In his Essays about Moral and Political issues in 1742, David Hume asserts 'In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies of liberty.' Indeed, for centuries, the main source of truth have been the study of sacred texts i.e. theology, so that almost all the powers remained in the hands of religious authorities who used to have the monopoly to define what was good, true, accurate, and what was not. Nevertheless, western societies progressively freed themselves from dogmas and churches: this particular moment of History fits with the coincidence of two phenomena, in fields as diverse as politics and science. Indeed, 16th and 17th centuries saw the development of Absolutism and Scientific Revolution, as it has been named years after. Yet correlation does not mean causality. What is the inner link that connects together these two entities?
[...] Various kings embodied this vision of power: Louis XIII and Louis XIV in France, James I and Charles I of England, Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine II the Great in Russia, Philip II of Spain At the same time occurred a real overthrow in the field of science: intellectuals drew their inspiration from ancient texts discovered a few time ago to upset a vision of the world that had been the same for more than thousand years. They put into question the Bible, source of Truth since the mists of time, refuted by the experience. Such a process started with the heliocentric discover but covers much more fields of the knowledge: this is the scientific revolution. [...]
[...] Actually, they respected Saint Paul's maxim “omnis potestas a Deo”. But they translated it to assert that the monarch was absolutely sovereign in his kingdom and his people's pontiff, directly linked to God. The culture of absolutism accompanies the Church's loss of influence, and consequently the development of a new space of speech for the new generation of scientists. On the model of Archimedes and Denys of Syracuse, scientists from then on often put themselves under the protection of a monarch: the most striking example is the alliance between Frederick II of Denmark and Tycho Brahe. [...]
[...] As a consequence, the clash between the new generations of scientists whose experiments revealed discrepancies in the biblical vision of nature became particularly violent. Whereas according to Plato and Aristotle the sensitive world was considered as a source of illusion, some men started to assert that the study of natural phenomena was the only way to reach Truth. Facing such a concurrence likely to put into question the Church's control on minds, the authorities organized a coercive dispositive to punish the ones who thought they could domesticate God's opus: the Inquisition. [...]
[...] As a matter of fact, the development of absolutism enabled the scientific revolution by producing a transfer of power from the Church to the State and by creating a new space of speech for scientists. But at a more structural level, the culture of absolutism influenced directly what is the inner root of the scientific revolution, i.e. the new scientific method. Indeed, given that the new paradigm to reach truth is absolutely opposite to the previous one, the new figure of scientist needs a new method to establish indisputable facts. [...]
[...] In France, physiocrats are the first to represent economy as a circuit and are also ‘court scientists”, advisors, and even critics of the monarchs. They provide on the one hand a scientific speech, facts, and on the other hand political advices. But the economical field is just an example, and science became of special importance for the king: a knowledge that makes him able not only to domesticate nature but also to comprehend men's reactions legitimates his power, but above all, strengthens it. [...]
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