AP®︎ European History: Topic 4.2 Flashcards

Mid-16th- to late-17th-century transformation that elevated observation, experimentation, mathematics, and tested claims over inherited authority in explaining nature

The period’s term for the investigation of nature, encompassing fields later separated into sciences such as astronomy, physics, anatomy, and chemistry

Traditional model with a stationary Earth at the center, concentric heavenly spheres, and celestial bodies moving in supposedly perfect circles

Sun-centered model in which Earth rotates on its axis and, like the other planets, travels around the Sun

Polish cleric who proposed the heliocentric system in 1543, making Earth a moving planet while retaining circular orbits and epicycles

Danish astronomer whose precise observations and evidence of celestial change aided Kepler, though Brahe favored a geoheliocentric compromise

Astronomer who used Brahe’s data to formulate mathematical laws of planetary motion and replace circular orbits with ellipses

Planets follow elliptical orbits, sweep equal areas in equal times, and have orbital periods mathematically related to their distances from the Sun

Used telescopic evidence, experiments, and mathematics to challenge Aristotelian-Ptolemaic ideas; forced to recant heliocentrism in 1633

Author of the 1687 Principia who synthesized earlier work through three laws of motion and universal gravitation, uniting earthly and celestial physics

Newton’s principle that every body attracts every other body, so the same force explains falling objects, lunar orbits, and planetary motion

Conception of nature as an orderly, integrated machine governed by universal laws discoverable through observation, reason, and mathematics

Ancient medical authority whose humoral theory, account of blood, and animal-derived anatomical errors were challenged by observation and experiment

Galenic belief that health depended on balancing blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile and that imbalance caused disease

Anatomist whose direct human dissections exposed errors in Galen; his 1543 anatomical work made observed anatomy more authoritative than ancient texts

Physician who rejected much humoral medicine, proposed particular causes of disease, and promoted chemical and mineral remedies while retaining alchemical and astrological ideas

Physician whose 1628 work used observation, ligatures, and quantitative reasoning to show that the heart pumps blood continuously through an integrated circulatory system

Advocate of systematic observation, controlled investigation, and inductive reasoning who criticized unsupported reliance on ancient authority

The position that knowledge is rooted in sensory experience, observation, and evidence

Drawing a broader generalization from numerous particular observations and experiments

Rationalist who used methodological doubt, deduction, and mathematics to seek certainty and describe the physical universe mechanically

Confidence in reason and logical analysis as sources of reliable knowledge

Deriving particular conclusions through logical steps from general principles or premises accepted as true

Descartes’s distinction between fundamentally different thinking mind and extended matter, allowing the material world to be studied mechanically

Gradually developed systematic use of observation, hypotheses, experimentation, measurement, mathematical analysis, testing, and revision

Study and attempted transformation of matter, including transmuting metals and creating medicines, practiced alongside the new science

Belief that mathematically calculated celestial configurations influence earthly events and human lives

Descartes’s procedure of withholding acceptance from beliefs that could not be established with certainty