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129-593: The name Rosental was first mentioned in a document in 1318. The forest, which was owned by the Saxon electors , was sold to the Leipzig council by John George II, Elector of Saxony on 1 September 1663. As the agreed purchase price of 17,142 guilders was offset against the elector's debts to the city, the seller was left with less than 6,000 guilders. His grandson Augustus II the Strong later contested this deal and accused

258-567: A collateral line of the Wettins since 1382, reverted to the main Wettin line after the death in 1482 of its last representative, Duke William III of Saxony. The unity of the country was then restored. Of great importance for the development of the country was the agreement reached in 1459 between Elector Frederick II and George of Poděbrady , King of Bohemia, in the Treaty of Eger . It brought about

387-521: A collateral line of the family. The duchies of Saxe-Zeitz, Saxe-Merseburg and Saxe-Weissenfels that were created reverted to Electoral Saxony in 1718, 1738 and 1746 respectively. In John George's time, the partitions weakened the electoral state economically, financially and politically, even though from a cultural point of view, new centers with palace buildings, cultural institutions and scientific facilities were established outside Dresden and Leipzig. The collateral lines striving for independence also limited

516-531: A controversy. Richard Westfall deems him a mechanical philosopher. Hobbes's major statement of his natural philosophy is in De Corpore (1655). In part II and III of this work he goes a long way towards identifying fundamental physics with geometry ; and he freely mixes concepts from the two areas. Descartes was also a mechanist. A substance dualist , he argued that reality is composed of two radically different types of substance: extended matter , on

645-628: A critical examination of SM in his paper "Penrose's Gödelian argument." The response of the scientific community to Penrose's arguments has been negative, with one group of scholars calling Penrose's repeated attempts to form a persuasive Gödelian argument "a kind of intellectual shell game, in which a precisely defined notion to which a mathematical result applies ... is switched for a vaguer notion". A Gödel-based anti-mechanism argument can be found in Douglas Hofstadter 's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid , though Hofstadter

774-521: A dynastically based personal union with the elective kingdom of Poland-Lithuania was rooted in the aspirations for independence among German territorial princes. Saxony's rulers, like the other powerful imperial princes of the time, wanted to escape the central grip of the Holy Roman emperor and enhance their own dynastic rank in the European state system. Mechanism (philosophy) Mechanism

903-462: A hereditary settlement and a clear demarcation of the borders between the Kingdom of Bohemia and Saxony. When Elector Frederick II died in Leipzig on 7 September 1464, his eldest son Ernest (r. 1464–1486) succeeded him at the age of 23. It marked the beginning of an almost twenty-year period of joint rule with his brother Duke Albert . Initially the two ruled in harmony, favored by

1032-482: A human mind cannot formally prove its own consistency, and even says (perhaps facetiously) that women and politicians are inconsistent. Nevertheless, he sets out arguments for why a male non-politician can be considered consistent. Another work was done by Judson Webb in his 1968 paper "Metamathematics and the Philosophy of Mind". Webb claims that previous attempts have glossed over whether one truly can see that

1161-551: A large initial impact in universities, which were somewhat more receptive in France, the Netherlands and Germany. One of the first expositions of universal mechanism is found in the opening passages of Leviathan (1651) by Hobbes; the book's second chapter invokes the principle of inertia , foundational for the mechanical philosophy. Boyle did not mention him as one of the group; but at the time they were on opposite sides of

1290-548: A metropolis in the east of the Holy Roman Empire passed to Leipzig and Dresden, as well as to the rising Brandenburg city of Berlin. When John George II (r. 1656–1680) succeeded his father, Electoral Saxony was still suffering from the economic consequences of the war. It was not until the reign of John George III (r. 1680–1691) that the war damage and dire social welfare situation were overcome. Resettlement of village farms and urban households proved to be

1419-427: A paper entitled "Minds and Machines," in which he points out the flaws of a typical anti-mechanist argument. Informally, this is the argument that the (alleged) difference between "what can be mechanically proven" and "what can be seen to be true by humans" shows that human intelligence is not mechanical in nature. Or, as Putnam puts it: Let T be a Turing machine which "represents" me in the sense that T can prove just

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1548-469: A philosophy of atomism which explains that matter is composed of tiny inseparable particles that interact to create the objects seen in life. To explain motion, he supported the idea of inertia, a theory generated by Isaac Newton. Isaac Newton ushered in a weaker notion of mechanism that tolerated the action at a distance of gravity . Interpretations of Newton's scientific work in light of his occult research have suggested that he did not properly view

1677-423: A result, they tend to argue for one or another non-eliminativist physicalist theories of mind, and for compatibilism on the question of free will. Contemporary philosophers who have argued for this sort of account include J. J. C. Smart and Daniel Dennett . Some scholars have debated over what, if anything, Gödel's incompleteness theorems imply about anthropic mechanism. Much of the debate centers on whether

1806-402: A secondary question, although Mechanists are generally inclined to favour such reduction. The theory opposed to this biological mechanism is no longer Dynamism, but Vitalism or Neo-vitalism, which maintains that vital activities cannot be explained, and never will be explained, by the laws which govern lifeless matter. The mechanical philosophy is a form of natural philosophy which compares

1935-586: A stipulated tribute of 276,600 imperial thalers on 30 June 1650 did the last of the Swedes leave Leipzig. Life increasingly returned to normal after the hired mercenaries were also released. Most of the decrease in Saxony's population due to the war came about indirectly through epidemics and economic factors related to the stagnation of trade, but troop movements and wartime occupations also caused considerable loss in both urban and village populations. According to

2064-522: A window of Prague Castle, marked the end of a long period of religious peace. Elector John George I (r. 1611–1656) joined the emperor's side with the goal of preserving the status quo of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg . Initially he and the elector of Mainz tried to mediate between Emperor Matthias and the Bohemian estates that were behind the defenestration. After the death of the emperor in March 1619,

2193-460: Is a local doctrine about humans and their minds, which is hotly contested. For clarity, we might distinguish these two doctrines as universal mechanism and anthropic mechanism . There is no constant meaning in the history of philosophy for the word Mechanism. Originally, the term meant that cosmological theory which ascribes the motion and changes of the world to some external force. In this view material things are purely passive, while according to

2322-412: Is compatible with the freedom of will apparently required for anyone (including its adherents) to make truth claims. The second option, common amongst philosophers who adopt anthropic mechanism, is to argue that the arguments given for incompatibility are specious: whatever it is we mean by "consciousness" and "free will," be fully compatible with a mechanistic understanding of the human mind and will. As

2451-399: Is considered to be the first state parliament ( Landtag ) in Saxony. The estates were given the right to meet without being summoned by the ruler when there were reforms in taxation. As a result, state parliaments were held more and more frequently, and the Wettin "state of the estates" ( Ständestaat ) that lasted until the 19th century was formed. As was common in other German houses,

2580-525: Is consistent, then either we cannot prove its consistency, or it cannot be represented by a Turing machine. J. R. Lucas in Minds, Machines and Gödel (1961), and later in his book The Freedom of the Will (1970), lays out an anti-mechanist argument closely following the one described by Putnam, including reasons for why the human mind can be considered consistent. Lucas admits that, by Gödel's second theorem,

2709-465: Is devoid of mental properties, then the phenomenon of consciousness cannot be explained by mechanistic principles acting on matter. In metaphysics anti-mechanists argue that anthropic mechanism implies determinism about human action, which is incompatible with our experience of free will . Contemporary philosophers who have argued for this position include Norman Malcolm and David Chalmers . Anthropic mechanists typically respond in one of two ways. In

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2838-475: Is impossible for a Turing machine, the Gödelian concludes that human reasoning must be non-mechanical. However, the modern consensus in the scientific and mathematical community is that actual human reasoning is inconsistent: any consistent "idealized version" H of human reasoning would logically be forced to adopt a healthy but counter-intuitive open-minded skepticism about the consistency of H (otherwise H

2967-485: Is provably inconsistent); and that Gödel's theorems do not lead to any valid argument against mechanism. This consensus that Gödelian anti-mechanist arguments are doomed to failure is laid out strongly in Artificial Intelligence : " any attempt to utilize [Gödel's incompleteness results] to attack the computationalist thesis is bound to be illegitimate, since these results are quite consistent with

3096-468: Is the ancient philosophies closely linked with materialism and reductionism , especially that of the atomists and to a large extent, stoic physics . They held that the universe is reducible to completely mechanical principles—that is, the motion and collision of matter . Later mechanists believed the achievements of the scientific revolution had shown that all phenomena could eventually be explained in terms of 'mechanical' laws, natural laws governing

3225-402: Is the belief that natural wholes (principally living things) are similar to complicated machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other. The doctrine of mechanism in philosophy comes in two different varieties. They are both doctrines of metaphysics , but they are different in scope and ambitions: the first is a global doctrine about nature; the second

3354-527: Is true. Later, Roger Penrose entered the fray, providing somewhat novel anti-mechanist arguments in his books, The Emperor's New Mind (1989) [ENM] and Shadows of the Mind (1994) [SM]. These books have proved highly controversial. Martin Davis responded to ENM in his paper "Is Mathematical Insight Algorithmic?" (ps) , where he argues that Penrose ignores the issue of consistency. Solomon Feferman gives

3483-424: Is widely viewed as a known skeptic of such arguments: Looked at this way, Gödel's proof suggests – though by no means does it prove! – that there could be some high-level way of viewing the mind/brain, involving concepts which do not appear on lower levels, and that this level might have explanatory power that does not exist – not even in principle – on lower levels. It would mean that some facts could be explained on

3612-597: The Battle of Lützen the following year; both were won by the Protestant side. Leipzig was besieged several times, and its population declined from 17,000 to 14,000. Chemnitz was severely damaged and Freiberg lost its earlier importance. Other urban centers, notably Dresden/Meissen, were spared. Many smaller towns and villages fell victim to massive looting, especially after General Wallenstein gave free hand to his field marshal Heinrich Holk . From August to December 1632

3741-444: The Battle of Vienna that ended the second Turkish siege of the city and ensured its independence. On 27 April 1694 the prince who until then had scarcely made an appearance took over the affairs of state of Saxony as Elector Frederick Augustus I (r. 1694–1733), better known as Augustus II the Strong. Festivities, baroque splendor, art and patronage, as well as lavish grandeur and ostentation characterized both his reign and

3870-523: The Brothers Grimm , the origin is assumed to be a Slavic word : "often as a place name. The famous Rosenthal near Leipzig (see ALBRECHT 193b), however, a city forest, has nothing to do with rose, but is possibly a folk etymological distortion of the Slavic rozdot, hollow, deep and wide lowland." Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , a philosopher and polymath from Leipzig, reports that in the 1660s, when he

3999-536: The Croatian light cavalry raided numerous villages, plundering them, maltreating and killing the inhabitants and leaving a swath of destruction in its wake. In 1635 Saxony concluded the Peace of Prague with the emperor and in an appendix to the treaty the next year gained possession of Lusatia. Saxony's territory increased by about 13,000 square kilometers and almost reached its final borders. The devastation caused by

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4128-592: The Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg an electorate, a territory whose ruler was one of the prince-electors who chose the Holy Roman emperor. After the extinction of the male Saxe-Wittenberg line of the House of Ascania in 1422, the duchy and the electorate passed to the House of Wettin . The electoral privilege was tied only to the Electoral Circle , specifically the territory of the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg. In

4257-456: The Gödel sentence is true. What might such high-level concepts be? It has been proposed for eons, by various holistically or "soulistically" inclined scientists and humanists that consciousness is a phenomenon that escapes explanation in terms of brain components; so here is a candidate at least. There is also the ever-puzzling notion of free will. So perhaps these qualities could be "emergent" in

4386-680: The Hanseatic League , which included several cities along the river. The former colonized land between the Saale and Elbe was connected to the long-settled land in the west through its political upgrade, which occurred at almost the same time that the Hohenzollerns were granted the Electorate of Brandenburg . The Wettins rose to become the leading power in central Germany. Politically, they proved to be committed administrators of

4515-539: The March of Lusatia since 1089 and of Meissen since 1125, gained a strategically important area to the north of their territories with Saxe-Wittenberg. It gave them a transportation connection to important northern German cities such as Magdeburg and a stronger integration into the middle Elbe country which was densely populated and important economically. Access to the Elbe made it possible for them to participate in trade with

4644-748: The Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47, which was won by the Catholics. The events of the Peasants' War of 1525 touched Saxon territories only marginally in the Vogtland and the Ore Mountains. The pressure on the peasantry was less in Saxony than in the southwestern areas of the Empire because of Saxony's strong sovereign position and administration which imposed barriers to arbitrary actions by

4773-678: The War of the Burgundian Succession . The period of the joint reign of Ernest and Albert saw extensive silver discoveries in the Ore Mountains that stimulated a sustained economic boom. The mining dividends enabled the Saxon princes to pursue a broad domestic and foreign policy agenda. They purchased lands within the Wettin dominion and expanded their territory to the north and east. Leipzig became an important economic center of

4902-419: The atomists and to a large extent, stoic physics . Later mechanists believed the achievements of the scientific revolution of the 17th century had shown that all phenomena could eventually be explained in terms of "mechanical laws": natural laws governing the motion and collision of matter that imply a determinism . If all phenomena can be explained entirely through the motion of matter under physical laws, as

5031-511: The philosophy of mind , he is remembered for introducing the mind–body problem in terms of dualism and physicalism . Descartes was a substance dualist , and argued that reality was composed of two radically different types of substance: extended matter , on the one hand, and immaterial mind , on the other. Descartes argued that one cannot explain the conscious mind in terms of the spatial dynamics of mechanistic bits of matter cannoning off each other. Nevertheless, his understanding of biology

5160-645: The 1485 Treaty of Leipzig , the Wettin noble house was divided between the sons of Elector Frederick II into the Ernestine and Albertine lines, with the electoral district going to the Ernestines. In 1547, when the Ernestine elector John Frederick I was defeated in the Schmalkaldic War , the electoral district and electorship passed to the Albertine line. They remained electors until the dissolution of

5289-674: The Albertine duke George the Bearded fought against his ideas and rejected open action against the emperor. It was only after George's death that the Reformation was introduced in the Albertine part of the country. For their part, the Ernestines became involved in the Reformation throughout the Empire, forming with the Schmalkaldic League of Lutheran princes a counterweight to the imperial Catholic side and openly calling for it to be challenged. The religious differences led to

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5418-514: The Bohemian estates deposed the newly crowned Ferdinand II and elected Frederick V of the Palatinate as their king. John George then agreed with Ferdinand II that Saxony should reconquer the two Bohemian tributary lands of Upper and Lower Lusatia for the emperor. In September 1620 Saxon troops marched into the two Lusatian territories and occupied them without major resistance. Because the emperor could not as agreed reimburse John George for

5547-455: The Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg in 1548, but contrary to the emperor's promises, he did not receive all of the Ernestine territories. The Ernestine line lost half of its possessions and retained only Weimar , Jena , Saalfeld , Weida , Gotha , Eisenach and Coburg . The fragmentation of the Ernestine possessions into numerous small states began in 1572. Two main Ernestine lines emerged in 1640,

5676-470: The Elbe towards the end of the 15th century. Dresden became the permanent residence of the elector, his councilors and administrative officials. The elector's increased expenses for equipping and maintaining an army and for his own court could no longer be met as before. The solution was to levy new types of taxes, which required the consent of the estates of the realm . The meeting of the estates that Elector Frederick II (r. 1428–1464) organized in 1438

5805-524: The Empire and built up a compact territory, especially through purchases in the 15th century. From the area around Wittenberg the name "Saxony" gradually spread to encompass all the Wettin territories on the upper Elbe. Since the ruler's place of residence and his visibility to the people gained in importance in the early phase of the Renaissance, the Wettins created a new seat in the Dresden valley of

5934-458: The Empire with an area of only about 4,500 to 5,000 square kilometers. There were no large urban centers, but the duchy's strategic location along the middle of the Elbe River gave the area promise. In November 1422 Albert III (r. 1419–1422), Elector and Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg, died without descendants who were entitled to inherit. The German king, on the basis of the provisions of

6063-525: The English thinkers Sir Kenelm Digby , Thomas Hobbes and Walter Charleton ; and the Dutch natural philosopher Isaac Beeckman . Robert Boyle used "mechanical philosophers" to refer both to those with a theory of "corpuscles" or atoms of matter, such as Gassendi and Descartes, and those who did without such a theory. One common factor was the clockwork universe view. His meaning would be problematic in

6192-692: The Golden Bull, confiscated the duchy as a vacant imperial fiefdom. Both the Lauenburg Ascanians under Duke Erich V and the Meissen Wettins in the person of Frederick I (r. 1423–1428) laid claim to Saxe-Wittenberg and the associated electoral privilege. Frederick I's claim was based on his support of the Catholic forces in the religious Hussite Wars of 1419–1434. In 1423 Sigismund , King of Germany and Bohemia, awarded

6321-479: The Gödelian statement p pertaining to oneself, is true. Using a different formulation of Gödel's theorems, namely, that of Raymond Smullyan and Emil Post , Webb shows one can derive convincing arguments for oneself of both the truth and falsity of p . He furthermore argues that all arguments about the philosophical implications of Gödel's theorems are really arguments about whether the Church-Turing thesis

6450-578: The Holy Roman Empire after the Habsburg states, with the ability to play a decisive role in imperial politics. The state along the middle course of the Elbe that Electoral Saxony formed was not, however, fully connected geographically. Elector Maurice and his successor, his brother Augustus (r. 1553–1586), worked to fill in the gaps. On 13 July 1547 the estates of the realm from the old and new territories were convened in Leipzig for two weeks as state parliament. Elector Maurice succeeded in clearing

6579-422: The Holy Roman Empire after the emperor granted it the right to hold fairs three times a year. At the imperial fairs the electors were able to convert their silver into cash, and with their filled coffers they started an active building program. Due to Leipzig's newly granted market and staple rights , traffic increased on the major trade routes that met in the city, and Leipzig became an important trading center for

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6708-582: The Holy Roman Empire in 1806, after which they gained the Saxon kingship through an alliance with Napoleon. The Electorate of Saxony then became the Kingdom of Saxony . The Electorate of Saxony had a diversified economy and a high level of prosperity, although it suffered major setbacks during and following both the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648 and the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763. Its middle-class structures were restricted in their development by

6837-473: The House of Saxe-Weimar and the House of Saxe-Gotha . While the former had only a few collateral lines which were eventually united to form Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , the House of Saxe-Gotha counted a great many collateral lines, most of which ruled over their own lands. It was the Albertine territories that for the most part made up what is now Saxony. Once again it became the second most important German state in

6966-480: The Leipzig council of having fraudulently obtained the contract. The council was then forced to begin redesigning the Rosental at the end of November 1707 according to a plan by Johann Christoph von Naumann . The large meadow and thirteen radial, mostly pathless view corridors (six are still visible today) were cut into the Rosental. The corridors were aligned with interesting points in the area. At their intersection,

7095-651: The Strong during his stays in Leipzig. In 1777, at the suggestion of Hofrat Johann Gottlob Böhme , the Dammweg was built, the first walking path through the Rosental. It led from Gohlis to the Rosental Gate and was further enhanced for visitors in 1782 and 1824 with the opening of two cafés (the Schweizerhäuschen and the Café Bonorand). The Rosental was given its current park-like design by

7224-489: The Thirty Years' War nevertheless continued, as battles against the Swedes went on for more than ten years. Electoral Saxony left the direct fighting provisionally with the armistice of 1645 and permanently through a 1646 treaty with Sweden. After the conclusion on 23 October 1648 of the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War, Swedish troops were slow in leaving Electoral Saxony. Only after payment of

7353-684: The Wettins regularly divided their possessions among sons and brothers, which often led to intra-family tensions. After the death in 1440 of Frederick IV , Landgrave of Thuringia, the Landgraviate of Thuringia reverted to the Electorate. Disagreements between the landgrave's nephews Elector Frederick II and William III led to the Division of Altenburg of 1445, in which William III received the Thuringian and Franconian parts and Frederick

7482-542: The annual open-air-concerts Klassik airleben of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on the great meadow in the Rosental park attracted ten thousands of listeners every year. 51°21′00″N 12°21′49″E  /  51.35000°N 12.36361°E  / 51.35000; 12.36361 Electorate of Saxony [REDACTED] The Electorate of Saxony , also known as Electoral Saxony ( German : Kurfürstentum Sachsen or Kursachsen ),

7611-519: The cases of Hobbes and Galileo Galilei ; it would include Nicolas Lemery and Christiaan Huygens , as well as himself. Newton would be a transitional figure. Contemporary usage of "mechanical philosophy" dates back to 1952 and Marie Boas Hall . In France the mechanical philosophy spread mostly through private academies and salons; in England in the Royal Society . In England it did not have

7740-636: The city of Leipzig. The origin of the name Rosental is still unclear. In 1714, the chronicler Johann Jacob Vogel wrote in the Leipzig Chronicon : “The Rosental has the name of charming, shady and fun walks, just as other fun and pleasant places bear the name of paradise, or like vineyards in Jena , on this side of the Saale river, which are called Rosenberge because of their charm.” In the Deutsches Wörterbuch (German dictionary) of

7869-578: The computationalist thesis." One of the earliest attempts to use incompleteness to reason about human intelligence was by Gödel himself in his 1951 Gibbs Lecture entitled "Some basic theorems on the foundations of mathematics and their philosophical implications". In this lecture, Gödel uses the incompleteness theorem to arrive at the following disjunction: (a) the human mind is not a consistent finite machine, or (b) there exist Diophantine equations for which it cannot decide whether solutions exist. Gödel finds (b) implausible, and thus seems to have believed

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7998-405: The doctrine being offered by Julien Offray de La Mettrie in his Man a Machine (1748). The main points of debate between anthropic mechanists and anti-mechanists are mainly occupied with two topics: the mind—consciousness, in particular—and free will . Anti-mechanists argue that anthropic mechanism be incompatible with our commonsense intuitions: in philosophy of mind they argue that if matter

8127-644: The eastern part of the Electorate. Disputes over the division led to the Saxon Fratricidal War . After five years of fighting, the situation remained unchanged, although large areas of the country had been devastated. The war was ended with the Peace of Pforta on 27 January 1451. The treaty confirmed the Altenburg partition, temporarily dividing the Wettin domain into an eastern and a western part. The western part of Saxony, which had been ruled by

8256-418: The eastern part, which continued to bear the name Saxony, was enfeoffed to the House of Ascania . Bernhard III became the first Saxon duke. He did not succeed in establishing territorial rule over the full area of the old Duchy of Saxony that had been awarded to him, with the result that the new Ascanian Duchy of Saxony was formed only by his title and the imperial fiefs of Lauenburg and Wittenberg. Bernhard

8385-441: The economic capacity of the state and was ultimately financed at the expense of military strength. The financial problems led to the abandonment of important positions in central Germany. Electoral Saxony's overextension favored the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia to become the second major German and Protestant power in the Empire. Augustus reduced the influence of the nobility by establishing a centralized body for executive powers with

8514-419: The electoral dignity permanently and for itself alone. The Wittenberg Ascanians Albert I, Albert II and Rudolf I (r. 1298–1356) ruled as dukes of Saxony for almost 150 years. They secured the continuity of the dynasty with their sons and asserted themselves as heirs to the Saxon electoral privilege. The electors were mainly concerned with external conflicts with other territorial rulers and pushed forward

8643-639: The electoral district and Ernestine possessions of Saxony became the focus of European attention since it was there that the first phase of the Protestant Reformation was anchored. Elector Frederick the Wise (r. 1486–1525) protected Luther, most notably when he sheltered him at the Wartburg Castle for ten months in 1521/22 after Luther had refused to recant at the Diet of Worms , but

8772-434: The electoral privilege to Rudolf I as Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg and decreed the indivisibility of the territory. The dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg rose to a place among the highest-ranking princes of the Empire. In addition to being one of the seven German electorates, Saxe-Wittenberg had possession of the office of arch-marshal of the Holy Roman Empire. In terms of size, Saxe-Wittenberg remained a rather insignificant territory in

8901-530: The essential feature of Mechanism is the attempt to reduce all the qualities and activities of bodies to quantitative realities, i. e. to mass and motion. But a further modification soon followed. Living bodies, as is well known, present at first sight certain characteristic properties which have no counterpart in lifeless matter. Mechanism aims to go beyond these appearances. It seeks to explain all "vital" phenomena as physical and chemical facts; whether or not these facts are in turn reducible to mass and motion becomes

9030-578: The estate-owning nobility. In 1565, the Jews of Saxony were expelled. In the Battle of Mühlberg in the Schmalkaldic War, the Albertine duke Maurice of Saxony, an ally of Emperor Charles V , defeated the Ernestine elector John Frederick I (r. 1532–1547). In the Capitulation of Wittenberg , Maurice (r. 1547–1553) was enfeoffed with the electoral privilege in 1547 and with

9159-422: The estates were able to assert their right to self-assembly. John George I took advantage of the peace to put his territories in order. A clause in his will overrode the decree issued by Albert in 1499 which was intended to prevent a division in the inheritance. Small parts of Electoral Saxony were bequeathed to his three sons Augustus, Christian and Maurice. The bequests established independent duchies that created

9288-462: The first, they agree with anti-mechanists that mechanism conflicts with some of our commonsense intuitions, but go on to argue that our commonsense intuitions are simply mistaken and need to be revised. Down this path lies eliminative materialism in philosophy of mind , and hard determinism on the question of free will. This option is accepted by the eliminative materialist philosopher Paul Churchland . Some have questioned how eliminative materialism

9417-495: The garden artist Rudolph Siebeck from 1837 onwards. An irregular network of paths and new plantings took away the park's strict layout. On its eastern side, the Rosental lost a large area due to several expansions of the Leipzig Zoological Garden . However, with the last expansion and the associated completion of the so-called zoo showcase in 1976, a wide ditch between the zoo and the Rosental, an insight into

9546-459: The gears of a clock determine that it must strike 2:00 an hour after striking 1:00, all phenomena must be completely determined, past, present or future. The natural philosophers concerned with developing the mechanical philosophy were largely a French group, together with some of their personal connections. They included Pierre Gassendi , Marin Mersenne and René Descartes . Also involved were

9675-434: The greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom ; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. One of the first and most famous expositions of universal mechanism is found in the opening passages of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651). What is less frequently appreciated is that René Descartes was a staunch mechanist, though today, in

9804-406: The help of a privy cabinet created in 1706. It had specialized departments and gradually became the supreme central authority over the competing privy council of the territorial princes. Augustus also introduced a transparent accounting system to verify expenditures and a chamber of accounts that effectively organized the tax system. As a result of it and of the military retrenchment, the national debt

9933-471: The high level quite easily, but not on lower levels at all. No matter how long and cumbersome a low-level statement were made, it would not explain the phenomena in question. It is analogous to the fact that, if you make derivation after derivation in Peano arithmetic , no matter how long and cumbersome you make them, you will never come up with one for G – despite the fact that on a higher level, you can see that

10062-447: The historian Karlheinz Blaschke, Saxony's population was reduced by about half as a result of the war. Other authors point out that such a large decrease may have been true in individual regions, but that it cannot be applied to the entire population. The losses were mitigated to a large extent by religious refugees, about 150,000 of whom came to Saxony from Bohemia and Silesia. After the complete devastation of Magdeburg, its importance as

10191-412: The human mind is equivalent to a Turing machine , or by the Church-Turing thesis , any finite machine at all. If it is, and if the machine is consistent , then Gödel's incompleteness theorems would apply to it. Gödelian arguments claim that a system of human mathematicians (or some idealization of human mathematicians) is both consistent and powerful enough to recognize its own consistency. Since this

10320-480: The human mind is inconsistent. If one is to use Gödel's technique to prove the proposition that T cannot prove, one must first prove (the mathematical statement representing) the consistency of T, a daunting and perhaps impossible task. Later Putnam suggested that while Gödel's theorems cannot be applied to humans, since they make mistakes and are therefore inconsistent, it may be applied to the human faculty of science or mathematics in general. If we are to believe that it

10449-424: The human mind was not equivalent to a finite machine, i.e., its power exceeded that of any finite machine. He recognized that this was only a conjecture, since one could never disprove (b). Yet he considered the disjunctive conclusion to be a "certain fact". In subsequent years, more direct anti-mechanist lines of reasoning were apparently floating around the intellectual atmosphere. In 1960, Hilary Putnam published

10578-655: The influence of the Catholic Counter-Reformation , which was supported by the emperor. Electoral Saxony tried to mediate between the parties in the Empire. In 1608 the Protestant Union was founded as an alliance of the Protestant imperial estates, followed in 1609 by the union of the Catholic imperial estates into the Catholic League . The 1618 Defenestration of Prague , in which angry Protestants threw Catholic officials out of

10707-411: The internal combustion engine. One of the chief obstacles that all mechanistic theories have faced is providing a mechanistic explanation of the human mind ; Descartes , for one, endorsed dualism in spite of endorsing a completely mechanistic conception of the material world because he argued that mechanism and the notion of a mind be logically incompatible. Hobbes , on the other hand, conceived of

10836-478: The lower Rhine. Tensions that had their origins in family relations increased between the two brothers Ernest and Albert and culminated in the Partition of Leipzig of 11 November 1485. It was not originally intended to be permanent, but in the end it significantly weakened the powerful position of the Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire and led to open confrontation. Ernest had his main focus in

10965-421: The mathematical statements I prove. Then using Gödel's technique I can discover a proposition that T cannot prove, and moreover I can prove this proposition. This refutes the assumption that T "represents" me, hence I am not a Turing machine. Hilary Putnam objects that this argument ignores the issue of consistency. Gödel's technique can only be applied to consistent systems. It is conceivable, argues Putnam, that

11094-479: The mechanist banner nonetheless. Chief among them were French philosophers such as Julien Offray de La Mettrie and Denis Diderot (see also: French materialism ). The thesis in anthropic mechanism is not that everything can be completely explained in mechanical terms (although some anthropic mechanists may also believe that), but rather that everything about human beings can be completely explained in mechanical terms, as surely as can everything about clocks or

11223-416: The mechanist thesis, writing: We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of the past and the cause of the future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of

11352-407: The mind and the will as purely mechanistic, completely explicable in terms of the effects of perception and the pursuit of desire, which in turn he held to be completely explicable in terms of the materialistic operations of the nervous system. Following Hobbes, other mechanists argued for a thoroughly mechanistic explanation of the mind, with one of the most influential and controversial expositions of

11481-513: The mismanagement of Saxony's finances increased and budgets became unorganized, resulting in payment defaults and the danger of insolvency. After the death of the Polish king John III Sobieski in 1696, Augustus II the Strong converted to Catholicism and with Habsburg support, military pressure and bribes, won the free election for the kingship in 1697, becoming King Augustus II of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. The political calculation behind

11610-427: The most difficult problem. The first sign of recovery was an increase in tax revenues. Mining, metallurgy, crafts, trade and transportation recovered slowly but steadily. The Saxon estates of the realm had regained influence during the war due to the territorial princes' great need for money. In the second half of the 17th century the electors had to convene the state parliament far more frequently than before, and in 1661

11739-464: The motion and collision of matter that implied a thorough going determinism : if all phenomena could be explained entirely through the motion of matter under the laws of classical physics , then even more surely than the gears of a clock determine that it must strike 2:00 an hour after striking 1:00, all phenomena must be completely determined: whether past, present or future. The French mechanist and determinist Pierre Simon de Laplace formulated

11868-524: The nobility and the administration and tended to lag behind contemporary western nations such as the Dutch Republic . Important humanistic and educational impulses came from Saxony through the Reformation that started in the Electorate in the early 1500s. Especially in the 18th century, Saxon culture and arts flourished. For about 200 years until the end of the 17th century, the Electorate was

11997-777: The north with his residence at Torgau and held the prestigious electoral district in the north. His territory consisted of 14 exclaves in addition to the main complex. The Ernestines retained the title of elector, which could be transferred to all male members of the family. Albert resided in Dresden as Duke of Saxony and was dominant in the east. He had the strategically better territory because it consisted of only two main areas and four exclaves. The two largest Saxon cities, Leipzig and Dresden, were located in his dominions. When Martin Luther posted his 95 theses in Wittenberg in 1517,

12126-435: The one hand, and immaterial mind , on the other. He identified matter with the spatial extension which is its only clear and distinct idea, and consequently denied the existence of vacuum . Descartes argued that one cannot explain the conscious mind in terms of the spatial dynamics of mechanistic bits of matter cannoning off each other. Nevertheless, his understanding of biology was mechanistic in nature: His scientific work

12255-718: The onset of a long economic upswing and increasing urban development. Agreement on political actions and decisions was ensured by a joint court in Dresden Castle . Together the brothers had the Albrechtsburg Castle built in Meissen on the French model. In their policy, they pursued additional accommodation with Bohemia and provided active military assistance to the Empire against the Ottoman Empire and in

12384-400: The opposite theory (i. e., Dynamism), they possess certain internal sources of energy which account for the activity of each and for its influence on the course of events; These meanings, however, soon underwent modification. The question as to whether motion is an inherent property of bodies, or has been communicated to them by some external agency, was very often ignored. With many cosmologists

12513-498: The orthodox Lutheran party, and the new church order was enforced nationwide. With Christian's death in 1591, the situation changed abruptly. Under a guardianship government established for the underaged Christian II (r. 1591–1611), Calvinist movements in Saxony were opposed with violence. Calvinist supporters were removed from all offices, and the houses of wealthy Calvinists were stormed and set on fire. The growing differences between reformed and orthodox Lutheranism strengthened

12642-526: The other German states of the time. After the western part of Saxony reverted to the main Wettin line following the death Duke William III in 1482, Saxony became the second power in the Holy Roman Empire next to the Habsburg domains. The family network of the Wettins expanded to include members who were ecclesiastical dignitaries in Magdeburg, Halberstadt and Mainz , with additional claims to duchies on

12771-903: The period. Augustan Dresden continued to develop into the "Florence on the Elbe". The period saw the building of the Zwinger Palace , the Taschenbergpalais , the Pillnitz Palace , the Moritzburg Castle and the Augustus Bridge . New church buildings included the Protestant Frauenkirche by George Bähr and the Catholic Dresden Cathedral of Gaetano Chiaveri . The luxurious life at court eventually exceeded

12900-403: The plan also envisaged an elaborate eleven-axis palace complex. However, since the construction was to be financed from the city of Leipzig's coffers, the council tried to prevent their construction by citing summer mosquito plagues, regular flooding and the supposed threat of gangs of robbers. In the end, only a wooden observation tower was built. However, this was used extensively by Augustus II

13029-456: The political inheritance of Albert III as an imperial fiefdom to the Wettin margraves of Meissen and granted them the Electorate of Saxony along with its electoral privilege. The Margravate of Meissen was absorbed into the Electorate of Saxony, and Saxe-Wittenberg was incorporated into the Wettin dominion as an electoral district. It was able to maintain a quasi-dominant position in the Wettin state until 1548. The Wettins, who had been margraves of

13158-459: The rejection of the idea of nature as living or animated by spirits or angels . Other scholars, however, have noted that early mechanical philosophers nevertheless believed in magic , Christianity and spiritualism . Some ancient philosophies held that the universe is reducible to completely mechanical principles—that is, the motion and collision of matter . This view was closely linked with materialism and reductionism , especially that of

13287-598: The second most important territory in the Holy Roman Empire and a key protector of its Protestant principalities. At the time of its greatest extent in 1807 (one year after it was elevated to the status of a kingdom), Saxony had reached a size of 34,994 square kilometers (about 13,500 square miles) and had a population of 2,010,000. From the end of the 12th to the middle of the 13th century, a narrow circle of imperial electors emerged that succeeded in excluding others from their number. The electoral college consisted initially of two ecclesiastical and two secular princes, one of whom

13416-540: The specific territory tied to was the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg. The Old Saxony of the early Middle Ages corresponded roughly to the present German state of Lower Saxony . In 1180 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of the rival Hohenstaufen dynasty deprived the Saxon duke Henry the Lion of his power, and his duchy was divided, with the western part placed under the Archbishop of Cologne as the Duchy of Westphalia , while

13545-414: The sweeping implications of this thesis by saying: We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of the past and the cause of the future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of

13674-650: The territorial development of the still sparsely populated area. In 1290 the duchy was extended to include the Burgraviate of Magdeburg and the Countship of Brehna . The electoral privilege was not institutionally regulated until 1356 and the Golden Bull , the fundamental law of the Empire settling the method of electing the German king by seven prince-electors. Through it Emperor Charles IV permanently granted

13803-527: The trend towards absolutist government that was growing in Electoral Saxony. Like other similarly-sized states of the time, Electoral Saxony pursued a foreign policy goal of advancing its own rise in a system of states dominated by rivalries. It remained at the side of the Austrian imperial house until the end of the 17th century. After the death of Emperor Ferdinand III in 1657, John George II

13932-554: The trivial school, I came across the modern [philosophers], and I remember that at the age of 15 I was wandering alone through a grove near Leipzig, called Rosendal, to decide whether I wanted to keep the Substantial Forms. In the end, mechanism won out and led me to study mathematics." One of the access roads to the Rosental is today the Leibnizstrasse, which continues inside the park as Leibnizweg. Since 2009,

14061-496: The universe and that of the lightest atom ; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. Critics argue that although mechanical philosophy includes a wide range of useful observational and principled data, it has not adequately explained the world and its components, and there are weaknesses in its definitions. Among the criticisms made of this philosophy are: The older doctrine, here called universal mechanism ,

14190-401: The universe as mechanistic, but instead populated by mysterious forces and spirits and constantly sustained by God and angels. Later generations of philosophers who were influenced by Newton's example were nonetheless often mechanists. Among them were Julien Offray de La Mettrie and Denis Diderot . The French mechanist and determinist Pierre Simon de Laplace formulated some implications of

14319-429: The universe to a large-scale mechanism (i.e. a machine ). The mechanical philosophy is associated with the scientific revolution of early modern Europe . One of the first expositions of universal mechanism is found in the opening passages of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes , published in 1651. Some intellectual historians and critical theorists argue that early mechanical philosophy was tied to disenchantment and

14448-478: The war costs, he had to give him the two Lusatias as a pledge in 1623. Saxony's relations with the emperor then began to deteriorate, in part because Saxony's neutrality was only minimally respected by the imperial troops led by Albrecht von Wallenstein , who on several occasions led marauding troops into Lusatia. John George also disliked the ruthlessly pursued recatholicization in Silesia and Bohemia, although he

14577-404: The way for the recognition of the new faith in the Empire. Under his rule, the Electorate of Saxony more than any other power in the Empire protected the Protestant faith. After the conclusion of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg that allowed rulers within the Empire to choose either Lutheranism or Catholicism, Saxony was firmly on the Habsburg side. Augustus, who had replaced Maurice as elector after he

14706-501: The whole of Europe. The customs revenues along the route in turn benefited the electoral treasury. In 1480 the printer Konrad Kachelofen from Nuremberg settled in Leipzig and with his letterpress began the Leipzig tradition of book printing. In 1483 Elector Ernest and Duke Albert established the Leipzig High Court . It was staffed by nobles and burghers and was the first independent public authority in Electoral Saxony that

14835-452: The zoo's animal population and a view of the Rosental landscape for zoo visitors is now possible. There is an artificial hill in the northwest of the Rosental. Between 1887 and 1896, 120,000 m (4,200,000 cu ft) (60,000 horse-drawn carts) of household waste were piled up to form the 20 m (66 ft) tall Rosental Hill ("Scherbelberg"). This was planted in 1895 and in 1896 a 15 m (49 ft) tall wooden observation tower

14964-734: Was imperial vicar (regent) for more than a year until the election of the Habsburg Leopold I . Saxony took part in the Second Northern War against Sweden (1655–1660) and then the Austro-Turkish War (1663–1664). In the same year it became a member of the League of the Rhine and allowed the French to recruit on Saxon territory and to have its troops pass through it. In 1683 Elector John George III participated in

15093-502: Was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 initially centred on Wittenberg that came to include areas around the cities of Dresden , Leipzig and Chemnitz . It was a major Holy Roman state, being an electorate and the original protecting power of Protestant principalities until that role was later taken by its neighbor, Brandenburg-Prussia . In the Golden Bull of 1356 , Emperor Charles IV designated

15222-695: Was about fifteen years old, he experienced a first turning point in his philosophical development while taking walks in the Rosental: At that time, he had (provisionally) decided to abandon the idea of substantial form , which was central to the traditional Aristotelian worldview. Etant emancipé des Ecoles Triviales, je tombay sur les modernes, et je me souviens que je me promenay seul dans un boscage aupres de Leipzig, appellé le Rosendal, à l’âge de 15 ans, pour delibérer si je garderois les Formes Substantielles. Enfin le Mechanisme prevalut et me porta à m’appliquer aux Mathematiques. "When I had grown out of

15351-440: Was based on the traditional mechanistic understanding which maintains that animals and humans are completely mechanistic automata . Descartes' dualism was motivated by the seeming impossibility that mechanical dynamics could yield mental experiences. Isaac Beeckman's theory of mechanical philosophy described in his books Centuria and Journal is grounded in two components: matter and motion. To explain matter, Beeckman relied on

15480-484: Was built on it, designed by Hugo Licht . The tower burned down completely as a result of the heavy bombing raid on 4 December 1943. Since 1975, a new 20 m (66 ft) tall observation tower made of steel has stood on this site. At the northwest end of the Rosental is the Rosental sewage treatment plant of the Kommunale Wasserwerke Leipzig, the central wastewater treatment facility of

15609-472: Was detached from the prince and court. An effective local and central administration secured the rule of the electors. Internal order was restored after the unrest and insecurity that robber barons had caused in Germany. Blood feuds were eliminated, the roads were secured from robbery, and an efficient legal system was established. Saxony became culturally, economically, and governmentally advanced compared to

15738-490: Was killed in battle in 1553, saw himself as the leader of the Lutheran imperial states in whose interest the status quo achieved between Protestants and Catholics was to be preserved. The Ernestine duke John Frederick II continued to claim the electoral privilege that had been revoked from his father. When his ally Wilhelm von Grumbach was placed under an imperial ban , John Frederick refused to act against him, and he too

15867-487: Was limited and manageable in spite of the high expenditures. A true absolutism did not develop in the Electorate. The inherent contradictions between the elector's claim to absolute power, the nobility's will to assert itself, and the aspirations of the burghers proved to be insurmountable. Because Augustus' son Frederick Augustus II (r. 1733–1763) had no political ambitions, he left the day-to-day political business to his prime minister Heinrich von Brühl . Under Brühl

15996-472: Was motivated by the seeming impossibility that mechanical dynamics could yield mental experiences. Isaac Newton ushered in a much weaker acceptation of mechanism that tolerated the antithetical, and as yet inexplicable, action at a distance of gravity . However, his work seemed to successfully predict the motion of both celestial and terrestrial bodies according to that principle, and the generation of philosophers who were inspired by Newton's example carried

16125-476: Was put under ban a year later. Emperor Ferdinand I entrusted Augustus with the execution of the imperial sentences, and his successful military actions against both Grumbach and John Frederick in 1567 consolidated Electoral Saxony's position in the Empire. The Albertine electoral privilege was never again challenged by the Ernestines. The introduction of Calvinism into Electoral Saxony began under Elector Christian I (r. 1586–1591). In time it prevailed over

16254-489: Was succeeded by Albert I (r. 1212–1260). After his death in 1260, his sons John I and Albert II (r. 1260–1298) divided his land into the Duchies of Saxe-Wittenberg and Saxe-Lauenburg . Initially the brothers ruled together, but after Albert became burgrave of Magdeburg in 1269, a final division of the duchies under the two rulers became final and was formalized in 1296. Saxe-Wittenberg succeeded in claiming

16383-401: Was the duke of Saxony . The circle was extended in the 13th century to seven: the archbishops of Mainz , Trier and Cologne plus the count palatine of the Rhine , the margrave of Brandenburg , the king of Bohemia and the duke of Saxony. Tying electoral rights to individual territories took place in the early 13th century and solidified from then on. In the case of the Electorate of Saxony,

16512-483: Was thoroughly mechanistic in nature: I should like you to consider that these functions (including passion, memory, and imagination) follow from the mere arrangement of the machine’s organs every bit as naturally as the movements of a clock or other automaton follow from the arrangement of its counter-weights and wheels. His scientific work was based on the traditional mechanistic understanding that animals and humans are completely mechanistic automata . Descartes' dualism

16641-411: Was unable to do anything about it. In 1631 he finally felt compelled to enter the war against the emperor on the side of Protestant Sweden. The decisive factor for the radical change in policy was the military situation – Swedish troops were already on Saxon soil at the time. The war affected Electoral Saxony especially badly in the west. The Battle of Breitenfeld took place near Leipzig in 1631, as did

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