The scientific advances of the 16th and 17th centuries provided a basis for the optimistic outlook of Bacon's 'New Atlantis.' In the 17th century Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle argued in favor of progress with respect to arts and the sciences, saying that each age has the advantage of not having to rediscover what was accomplished in preceding ages
Essay Topic: Progress With evolution of civilization over past seven thousand years, man has made tremendous progress in all aspects of human society. While enjoing all happiness brought by this progress, we can‘t deny that humanity still does not know the real meaning of progress. To understand what really progress is and what exactly it means to humankind, we should begin learning about it from history. Firstly about history. There is four time periods in history of progress. Allmost seven thousand years were divide in four time part: Antiquity, Renaissance, Enlightenment and American Revolution. In Antiquity time was regarded as the enemy of humanity and Epicurians had a potential for leading to the foundation of a theory of Progress, because idea of Epicurian philosophy was to attain teh happy, tranquil life. Second, but not the second by importance, was Renaissance. Renaissance of 15-17 centuries induced an revolution in curiosity about nature in general and scientific advance, which opened the gates for technical and economical advance. Furthermore, the individual potential was seen as never-ending quest for being God- like, paving the way for a view of man based on unlimited perfection and progress. Third was Enlightenment. In 17th century Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle argued in favor of progress with respect to the art and science, saying that each age has the advantage of not having to rediscover what was accomplished in preceding ages. Emmanuel Kant, greit german philosopher, argued that progress is neither automatic non continuous and does not measure knowledge or wealth. Last , but very important for humanity was American Revolution. The intellectual leaders of the American Revolution, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson were immersed in Enlightenment thought and believed the idea of progress meant that they could reorganize the political system to the benefit of the human condition. Secondly about what types of progress people manage to discover and create a scientific name for. There is three types of progress: social, scientific and philosophical. Social progress is the idea that societies can or do improve in terms of their social, political, and economic structures. Scientific progress is the idea that science increases its problem solving ability through the application of some scientific method. Many philosophers of science argued that science progress is discontinues, and that leads to idea that in science many old ideas become abounded. Speaking about philosophical progress, even nowadays society still doesn’t agree that such thing ever exists. I partly agree with them because I thing that unlike society and science, philosophy was before human evolution. Main thing is that goal of human evolution was to find for their-self those both philosophical questions and answers. On the other hand, humanity still didn’t find exact meaning for progress, but maybe that is for good, cause i think we should be highly aware of some of the problems it may cause. For instance, globalization would eliminate the difference between different people. The languages and unique customs of some ethnic nations are on the verge of extinction. What a world would be if we see people everywhere speak the same languages, wear similar clothes, live in houses of the similar styles, and use the same brand of products? We do benefits a lot from the progress of human civilization, but we must pay closer attention and be highly alert of the problems it brings about. Progress is not always good if we neglect its side effects. All in all, in a present years humanity acomplished exactly the type of progress it needs, and it is very dangerous to try to jump into the future with big steps, because it can caise global problems, i was mentioning before. Idea of progress is the theory that advances in technology, science, and social organization inevitably produce an improvement in the human condition. This theory will be broken if people will decide to jump over their head.
The scientific advances of the 16th and 17th centuries provided a basis for the optimistic outlook of Bacon's 'New Atlantis.' In the 17th century Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle argued in favor of progress with respect to arts and the sciences, saying that each age has the advantage of not having to rediscover what was accomplished in preceding ages
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With evolution of civilization over past seven thousand years, man has made tremendous progress in all aspects of human society. While enjoing all happiness brought by this progress, we can‘t deny that humanity still does not know the real meaning of progress. To understand what really progress is and what exactly it means to humankind, we should begin learning about it from history.
Firstly about history. There is four time periods in history of progress. Allmost seven thousand years were divide in four time part: Antiquity, Renaissance, Enlightenment and American Revolution. In Antiquity time was regarded as the enemy of humanity and Epicurians had a potential for leading to the foundation of a theory of Progress, because idea of Epicurian philosophy was to attain teh happy, tranquil life. Second, but not the second by importance, was Renaissance. Renaissance of 15-17 centuries induced an revolution in curiosity about nature in general and scientific advance, which opened the gates for technical and economical advance. Furthermore, the individual potential was seen as never-ending quest for being God- like, paving the way for a view of man based on unlimited perfection and progress. Third was Enlightenment. In 17th century Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle argued in favor of progress with respect to the art and science, saying that each age has the advantage of not having to rediscover what was accomplished in preceding ages. Emmanuel Kant, greit german philosopher, argued that progress is neither automatic non continuous and does not measure knowledge or wealth. Last , but very important for humanity was American Revolution. The intellectual leaders of the American Revolution, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson were immersed in Enlightenment thought and believed the idea of progress meant that they could reorganize the political system to the benefit of the human condition.
Secondly about what types of progress people manage to discover and create a scientific name for. There is three types of progress: social, scientific and philosophical. Social progress is the idea that societies can or do improve in terms of their social, political, and economic structures. Scientific progress is the idea that science increases its problem solving ability through the application of some scientific method. Many philosophers of science argued that science progress is discontinues, and that leads to idea that in science many old ideas become abounded. Speaking about philosophical progress, even nowadays society still doesn’t agree that such thing ever exists. I partly agree with them because I thing that unlike society and science, philosophy was before human evolution. Main thing is that goal of human evolution was to find for their-self those both philosophical questions and answers.
On the other hand, humanity still didn’t find exact meaning for progress, but maybe that is for good, cause i think we should be highly aware of some of the problems it may cause. For instance, globalization would eliminate the difference between different people. The languages and unique customs of some ethnic nations are on the verge of extinction. What a world would be if we see people everywhere speak the same languages, wear similar clothes, live in houses of the similar styles, and use the same brand of products? We do benefits a lot from the progress of human civilization, but we must pay closer attention and be highly alert of the problems it brings about. Progress is not always good if we neglect its side effects.
All in all, in a present years humanity acomplished exactly the type of progress it needs, and it is very dangerous to try to jump into the future with big steps, because it can caise global problems, i was mentioning before. Idea of progress is the theory that advances in technology, science, and social organization inevitably produce an improvement in the human condition. This theory will be broken if people will decide to jump over their head.