A.C. Grayling and 17th Century Thinking

Recently in Edinburgh I attended a lecture given by Professor Anthony Clifford Grayling. A.C. Grayling is a prominent British philosopher, a first Master of New College of the Humanities and a Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has also wrote over 30 books and contributes to lots of magazines. He is also Vice President of the British Humanist Association. His main academic interests lie in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic

During this lecturer he was discussing the changes the 17th Century made to the human thought process. It's premise is simple enough: that during the seventeenth century the basic paradigm governing intellectual thought made a shift from being medieval, magical, and religious-based to being more modern, rational, and secular-based, as Prof Graying said, at the end of the 17th century when you looks up at the stars in the sky at night your perception of them would have been different from looking up at them at the start of that same century. Grayling also spoke about and particularly focusing on the period of the Thirty Years War. There are reasons for this, as the Thirty Years War began primarily as a rupture between the Catholic religion and the newly forming Protestant (i.e. Calvinist and Lutheran) religions, and he contends that it was this rupture in religious thought, and the devastation wrought by this long and bloody war, that first created the opening for modern secular thought to develop, a tremendous shifting of thought and ideas. He also spoke about the trial of Galileo by the Roman Inquisition and the fear that that generated in Roman Catholic countries almost put a halt to scientific inquiry in Catholic countries for a century, particularly in Italy(Galileo would have been killed / burned if he hadn't recanted, This is one orf the most terrible examples of the Church's reliance on biblical literalism to invoke an earth-centered world at Galileo's trial was a shameful example of religious doctrines used to stifle scientific inquiry) Grayling's point is that Protestant England and Holland represented the leading edge of the modernist, democratic movement in Europe. Once could also argue that the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, or the 19th century, the century of progress and industrialization, were centuries of equal or greater change, both intellectually and socially, but then that is why we have historians to debate these merits and fascinate us with their arguments. If you would like to learn more about the thought process of A.C. Grayling which I truly believe leads to a more calmer understanding of the world, our place in it then I would recommend you start by reading “Thinking of Answers” or his equally thought provoking “The Challenge of Thing” (also “The God Argument” for some secular thinking) After Grayling’s lecture I had a chance to meet him, a quick chat and got him to sign my book, I got him to make it out to Sam, my clever 12 year old son who I hope will one day progress from David Walliams to such works of importance as these. Professor Grayling is a Gentleman (as well as a scholar) and it was a pure joy talking to such a genuine man.