ABSTRACT
The long mediaeval era transformed into a time of great intellectual and cultural upheaval. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, three major cultural epochs occurred: the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. These heralded the onset of the Enlightenment, a shift from faith to reason as the basis of beliefs about the world. The Scientific Revolution, associated particularly with Newton and his contemporaries, marked a radical shift in what was held to be the proper subject matter of human enquiry, away from how an understanding of the world reflected the glory of God to an exploration of how man (women were invisible) might become more like God, especially in terms of how a better understanding of nature might lead to its more effective control. This cognitive revolution was also inspired by the development of sophisticated technology: the compass, gunpowder, the printing press, and, particularly, the mechanical clock (Tarnas, 1991: 225). The new identification of knowledge with science led to a view that science was the enduring source by which all human practice could be judged; this had significant implications for the later development of the Enlightenment project (see Chapter 9).
