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The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science
Peter Harrison provides an account of the religious foundations of scientific knowledge. He shows how the approaches to the study of nature that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were directly informed by theological discussions about the Fall of Man and the extent to which the mind and the senses had been damaged by that primeval event. Scientific methods, he suggests, were originally devised as techniques for ameliorating the cognitive damage wrought by human sin. At its inception, modern science was conceptualized as a means of recapturing the knowledge of nature that Adam had once possessed. Contrary to a widespread view that sees science emerging in conflict with religion, Harrison argues that theological considerations were of vital importance in the framing of the scientific method.
316 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Peter Harrison
9 books11 followersAustralian Laureate Fellow and Director of the Centre of the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland (born 1955)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ha...
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ha...
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 7, 2026
The history of science is often recounted as the triumph of reason over religion. What Peter Harrison’s book The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science shows is that this perspective reflects a “degree of historical amnesia about the role of religion in its early modern origins” (p. 245).
Harrison’s main argument is that early modern philosophers concerned with the acquisition of knowledge were guided by theological considerations. More specifically, Harrison argues that their views on original sin, the Fall of Adam, and the corruption of human nature shaped their epistemological claims about natural philosophy.
The narrative of the Fall is the myth that, before being expelled from Paradise, Adam had access to the light of reason and to an encyclopedic kind of knowledge. However, because of original sin, Adam brought about the corruption of human nature, the dominance of the senses over reason, and the inability of humankind’s intellect to access the truth.
Harrison does an excellent job of demonstrating that concerns about the Fall were ubiquitous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and present earlier as well. He offers quotations from philosophers and theologians — such as Roger Bacon (1220–1292), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Martin Luther (1483–1546), Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), John Calvin (1509–1564), Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638), and Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), among others — that show they engaged with this understanding. He also shows how the Fall shaped contemporary debates about politics and education.
Chapter 1 explains that Augustine was essential to the development of the idea of original sin. Although Augustine wrote in the fourth and fifth centuries, Protestant leaders in the sixteenth century revitalized his idea of the depravity of human nature (a trend that Chapter 2 explains in more detail). Not coincidentally, Luther was an Augustinian friar. Augustine’s view of humanity’s corruption implied that the intellect was limited in its ability to discover the truth. Harrison’s point is that this claim had consequences beyond religiosity: it also meant that human ambitions to draw conclusions about natural philosophy were doomed to error.
A common view in the history of science is that an unlimited belief in the powers of reason fostered experimental philosophy and the advancement of modern science. Harrison’s book argues the opposite: what made it necessary to resort to empirical observation in scientific endeavours was a shared distrust in human capacities. For Harrison, explanations of the emergence of modern experimental science must consider the role of theological anthropology in early modern thought.
Chapter 4 focuses largely on the life and thought of Francis Bacon, a central figure in our modern understanding of science. Bacon believed that science should be practical, provide mastery over nature, be useful to the public, rely on observations and experiments, and be built gradually through collective effort. Bacon, who was Protestant, drew on the Fall of Adam to argue for the need to mitigate the limitations of the human mind in any attempt to produce knowledge. Scientific societies and instruments, such as microscopes, were necessary to counterbalance human failings in acquiring knowledge, be they explained by the degeneration of reason, memory, or the senses.
Harrison’s framework provides a way to more deeply understand many intellectual developments in the history of science. For example, Thomas Aquinas was much less pessimistic about the limitations of human reason after the Fall. This perspective enabled him to unite Aristotelianism and Christianity and to favor deductive logic in the study of natural philosophy, an approach that depends on a more optimistic view of the human mind’s capacity to arrive at the truth.
The book successfully demonstrates that, given the erosion of certainties about human knowledge following the Protestant Reformation, many philosophers sought, in various ways, to explain how it is possible to obtain knowledge and how we can be confident in its truth. For Harrison, for example, Descartes was responding to this crisis — and to debates about the limitations of human nature — in Meditations.
My criticism of the book is that the distinction between experimental philosophy, on one hand, and Descartes and the rationalist tradition, on the other, is not addressed in detail. Harrison doesn’t make clear whether we should see the rationalist tradition as a consequence of a more optimistic view of the capacity of the human intellect, or as one of the possible responses to the perception of its corruption. The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science persuades readers that experimental philosophy is in part a response to the view that the human mind cannot arrive at answers on its own. However, given the centrality of the empiricist–rationalist divide, I expected to finish the book with a better understanding of how the Fall of Adam influenced rationalist thought.
Harrison’s main argument is that early modern philosophers concerned with the acquisition of knowledge were guided by theological considerations. More specifically, Harrison argues that their views on original sin, the Fall of Adam, and the corruption of human nature shaped their epistemological claims about natural philosophy.
The narrative of the Fall is the myth that, before being expelled from Paradise, Adam had access to the light of reason and to an encyclopedic kind of knowledge. However, because of original sin, Adam brought about the corruption of human nature, the dominance of the senses over reason, and the inability of humankind’s intellect to access the truth.
Harrison does an excellent job of demonstrating that concerns about the Fall were ubiquitous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and present earlier as well. He offers quotations from philosophers and theologians — such as Roger Bacon (1220–1292), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Martin Luther (1483–1546), Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), John Calvin (1509–1564), Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638), and Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), among others — that show they engaged with this understanding. He also shows how the Fall shaped contemporary debates about politics and education.
Chapter 1 explains that Augustine was essential to the development of the idea of original sin. Although Augustine wrote in the fourth and fifth centuries, Protestant leaders in the sixteenth century revitalized his idea of the depravity of human nature (a trend that Chapter 2 explains in more detail). Not coincidentally, Luther was an Augustinian friar. Augustine’s view of humanity’s corruption implied that the intellect was limited in its ability to discover the truth. Harrison’s point is that this claim had consequences beyond religiosity: it also meant that human ambitions to draw conclusions about natural philosophy were doomed to error.
A common view in the history of science is that an unlimited belief in the powers of reason fostered experimental philosophy and the advancement of modern science. Harrison’s book argues the opposite: what made it necessary to resort to empirical observation in scientific endeavours was a shared distrust in human capacities. For Harrison, explanations of the emergence of modern experimental science must consider the role of theological anthropology in early modern thought.
Chapter 4 focuses largely on the life and thought of Francis Bacon, a central figure in our modern understanding of science. Bacon believed that science should be practical, provide mastery over nature, be useful to the public, rely on observations and experiments, and be built gradually through collective effort. Bacon, who was Protestant, drew on the Fall of Adam to argue for the need to mitigate the limitations of the human mind in any attempt to produce knowledge. Scientific societies and instruments, such as microscopes, were necessary to counterbalance human failings in acquiring knowledge, be they explained by the degeneration of reason, memory, or the senses.
Harrison’s framework provides a way to more deeply understand many intellectual developments in the history of science. For example, Thomas Aquinas was much less pessimistic about the limitations of human reason after the Fall. This perspective enabled him to unite Aristotelianism and Christianity and to favor deductive logic in the study of natural philosophy, an approach that depends on a more optimistic view of the human mind’s capacity to arrive at the truth.
The book successfully demonstrates that, given the erosion of certainties about human knowledge following the Protestant Reformation, many philosophers sought, in various ways, to explain how it is possible to obtain knowledge and how we can be confident in its truth. For Harrison, for example, Descartes was responding to this crisis — and to debates about the limitations of human nature — in Meditations.
My criticism of the book is that the distinction between experimental philosophy, on one hand, and Descartes and the rationalist tradition, on the other, is not addressed in detail. Harrison doesn’t make clear whether we should see the rationalist tradition as a consequence of a more optimistic view of the capacity of the human intellect, or as one of the possible responses to the perception of its corruption. The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science persuades readers that experimental philosophy is in part a response to the view that the human mind cannot arrive at answers on its own. However, given the centrality of the empiricist–rationalist divide, I expected to finish the book with a better understanding of how the Fall of Adam influenced rationalist thought.
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May 16, 2025Interesting thesis; belief that, prior to the Fall, Adam was possessed of all earthly knowledge lies behind a turn to experimentalism in 17th-century science, as it limited the deprivations of the Fall upon reason.
September 21, 2024
Thorough discussion of the thesis that the foundations of empirical (experimental) science rest on theological foundations including a particular anthropology surfaced by Reformation debates.
April 13, 2024
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 21, 2011
Great read which elucidates the changing philosophical attitudes which allowed Francis Bacon's scientific philosophy to emerge.
February 26, 2015
A fascinating read. Very well written, lucid, and compelling. A serious and scholarly challenge to the typical religion against science narrative.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews