Gile. Hi, I'm Peter Adamson.

Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at Kings College London and the LMU in Munich, online at History of Philosophy. net.

Today's episode, Longitudinal Studies, Exploration and Science.

There's an understandable temptation to see the 16th century as a kind of prequel, a period interesting primarily because of what came next.

I'm as vulnerable to this temptation as anyone, and so we've explored the possibility that Enlightenment science emerged

thanks to the developments of this earlier time. The humanist assault on scholastic orthodoxy

and the reformers assault on religious orthodoxy made it possible to think new thoughts

and look to direct experience rather than long recorded wisdom.

And I do think that this is part of the story.

There is though a piece of advice we should always remember when trying to

understand the course of human affairs, follow the money. The scientific achievements that were already

starting to come thick and fast around the turn of the 17th century did involve novel

epistemologies, cultural and religious factors, but they also had more than a

little to do with the desire to get stinking rich. That's why the British

scientists we already covered were so fascinated by

alchemy and by the subjects of astronomy and magnetism which were needed for

navigation and thus for the exploitation of the new world. This spectrum of philosophical inquiries just might lead to a

literal pot of gold. And not only British scientists, as Elizabeth and her advisors were

keenly aware they were competing and not entirely successfully

with other burgeoning imperial powers, especially Spain and Portugal.

The monarchs of these nations sent representatives around the world and oversaw the scientific activities that supported those travels.

It has thus been remarked that Spanish science and its anticipation of the Enlightenment had more to do with economics and politics than with religion.

...