science of man

(noun)

A topic in David Hume's 18th century experimental philosophy A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). It expanded the understanding of facets of human nature, including senses, impressions, ideas, imagination, passions, morality, justice, and society. It first established that impressions from the senses and memories of impressions are the foundation of all ideas; passions are a part of human nature and they rule over our reason in determining our actions; and morality is based on necessary actions, those we make in reaction to a certain set of circumstances, and is therefore natural. However, morality is founded on self-interest, which includes the pleasure we find in sensing the pleasure in others.

Related Terms

Examples of science of man in the following topics:

  • Scientific Exploration

    • Similar rules were applied to social sciences. 
    • However, as with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally.
    • David Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a 'science of man,' which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett, Adam Ferguson, John Millar, and William Robertson, all of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behaved in prehistoric and ancient cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity.
    • Modern sociology largely originated from the 'science of man' movement.
    • Describe advancements made in science and social sciences during the 18th century

  • Introduction to the Renaissance

    • The intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its own invented version of humanism, derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said that "Man is the measure of all things."
    • This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature.
    • In politics, the Renaissance contributed the development of the conventions of diplomacy, and in science an increased reliance on observation.
    • Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man shows clearly the effect writers of Antiquity had on Renaissance thinkers.
    • Based on the specifications in Vitruvius' De architectura (1st century BC), Leonardo tried to draw the perfectly proportioned man.

  • The Sick Man of Europe

  • Marquis de Condorcet

    • From 1765 to 1774, he focused on science.
    • In 1769, he was elected to the French Royal Academy of Sciences.
    • Condorcet argued that expanding knowledge in the natural and social sciences would lead to an ever more just world of individual freedom, material affluence, and moral compassion.
    • He envisioned man as continually progressing toward a perfectly utopian society.
    • However, he stressed that for this to be a possibility man must unify regardless of race, religion, culture or gender.

  • Introduction to the Enlightenment

    • Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress.
    • As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally.
    • Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population.
    • While differing in details, Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed, is necessary for man to live in civil society.
    • His theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

  • Thomas Hobbes

    • In it, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality.
    • There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion.
    • His' conception of natural rights extended from his conception of man in a "state of nature."
    • In his natural state, man's life consisted entirely of liberties and not at all of laws, which leads to the world of chaos created by unlimited rights.
    • Hobbes was one of the founders of modern political philosophy and political science.

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    • In The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men (1754), Rousseau maintained that man in a state of nature had been a solitary, ape-like creature, who was not méchant (bad), as Hobbes had maintained, but (like some other animals) had an "innate repugnance to see others of his kind suffer."
    • Rousseau’s "noble savage" stands in direct opposition to the man of culture (however, while Rousseau discusses the concept, he never uses the phrase that appears in other authors' writings of the period).
    • In his Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences (1750), Rousseau argued, in opposition to the dominant stand of Enlightenment thinkers, that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality.
    • The idea of general will denoted  the will of the people as a whole.
    • Sophie, the young woman Émile is destined to marry, as a representative of ideal womanhood, is educated to be governed by her husband while Émile, as representative of the ideal man, is educated to be self-governing.

  • Art and Literature in the Roman Republic

    • Some of the earliest works we possess are historical epics telling the early military history of Rome, similar to the Greek epic narratives of Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides.
    • His Aeneid tells the story of the flight of Aeneas from Troy and his settlement of the city that would become Rome.
    • Lucretius, in his De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), attempted to explicate science in an epic poem.
    • The most well-known surviving examples of Roman painting consist of the wall paintings from Pompeii and Herculaneum that were preserved in the aftermath of the fatal eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE.
    • Veristic portraiture of an Old Man.

  • The Declaration of the Rights of Man

    • The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1791) is a fundamental document of the French Revolution and in the history of human and civil rights.
    • In August 1789, Honoré Mirabeau played a central role in conceptualizing and drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
    • Modelled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, it exposes the failure of the French Revolution, which had been devoted to equality.
    • The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789  by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier.
    • Identify the main points in the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

  • The Indus River Valley Civilization

    • The Indus Valley Civilization was one of the three “Ancient East” societies that are considered to be the cradles of civilization of the old world of man, and are among the most widespread; the other two "Ancient East" societies are Mesopotamia and Pharonic Egypt.
    • It is considered a Bronze Age society, and inhabitants of the ancient Indus River Valley developed new techniques in metallurgy—the science of working with copper, bronze, lead, and tin.
    • The discoveries of Harappa, and the site of its fellow Indus city Mohenjo-daro, were the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj, the common name for British imperial rule over the Indian subcontinent from 1858 through 1947.
    • The Partition of India, in 1947, divided the country to create the new nation of Pakistan.
    • Identify the importance of the discovery of the Indus River Valley Civilization