Science

=== Renaissance ===
{{Main|Scientific Revolution|Science in the Renaissance}}
[[File:De Revolutionibus manuscript p9b.jpg|left|thumb|Drawing of the heliocentric model as proposed by the Copernicus's ''[[De revolutionibus orbium coelestium]]''|alt=Drawing of planets' orbit around the Sun]]
New developments in optics played a role in the inception of the [[Renaissance]], both by challenging long-held [[Metaphysics|metaphysical]] ideas on perception, as well as by contributing to the improvement and development of technology such as the [[camera obscura]] and the [[telescope]]. At the start of the Renaissance, [[Roger Bacon]], [[Vitello]], and [[John Peckham]] each built up a scholastic [[ontology]] upon a causal chain beginning with sensation, perception, and finally [[apperception]] of the individual and universal [[theory of forms|forms]] of Aristotle.<ref name="smith2001">{{cite book |last=Smith |first=A. Mark |title=Alhacen's Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with English Translation and Commentary, of the First Three Books of Alhacen's ''De Aspectibus'', the Medieval Latin Version of Ibn al-Haytham's ''Kitāb al-Manāẓir'', 2 vols |title-link=De Aspectibus |publisher=[[American Philosophical Society]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-87169-914-5 |series=Transactions of the American Philosophical Society |volume=91 |location=[[Philadelphia]] |oclc=47168716 |issue=4–5}}</ref>{{rp|Book I}} A model of vision later known as [[perspectivism]] was [[One-point perspective|exploited and studied]] by the artists of the Renaissance. This theory uses only three of Aristotle's four causes: formal, material, and final.<ref name="Smith1981">{{Cite journal |jstor = 231249 |doi = 10.1086/352843 |pmid = 7040292 |title = Getting the Big Picture in Perspectivist Optics|journal = Isis|volume = 72|issue = 4|pages = 568–89|last1 = Smith|first1 = A. Mark|year = 1981|s2cid = 27806323 }}</ref>

In the sixteenth century, [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] formulated a [[Heliocentrism|heliocentric model]] of the Solar System, stating that the planets revolve around the Sun, instead of the [[geocentric model]] where the planets and the Sun revolve around the Earth. This was based on a theorem that the [[orbital period]]s of the planets are longer as their orbs are farther from the center of motion, which he found not to agree with Ptolemy's model.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1177/002182860203300301|title = Copernicus and the Origin of his Heliocentric System|journal = Journal for the History of Astronomy|volume = 33|issue = 3|pages = 219–35|year = 2016|last1 = Goldstein|first1 = Bernard R|s2cid = 118351058|url = http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e610/194b7b608cab49e034a542017213d827fb70.pdf|access-date = April 12, 2020|archive-date = April 12, 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200412211013/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e610/194b7b608cab49e034a542017213d827fb70.pdf|url-status = dead }}</ref><!-- Censorship and such from the church -->

[[Johannes Kepler]] and others challenged the notion that the only function of the eye is perception, and shifted the main focus in optics from the eye to the propagation of light.<ref name="Smith1981" /><ref name= Cohen2010d>{{cite book|last1= Cohen|first1= H. Floris|author-link= Floris Cohen|chapter = Greek nature knowledge transplanted and more: Renaissance Europe|title= How modern science came into the world. Four civilizations, one 17th-century breakthrough|date= 2010|pages=99–156|publisher= Amsterdam University Press|location= Amsterdam|isbn= 978-90-8964-239-4|edition= 2nd}}</ref> Kepler is best known, however, for improving Copernicus' heliocentric model through the discovery of [[Kepler's laws of planetary motion]]. Kepler did not reject Aristotelian metaphysics and described his work as a search for the [[Musica universalis|Harmony of the Spheres]].<ref name="Koestler">{{Cite book |last=Koestler |first=Arthur |url=https://archive.org/details/sleepwalkershist00koes_0/page/1 |title=The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |year=1990 |isbn=0-14-019246-8 |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/sleepwalkershist00koes_0/page/1 1] |author-link=Arthur Koestler |orig-date=1959}}</ref> [[Galileo]] had made significant contributions to astronomy, physics and engineering. However, he became persecuted after Pope Urban VIII sentenced him for writing about the heliocentric model.<ref name="Pope Urban VIII">{{cite web|url= http://galileo.rice.edu/gal/urban.html|title= Pope Urban VIII|last= van Helden|first= Al|year= 1995|website= The Galileo Project|access-date= November 3, 2016|url-status=live|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20161111033150/http://galileo.rice.edu/gal/urban.html|archive-date= November 11, 2016}}</ref>

The [[printing press]] was widely used to publish scholarly arguments, including some that disagreed widely with contemporary ideas of nature.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gingerich|first=Owen|title=Copernicus and the Impact of Printing|journal=Vistas in Astronomy|volume=17|year=1975|issue=1 |pages=201–218|doi=10.1016/0083-6656(75)90061-6 |bibcode=1975VA.....17..201G }}</ref> [[Francis Bacon]] and [[René Descartes]] published philosophical arguments in favor of a new type of non-Aristotelian science. Bacon emphasized the importance of experiment over contemplation, questioned the Aristotelian concepts of formal and final cause, promoted the idea that science should study the [[Physical law|laws of nature]] and the improvement of all human life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zagorin |first=Perez |title=Francis Bacon |page=84 |year=1998 |place=Princeton |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-00966-7}}</ref> Descartes emphasized individual thought and argued that mathematics rather than geometry should be used to study nature.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davis|first1=Philip J.|last2=Hersh|first2=Reuben|year=1986|title=Descartes' Dream: The World According to Mathematics|location=Cambridge, MA|publisher=[[Harcourt Brace Jovanovich]]}}</ref><!-- This updated approach to studies in nature was seen as [[mechanistic]]. discuss -->