After the Death of Newton, the scientific revolution continued to accelerate with more and more sophisticated experiments being done and methods of inquiry developed. With the development of Calculus, statistical methods could now also be developed.

The roots of most modern scientific disciplines can therefore be found in this period. Moreover, philosophy at this time was moving hand in hand with the Scientific Revolution:

Most notable during this period was Immanuel Kant (1724-1804):

He made a very influential synthesis of rationalism and empiricism. Empiricists, such as Locke and Hume, argued that all our knowledge comes from experience, or from reflection on experience. Rationalists argued that empirical knowledge is uncertain and only reason can lead us to truth.

There is a very big difference in which of these two approaches you believe in, although you probably don't want to believe this:

• Empiricism collective humility (gee, I don't understand a damn thing!)
• Rationalism collective aarogance (we can understand everything; hell we do understand everything)

Its quite clear that we have collectively chosen rationality as our means for certifying the Truth.

Kant strongly reinforces this idea:

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on. ( how does this tie into "Sapere aude"!?)

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them. Is this relevant today?

In addition, Kant provides us the mechanistic pathway to producing Superman/Utopia/Ideal State/whatever.

Reason, in a creature, is a faculty which enables that creature to extend far beyond the limits of natural instinct the rules and intentions it follows in using its various powers, and the range of its projects is unbounded. But reason does not itself work instinctively, for it requires trial, practice and instruction to enable it to progress gradually from one stage of insight to the next. "In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual."

What does this mean and why is it dangerous?