Paolo Sarpi: The Key to Modern Science

A standard presentation of the Scientific Revolution would start with Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric model, continue with the work of Galileo Galilei and Robert Boyle, among others, and culminate with Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation and three laws of motion. During this period, a radical change in the philosophy underlying how science was to be undertaken and understood took place. The scholarly Aristotelianism of the European Middle Ages was replaced by a mechanical philosophy, in which the universe is simply viewed as matter in motion, and everything, including living creatures and their thoughts, is viewed mechanically. This radical change in philosophical outlook did not arise accidentally. Paolo Sarpi, Venetian statesman of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, wrote a number of notes on natural philosophy, collectively known as his Pensieri (Thoughts), which clearly outline this change in outlook, whilst retaining key aspects of Aristotle’s vocabul