Science Theory

Science may be broadly defined as the development and systematization of positive knowledge about the physical universe. The history of science, then, is the description and explanation of the development of that knowledge. Science is generally viewed as a cumulative and progressive activity by its nature. Such views, however, have profound philosophical implications, and in fact the effort to define the nature of science as in itself part of the history of philosophy.

Early Philosophical Theories about Science
Philosophers of the late Renaissance were optimistic about humanity's ability to understand and control the natural world. During the 17th century, the era of Galileo. William Harvey, Issac Newton, and Robert Boyle, scientists and philosophers alike were convinced that with the help of the newly discovered scientific method modern of their Greek and medieval predecessors. Disagreement existed, however, as to the details of the correct scientific method.

Rationalism
In this Discourse on Method (1637), Rene Descartes asserted that all theoretical science should be like Euclidean geometry. A science such as physics should be based on first principles comparable to the axioms of geometry, which were discovered and validated through the systematic analysis of intuitive ideas. Descartes thought, for example, that the use of reason alone. This view, that science can be based on principles that are revealed through introspection, is called rationalism (from the Latin ratio, "reason").

As objection to the rationalist approach to science is that peoples intuition about fundamental scientific proposition do not always agree. Furthermore, especially in the social sciences, trying to base scientific principles on introspection alone has led to social injustice as well as to scientific stagnation.