.