This shift greatly impacted how humans viewed themselves in nature as they ultimately rejected a system of thought that had tried to reconcile the natural world with aspects of human society, such as Christianity. While Aristotle’s works were pre-Christian, influential medieval scholars such as Thomas Aquinas reconciled Aristotelian logic and theories with the principles and dogmas of Christianity. Scholastic philosophers’ need to consolidate the natural world with religion in turn placed scientific theory and nature firmly within– and inseparable from– human society. By rejecting scholasticism, scientists of the Scientific Revolution thus rejected the proximity and blending of the natural world with human society. Instead, they disowned the notion that the human was at the centre of nature, and observed the natural world in its actual state rather than how it appeared in Aristotle’s
This shift greatly impacted how humans viewed themselves in nature as they ultimately rejected a system of thought that had tried to reconcile the natural world with aspects of human society, such as Christianity. While Aristotle’s works were pre-Christian, influential medieval scholars such as Thomas Aquinas reconciled Aristotelian logic and theories with the principles and dogmas of Christianity. Scholastic philosophers’ need to consolidate the natural world with religion in turn placed scientific theory and nature firmly within– and inseparable from– human society. By rejecting scholasticism, scientists of the Scientific Revolution thus rejected the proximity and blending of the natural world with human society. Instead, they disowned the notion that the human was at the centre of nature, and observed the natural world in its actual state rather than how it appeared in Aristotle’s