The Birth of Modern Science Galileo andDescartes , a lectur.docx

The Birth of Modern Science: Galileo and
Descartes , a lecture by Ricardo Nirenberg. Fall
1996, the University at Albany, Project
Renaissance.
UNITY AND DIVERSITY
Last time I left you with a question whose answer I do not
know. The question was: why do human
beings search for unity? Not only is the answer unknown, but
the question itself risks being badly
misunderstood. What kind of unity am I talking about? The
Renaissance, whose name this Project has proudly
donned, was also the time, as you must have read in Ortega's
book, when Spain achieved political and religious
unity by expelling Jews and Muslims, people who had lived
there in relative peace for many centuries. Hitler
too screamed: "Ein Volk! Ein Reich!" (One nation, one state),
and killed the Jews and the Gypsies. We saw in
the Soviet Union, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, and in many other
places the search for unity—ethnic, religious,
ideological—as the prelude to, and excuse for, massacre. So you
may say, "Who wants unity? What we want is
diversity!" And indeed, if that's the unity I mean, you would be
right. But that, of course, is not the unity I
mean. What I really mean by unity and oneness will be clarified
only after we talk about the beginnings of
modern science and philosophy and about those two founding
figures, Galileo and Descartes.
As a consequence of the horrors of this century, the word and
the concept "unity" or "oneness," which
used to have a supreme value for both Western and Eastern

thought, have become profoundly unfashionable
among Western intellectuals. But nothing is more interesting
than to re-think unfashionable thoughts, to think
them through yet again. In our own country, the rejection of
unity was taught by a professor at Harvard, the
influential philosopher William James (1842-1910). He
ventured the idea that there exist worlds which are
totally disconnected, meaning that an event in one world cannot
influence another world: no cause-effect
relation obtains between those separate worlds. He called this
doctrine "pluralism," and gave, as unassailable
example of disconnected worlds, the dreams of two dreamers.
He didn't mean it metaphorically, as when
politicians say, "the American dream," or as when Martin
Luther King said, "I have a dream": those dreams are
understood to be shared. No, he meant the dreams of two
different people who are sleeping. Whether or not two
such worlds are really disconnected, let us discuss Galileo and
Descartes, who dealt with unity and
disconnection in their own, and extremely influential, ways.
GALILEO
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa (modern Italy) in 1564; thus he
was of the same generation as Kepler
(about whom we talked in the last lecture). At age eighteen
Galileo had to quit his studies at the University of
Pisa because his family couldn't afford the tuition and the
university wouldn't give him financial aid; at age
twenty-five, however, he was named professor of mathematics
there. The generation of Galileo, to which
Kepler and Descartes belonged among many other illustrious
men, is the starting point for Ortega's meditation
in his book: it was, he says, a time of crisis. Why was it a
crisis? The word "crisis" comes from the Greek verb

"krinein," meaning to choose, to decide between alternatives. At
a time of crisis people must, as always, decide,
but it is specially hard to know how to decide, which alternative
to choose: even the most knowledgeable
The Birth of Modern Science: Galileo and Descartes , a lecture
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people find it difficult or impossible to decide; Galileo, for
example, who certainly knew astronomy and
contributed important discoveries to it—the moons of Jupiter,
the phases of Venus, the sun-spots, the fact that
the Milky Way is a conglomerate of stars, etc.—, thought that
Kepler's new system of elliptical orbits was
wrong, and before him, Tycho Brahe thought that Copernicus'
heliocentric theory was wrong. One could go on
with these sobering examples, but the important thing to keep in
mind is that the 1600's was a time when a
systematic view of the world, which is called "Scholasticism"
because it was taught at schools and universities
and which was based to a large extent on ancient texts—Euclid,
Aristotle, Ptolemy, etc.—, was being gradually
replaced by another systematic view, which we usually call
"Modern Science." It is often asserted that the
difference between the two views is the use of experiments (not
used in the old view, used in the modern one):
there is truth in this, but it is a very partial and superficial
truth. Medieval people and the Scholastics were not
set against experiments; but in order to carry out experiments
one must know beforehand what one is trying to
find, what questions one is trying to answer.

The true difference between the old view and the new one is
metaphysical. To understand what is at
stake here, we must first define what is meant by metaphysics.
Originally, the word meant simply those works
of Aristotle which came after (in Greek meta) his works on
Physics, in the received, traditional arrangement of
his works. Aristotle himself called his "Metaphysics" by a
different name: "First (or Basic) Philosophy." The
word, however, came to signify something quite different.
Here's a brief definition of what metaphysics came
to mean: it is the study and the doctrine of internal, active
principles in things. Metaphysics assumes that there
are such internal, inner, or intrinsic principles or virtues (a
Latin word which means, more or less, "force") in
things; in other words, by its very being, each thing in the
universe exercises an activity which is intrinsic to it.
For the Scholastics, for example, heavy things possess an
intrinsic quality: they tend to move toward the center
of the earth. Souls, on the other hand, are not heavy, and, unless
weighed down by bodily desires, they tend
toward God. Fire is not heavy either, and it tends toward the
upper spheres of the stars. Thus, we already see
that in the concept "activity" the concept of motion, or rather,
of motion-toward, is involved. And this, in turn,
allows us to understand why the new physics of Galileo and the
other modern scientists, which had to do
primarily with the concept of motion, had to clash with
metaphysical doctrines. But motion and activity are not
the only concepts involved in our definition of metaphysics:
there are others—the concepts of principle, the
concept of inner or intrinsic, the concept of individual thing,
and finally, the very concept of being. Any serious
analysis of metaphysics must take up all these particularly
difficult concepts. Remember from our lecture on
language: analysis means to untie or loosen the bindings which
hold our concepts together.

Now, there was one idea that was common to all the founders of
modern science: to ignore, or to
dispense with, what they called "occult virtues or qualities of
things": these had been thoroughly abused by the
Scholastics, and much fun was poked at them in the 1600's and
later; writers of comedies had ridiculous
doctors solemnly proclaim that opium made one sleep because
of its "dormitive virtue," as if that explained
anything. What was understood by "occult" did vary, though,
with different thinkers. In any case, the Scholastic
system had come to a point were explanations became too
complicated and, above all, they lacked unity. Unity
is lost when each phenomenon requires an explanation ad-hoc,
without connection to all other
explanations—but, as I've said at the beginning, human beings
yearn for unity. To take another example, if
contemporary physics should require, say, 300 different kinds
of forces obeying laws having nothing to do with
each other, that would be the end of physics. This was the root
cause of the 1600 crisis, yet it is not a
characterization of it: to characterize the early modern crisis we
must show what were the options which
opened up to thinkers at that time. I have chosen to speak of
Galileo and Descartes on the same day because
they exemplify superbly the two roads that opened up to thought
at the beginning of our modern era, precisely
in regard to metaphysics.
Galileo, as you've heard from Dr. Hagelberg, was the founder of
modern kinematics: this means the
description of motion. He showed by experiment that the
velocity of a freely falling body is directly

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proportional to the time elapsed, regardless of the weight of the
body (contrary to what Aristotle had taught); as
an application of this he showed that the period of a pendulum
is independent of the amplitude of the
oscillations (provided they are not too large) and of the mass of
the bob: it only depends on the length of the
rod. He showed, too, that the trajectory of any heavy projectile
is a parabola, another of the conic sections
studied by the Greeks (together with the ellipse and the
hyperbola), which now found a surprising application.
Most importantly, Galileo established a principle that was later
to be called Galilean relativity (to distinguish it
from Einstein's relativity): all motion is relative, and this means
that it does not makes sense to speak of the
motion of an individual thing, it only makes sense to speak of
the motion of one thing A with respect to another
thing B; moreover, if A moves with respect to B with uniform
velocity, we cannot tell whether A or B is
moving, a phenomenon with which you are familiar: when you
travel on a train, it is only your memories and
common sense which convince you that the train is moving, and
not the landscape in the opposite direction.
Galileo's principle defies metaphysics, in the sense that motion
turns out not to be an intrinsic quality of things.
The consequence of this was enormous, once scientists and
thinkers started reducing all phenomena in nature to
the one phenomenon of motion: the consequence was that
physics didn't care for metaphysics. But when
metaphysics is expelled, it will come back through the back
door: one asks, what is it that moves? Answer:
planets, particles, atoms, etc. Why does a planet (say) move?

Because it has mass and an initial impulse (as
Newton would state some years later). And what is mass? An
inner, active principle in things. So there we go
again, as Ronald Reagan used to say. Next semester we'll see
how Newton, Leibniz, and other great scientists
and philosophers, dealt with the problem.
But Galileo didn't deal with it, nor did he care for it. If at the
beginning of his career he had tried, in
some letters, to deal with religious problems, that had caused
him only troubles. All he cared for was motion
(which was, needless to say, a lot). So, Galileo's decision, his
way out of the crisis, was this: he sharply
separated physics from metaphysics—had he used today's
academic jargon he would have said: "They are two
separate, untranslatable discourses, and I talk only physics."
This makes him the first professional scientist. I'm
using the word "professional" in a very definite way: it means,
precisely, this attitude, this ability to sharply
separate spheres of thought, feeling and activity and make them
disconnected, and to be able to say, "I deal with
this one only—that's my job." It is, in other words, the quality
of detachment, by which the human yearning for
unity is suppressed. In connection with professionalism I must
mention the famous trial of Galileo. A rather
choleric man who did not suffer fools and who wielded a sharp
and sarcastic pen, he had made some powerful
enemies, especially among the Jesuits. The Catholic Church
ostensibly objected to Galileo's adoption of the
Copernican heliocentric model as a true description of reality
because it was contrary to Scripture, but the
Church had another, better reason to condemn the physicist: his
unconcern for metaphysics. For many
centuries, ever since Christianity wedded philosophy,
metaphysics was the rational ground for believing in
God. It is not hard to see how: God was defined as the supreme

individual, whose inner principle is perfection
(there's metaphysics for you!). At least since the 11th century
(St. Anselm), the argument went as follows: if
such an individual did not exist, it would lack the attribute of
existence and therefore it wouldn't be perfect: but
it was assumed that it was perfect, therefore it must exist. This
is called "the ontological argument for the
existence of God." Thus, without metaphysics, a rational proof
of the existence of God cannot work, and I
should remind you that, even today, the possibility of such a
proof is a dogma of the Catholic Church. And
there was another Catholic dogma, of particular relevance
during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation,
whose truth was threatened by the new Galilean physics: I mean
the Eucharist, the doctrine that the body of
Christ becomes present in the consecrated wafer. This doctrine
was rationally justified by the Aristotelian
distinction between "substance" and "qualities" or "attributes."
The qualities of the wafer were still the same
(e.g. it was white) but its substance was changed, it became
God, so the argument went. Galilean physics, by
conflating both substance and qualities under the general idea of
atoms in motion, tended to obliterate the
distinction, and justify all kinds of heresies.
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Anyway, Galileo was condemned. But the Roman Inquisition,
which had burnt Giordano Bruno a few
decades before, in 1600, for (among other things) professing
Copernican doctrines, did not kill Galileo. This

was because he did not consider it necessary to die; instead, he
publicly recanted his own teachings and beliefs.
Compare his behavior with Socrates': condemned by the
Athenians to death for his teachings and "for
corrupting the city's youth," far from recanting and asking for
mercy, Socrates defied the court, affirmed his
beliefs and perished (read Plato's Apology, Crito and Phaedo).
It would be silly to conclude that Socrates was
brave and Galileo a coward, or that Socrates had developed a
taste for self-sacrifice and Galileo had not. No,
Socrates had to die, and Galileo didn't have to: the truth of
Socrates' moral teachings were an integral part of his
life, of his identity, a vital organ like his brain or his heart—not
only that, those moral teachings were
exemplified by his conduct. Instead, Galileo's astronomy and
physics, fundamental as they are, were separate
from the rest of his self, didn't have anything to do with his
conduct, and could be amputated—remember:
detachment is the defining virtue of the professional. Self-
sacrifice results out of an attachment to some truth
that's stronger than one's natural attachment to life. Therefore,
self-sacrifice is unprofessional.
DESCARTES
Having described Galileo's separation of physics from
metaphysics and his unconcern for the latter, we
come now to Descartes, who was a great admirer of Galileo but
followed a different path. René Descartes was
born in a small village in central France, in 1596, and was
educated by the Jesuits; by 1616 he had got a degree
in Law. In the years 1618-1619 he joined an army, traveled in
Germany, and there, on November 10, 1619, he
had a vision and three dreams, in which a new and marvelous
science was revealed. What was this "marvelous

science" that was revealed to the young soldier in his dreams?
The education he had gotten at the Jesuit college
was superb (Jesuits were Galileo's enemies, but they were and
are superb teachers—I still remember the one
who taught me Latin in high school), but Descartes, who
professed admiration for his teachers, concluded that
he had learned nothing that wasn't subject to crippling doubts.
Except, that is, for what he had learned in
mathematics. Math was the exemplary science, and any
knowledge which aspired to truth had to partake of the
certainty and clarity of mathematical theorems; in Descartes'
own words, knowledge had to be "clear and
distinct," else it was not genuine knowledge. It had to impose
itself on all sober minds, regardless of their
customs or culture. Being a brilliant mathematician, he could
have, like Galileo, restricted himself to the exact
and mathematical sciences, but Descartes was no detached
professional: he had a burning desire for cognitive
unity, and so, when he came to write his Regulae (Rules) (1628)
and then his famous Discourse on Method
(1637), his purpose was not simply to set down rules for solving
math or physics problems, but rules and a
method for reaching the truth about anything whatsoever. Here's
the gist of Descartes' rules for discovering
truth: (1) To accept nothing in one's judgments beyond what
presents itself so clearly and distinctly to one's
mind that one cannot doubt it. (2) Divide each difficulty into as
many parts as possible and solve them one by
one. (3) Start from the simplest objects and advance toward
knowledge of the more complex. (4) Make careful
enumerations and reviews so that nothing is left out.
It has been often pointed out that these rules are too general and
not of much help in specific cases.
Descartes agreed, so he didn't just offer a set of rules, but gave
several examples of how to apply them to solve

difficult problems. In his Discourse on Method he dealt with
optics and gave the law for the refraction of light
(also called Snell's law): if you have two media (air and water,
for example) separated by a surface, a ray of
light will hit and go through the surface in such a way that the
incoming and outcoming rays and the
perpendicular to the surface at the hitting point will be on the
same plane, and the angles the ray forms with the
perpendicular on both sides of the surface are related thus: the
ratio of their sines is a constant (refraction
index) which depends on the two media. Further, Descartes
dealt with meteorological phenomena such as the
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rainbow: using his refraction law, he computed how the rays of
light from the sun hit a spherical water drop,
and showed that those rays come out of the drop showing a
marked preference for one angle, corresponding to
the main rainbow, and two subsidiary angles, corresponding to
two fainter rainbows (next time you see a
rainbow, try to detect the other two!) And most importantly, he
dealt with geometry, and solved one of the
hardest problems left by the ancient Greek geometer Pappus. I
won't go into what that problem was, although
it's not too hard, and the reason it's not too hard for us is that
we know something called Analytic Geometry,
which is what Descartes came up with in order to solve it.
Analytic geometry is an extremely powerful tool: it reduces
geometric problems to algebraic ones, that

is, to solving algebraic equations. This is achieved as follows:
each point on a straight line is thought of as a
"real number"—not just the fractions but "irrationals" such as
square root of 2, or 3, etc. as well. Then we take
two such lines, say perpendicular to each other. Once we do
that, each point in the plane is located by giving
two real numbers called its Cartesian coordinates (in honor of
Descartes). If we call these two numbers the
abscissa x and the ordinate y of a point, then for different
values of x and y we have all the points in the plane.
If, on the other hand, we establish a relation between x and y
containing the equal sign (an equation), we get a
one-dimensional curve. For example, the equation 3x+2y = 5
represents a straight line in the plane; the
equation x2+y2 = 9 represents a circle centered at (0,0) and
having radius 3; the equation 2x2+6y2 = 10
represents an ellipse; and so on with more complex curves.
Once Descartes was able to do this, he proceeded to
solve old problems as well as new ones. The importance of
Analytic Geometry on the development of science
has been enormous: it made possible the invention of Calculus
(of which we'll talk in the second semester), and
thereby the development of modern physics and the other
sciences, and of modern technology in general.
It had enormous consequences, too, on our notions of space and
time. Space was mathematized, made
homogenous: the essence of space became number, in the best
Pythagorean tradition; as for qualities like color,
texture, sacredness, etc., all those became "secondary qualities,"
accidents which for the time being were
considered "obscure," not at all clear and distinct as math was.
Galileo too had considered motion and shape as
primary and color, smell, etc. as secondary. From then on,
science became truly abstract, but promised that
eventually those secondary qualities, too, would be, in due time,

be explained in terms of math. In due time
means in some future time: once everything is explained clearly
in terms of math, Utopia will arrive. The birth
of modern science coincides with the birth of Utopian thought.
Time too was mathematized, made into a real
number line. When we study Descartes' notions of space and
time, they seem strange to us, because we are
heirs to the later tradition which starts with Newton; still, given
Descartes' premises, those notions are perfectly
logical. The one crucial premise was this: Descartes, like
Galileo, was determined to keep metaphysics out of
the picture when considering space and motion. As we will see
shortly, Descartes put metaphysics to a different
use, but he insisted that no "occult virtues" were to be accepted
when speaking of physical phenomena.
Therefore, Descartes rejected outright the notion of empty
space. All space had to be filled, if not with air or
such, then with a subtle substance which later physicists were to
call "aether." And why? Because motion could
not possibly be transmitted across empty space; Descartes
would have rejected Newtonian gravitational forces
as another instance of occult virtues and scholastic hocus-
pocus; motion had to be transmitted directly from
object to object, from particle to particle, like when billiard
balls hit one another—no "action-at-a-distance"!
When it comes to time, here's Descartes himself, in his Third
Meditation on First Philosophy:
"It is quite clear to anyone who attentively considers the nature
of time that the same power and action are
needed to preserve anything at each individual moment of its
duration as would be required to create that thing anew if it
were not yet in existence."
This is astounding to us. Part of what Descartes is doing here is

going against the received Aristotelian
notion that a God was required to give things the initial push,
but that from then on things can go on on their
own. Yet the main thrust of his astounding pronouncement is
the total rejection of occult virtues and
metaphysical essences. In effect, what happens when an object
moves? In our own Galilean and Newtonian
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physics, it is accepted that for the object to start moving we
need some action, in other words, a force; but one
of the main principles of this physics is that once the object is
moving, it will keep on moving in a straight line
with the same velocity: this is called the principle of inertia. If
you ask, what is this "inertia," the answer is that
it is an intrinsic property or quality of massive objects, of mass.
So, with inertia, we are back into the realm of
intrinsic properties or qualities, we are back into metaphysics,
something Descartes insisted on doing without.
So, how did he solve the problem? Well, there's always God.
God keeps the whole thing going, from moment to
moment. God doesn't rest for a single instant. This, for
Descartes, was another proof of the existence of God,
alongside the other proofs, such as the ontological one
mentioned before.
This brings us to the other aspect of Cartesian thought: his
metaphysics. For, contrary to Galileo,
Descartes did think hard about metaphysics, so much so that he
is considered the father of modern philosophy.

But his metaphysics was kept strictly separate from his physics.
How did he achieve this? By postulating that
there are two entirely different substances, two different kinds
of existing things: the mind, and the physical
objects (such as our own body). The mind, he says, is the
thinking substance, the thing whose activity is to
think, and here, when we deal with mind, metaphysics (or First
Philosophy, as he called it following Aristotle)
is the right science. But when it comes to physical (that is,
spatiotemporal) objects, their essence is extension in
space, and the right science to deal with those is math and
mathematical physics, leaving metaphysics aside.
This theory of two essentially different substances is called
Dualism. But we must keep in mind that when he
dealt with the mind Descartes kept insisting on the same clarity
and distinctiveness as when he dealt with math
and physics. His method started with what he called "universal
doubt": everything was to be put on hold,
nothing was to be accepted as true unless it hit us with the same
irrefutable evidence as 2+2 = 3+1. He
assumed, too, that the mind is capable of examining itself, of
finding the truth about itself. The first question
the doubting mind puts to itself is this: Do I exist? And the
answer is: I doubt of my own existence (as a mind),
now doubting is a kind of thinking, which shows that I think,
therefore, since the essence of my mind is
thinking, this shows that I (or my mind) exist. In concise Latin:
"Cogito ergo sum". This does not show that my
body exists, only that my mind does. Then Descartes goes on to
prove that not only does my mind exist, but
that it is not dreaming, and that in believing in the existence of
my body and an external world it is not being
deceived by a deceiving god. This, I think, is not so clear and
indubitable as the first conclusion, but let the
matter stand thus, for here we cannot follow Descartes in his
metaphysical thought.

To sum up, with Galileo and Descartes we encounter two
different rational ways of thinking about the
world: Professionalism and Dualism. Not much later, in the 18th
century, we will encounter still a third way:
Materialism. Actually, Materialism is quite old, going at least
as far back as Epicurus, of whom Prof. Isser has
talked; its basic tenet is that everything, including the mind, is
reducible to matter and its properties and
changes. Those three ways of thinking, Materialism, Dualism,
and Professionalism, are very much with us. I'm
not saying that they are the only ways of thinking about the
world, merely that they are the dominant ones in
our culture; besides, we often encounter them not in their pure
form but in some mixture or combination. Most
contemporary scientists (by no means all) adopt a mixture of
materialism and professionalism. Official
Christianity, on the other hand, professes some form of
Dualism; recently, the Catholic Church rehabilitated
Galileo, and some months ago it even rehabilitated Darwin and
evolutionary biology, with one exception
though: our mortal bodies (said the Pope) can be studied in
accordance with Darwinian evolution, but not our
immortal souls—they are two different substances. Finally,
Professionalism, which started as a detachment of
Physics from Metaphysics and a renouncement of cognitive
unity, has become, by a curious and ironic twist,
the dominating non-religious moral code in contemporary
society, a phenomenon that has yet to be studied.
What can we conclude, then, in regard to our starting theme of
unity and diversity? Modern science
achieved unity in the laws that govern the universe, making our
earth and the most distant stars parts of the
same cosmos. A practical result, however, has been the
specialization and fragmentation of our knowledge, and

the abandonment of all attempts at cognitive unity within any
one human mind. We will have more to say about
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this paradoxical situation — next semester.
Required Reading:
Ortega y Gasset, Man and Crisis
Ekeland, Math and the Unexpected (first two chapters).
Optional Readings:
Of Galileo's works, the most important are: Il Saggiatore (The
Assayer), Dialogue of the Two Chief
World Systems, and Dialogue on Two New Sciences. On
Galileo, you may consult Pietro Redondi, Galileo
Heretic, Princeton, 1987.
Of Descartes' works, the most important are: Discourse on
Method and Metaphysical Meditations
(Meditations on First Philosophy). On Descartes, you may
consult: Bernard Williams, Descartes, Penguin,
1990.
On the virtues of separation and detachment as characteristic of
professional scientists, see New York
Review of Books, October 3 1996, pp. 54 ff., exchange of
letters from various professors and the views of
physicist Steven Weinberg (especially his mentioning of
Galileo!).

On professionalism in general, see Ricardo L. Nirenberg,
"Against Professionalism," in Exquisite
Corpse, no. 50, 1994/95.
To Nirenberg lectures To Nirenberg bio.
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The strategy audit is a comprehensive analysis of the company’s
business strategy and operating performance, and culminates in
a series of recommendations for improving your company’s
performance based on the findings and conclusions of your
analysis. It involves assessing the actual direction of a business
and comparing that course to the direction required to succeed
in a changing environment. A company's actual direction is the
sum of what it does and does not do, how well the organization
is internally aligned to support the strategy, and how viable the
strategy is when compared to external market, competitor, and
financial realities. These two categories—the internal
assessment and the external or environmental assessment—make
up the major elements of a strategy audit.
Throughout this capstone course, you will work on a strategy
audit for a selected organization. This will provide a summative
learning experience that allows you to demonstrate your
understanding of most of the MBA program learning outcomes
and concepts in the various courses within the program. You
will write this report as though you are a consultant to your
selected company and are addressing the executive officers of
this company. In each module, you will collect and analyze data
in producing your report, but your final product will be
condensed and focus on presenting your analysis findings and

conclusions. You will submit two parts of a course project
related to the strategy audit. You will submit these two parts
inModules 3 and 5.
Here is a list of tasks you will complete for your course project.
M1: Assignment 3—Market Position Analysis: You will assess
the product portfolio of your selected organization by analyzing
its value proposition, market position, and competitive
advantage. You will identify the business unit of your company
and the product(s) and service(s) you will focus on in this
report. To gain a better understanding of these factors you will
conduct at least one interview with a mid-level or senior
manager.
M2: Assignment 2—External Environmental Scan: You will
conduct a comprehensive external environment scan of your
business unit along with a five forces analysis. Your analysis
will incorporate any key customer-related factors and trends.
You will use this information for a strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis in Module 4.
M3: Assignment 2—LASA 1: Preliminary Strategy Audit: This
is where you submit the first part of your course project
assignment. You will develop a preliminary strategy audit, in
which you will include an analysis of the company’s value
proposition, market position, competitive advantage, and an
external environmental scan/five forces analysis. You will also
identify the 5–7 most important strategic issues facing the
organization or business unit and include a preliminary set of
recommended tactics for improving your company’s strategic
alignment and operating performance.
M4: Assignment 2—Internal Environmental
Scan/Organizational Assessment: In this assignment, you will
continue your SWOT analysis by conducting a comprehensive
assessment of the internal environment of your business unit
including factors such as mission, vision, values, strategy
clarification, cultural assessment, and value chain analysis.
M5: Assignment 2—LASA 2: Capstone Strategy Audit: This is
where you will submit the second part of your course project

assignment. In this assignment, you will complete and submit
the capstone strategy audit report and the accompanying
PowerPoint presentation. You will provide a high-level analysis
of the company’s business strategy and operating performance
and recommend specific tactics for improving your company’s
strategic alignment and operating performance. You will include
an executive summary for your report and attach the sections
completed throughout the course as appendices.
To get a head start on your course project, be sure to identify a
suitable business unit before starting the assignments
for Module 1.
Use the following parameters to help you identify your business
unit:
Research
“Access” to information and “availability” of the contact(s)
· The organization should be accessible and local to where you
live.
· Meeting the concerned person for the interview and data
collection will help you in your project.
· You will need access to both company information and the
contacts. In addition, select contacts that will be available for
consultation in order to fulfill the assignment. Keep in mind
that you may need to speak to them more than once.
· In case you have only remote access to your selected
organization, ensure timely access to collect all relevant
information.
Presentation
The PowerPoint presentation that accompanies the strategy
audit aligns with the following parameters:
· The PowerPoint presentation should be approached as though
it is being given to the executive team at the company for which
you will conduct the strategy audit.
· The presentation should be very professional and polished
with summarized material on the slides supported by charts,
graphs, and visual aids.
· Detailed explanatory information should be provided in the

notes section available under each slide.
Take this opportunity to get started on your course project
assignment:
· Review the course project instructions.
· Identify an organization:
· Option 1: Review your current organization.
· Option 2: Identify an organization that you can have access to
for the assignment, serving as a consultant providing a final
product to assist them with a fresh, educated look at their
strategy and operating performance.
· Create a plan and timetable for how you will gather the
information you will need for the strategy audit.
Using the navigation on the left, please proceed to the next
page.
Assignment 2: External Environmental Scan
In order to develop effective strategies, it is critical to
understand the marketplace environment. In this assignment,
you will explore the relationship between marketplace
positioning based on environmental factors.
Throughout this course, you will work on a strategy audit for a
selected organization. In Module 1, you selected an
organization for your course project activities and completed a
market position analysis for your organization.
In this module, you will conduct a comprehensive external
environmental scan of your business unit, including a five
forces analysis, to identify the relevant trends that pose
opportunities or threats to your business. These will serve as
inputs for a final strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats (SWOT) analysis that will be due in Module 4:
Assignment 2.
There are many elements that can go into an environmental
scan, and your analysis will depend on the nature of your
business unit, product portfolio, target market, and other factors
related to the scope of your business.

Your environmental scan should include some or all of the
following elements:
· Economic factors and trends
· Political factors and trends
· Regulatory and legal factors and trends
· Societal factors and trends
· Technological factors and trends
· Geographic factors and trends
· Porter’s five forces that consists of the following aspects:
· Threat of new competition
· Threat of substitute products or services
· Bargaining power of customers (buyers)
· Bargaining power of suppliers
· Intensity of competitive/industry rivalry
Although your analysis will be tailored to your specific
business, be sure to cover the following:
· A thorough five forces analysis of your industry
· The key factors and trends in any other areas affecting your
industry
· A preliminary classification of the external factors and trends
as either opportunities or threats which will be the inputs for
the final SWOT analysis
Write a 3-page report in Word format. Apply APA standards to
citation of sources. Use the following file naming convention:
LastnameFirstInitial_M2_A2.doc.
By Wednesday, July 22, 2015, deliver your assignment to the
M2: Assignment 2 Dropbox.
Assignment 2 Grading Criteria
Maximum Points
Conduct a Five-Forces analysis of your industry.
32
Summarize the key factors and trends in any other areas
affecting your industry
28
Create a preliminary classification of the external factors and
trends as either Opportunities or Threats (inputs into a SWOT)

analysis
28
Write using ethical scholarship and proper grammar and
mechanics.
12
Total:
100
Required Readings
· Efendioglu, A., & Karabulut, A. (2010). Impact of strategic
planning on financial performance of companies in Turkey.
International Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), 3–12.
(ProQuest Document ID: 821297217)
http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/docview/8212972
17 /abstract?source=fedsrch&accountid=34899
· Heiba, F. (2011). Future global marketing negotiations: A
strategic scenario. International Journal of Business and Social
Science, 2(4). (ProQuest Document ID: 904523887)
87/ abstract?source=fedsrch&accountid=34899
· Porter, M. (1996). What is strategy? Harvard Business Review
74(6), 61–68. (EBSCO AN: 9611187954)
http://www.thecampuscommon.com/library/ezproxy/ticketdemoc
s.asp?sch=auo&turl=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir
ect=true&db=bth&AN=9611187954&site=ehost-live
· Schmelz, D. R., Ramsey, R. P., & Gassenheimer, J. B. (2011).
Bleu Ribbon Chocolates: How can small businesses adapt to a
changing environment? Marketing Education Review, 21(2),
177–182. doi:10.2753/MER1052-8008210207 (EBSCO AN:
63968062)
·
http://www.thecampuscommon.com/library/ezproxy/ticketdemoc
s.asp?sch=auo&turl=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir
ect=true&db=bth&AN=63968062&site=ehost-live
Recommended Readings

· Deverell, E., & Olsson, E. (2010). Organizational culture
effects on strategy and adaptability in crisis management. Risk
Management, 12(2), 116–134. doi: 10.1057/rm.2009.18
(ProQuest Document ID: 232626553)
53?accountid=34899
· Jüttner, U., Martin, C., & Godsell, J. (2010). A strategic
framework for integrating marketing and supply chain
strategies. International Journal of Logistics Management,
21(1), 104–126. doi: 10.1108/09574091011042205 (ProQuest
Document ID: 367098166)
66?accountid=34899
· Peterson, M., Gröne, F., Kammer, K., & Kirscheneder, J.
(2010). Multi-channel customer management: Delighting
consumers, driving efficiency. Journal of Direct, Data and
Digital Marketing Practice, 12(1), 10–15. doi:
10.1057/dddmp.2010.16. (ProQuest Document ID: 740324599)
99?accountid=34899
· Raja, I. S., & Raja, M. S. (2010). Managing technological
innovation: China's strategy and challenges. Journal of
Technology Management in China, 5(3), 213–226. doi:
10.1108/17468771011086238 (ProQuest Document
ID:757059093)
93/ abstract?source=fedsrch&accountid=34899
· Tomomi, T. (2010). Environmental management strategy for
small and medium-sized enterprises: Why do SMBs practice
environmental management? Asian Business & Management,
9(2), 265–280. doi: 10.1057/abm.2010.6 (ProQuest Document
ID: 325344030)
30?accountid=34899

On Critical Thinking and the Nature of Logic
In this course we seek to know what constitutes knowledge,
how to acquire it, and
how to represent it to others. Our study resembles that of
epistemology more than
rhetoric. We do not seek to persuade anyone of anything unless
it be the truth; vero nihil
verius (nothing is truer than truth) is our law.
Recognizing or determining what is true requires critical
thinking, the subject of
our study, and representing such truths as we can discover in
writing requires great skill
and practice. The use of logic has long been thought to
illuminate the road to truth, so it
behooves us to begin our journey by looking into how and why
that is.
The word “logic” comes into English from Old French but
seems to be a
combination of two Greek words: logos (word, reason) and
techne (art, craftsmanship).
From an etymological standpoint, then, “logic” names the art
(or process, or technique) of
reasoning.
We find the term “logos” first in the writings of Heraclitus, a
Greek who wrote
before the time of Plato. Exactly what Heraclitus means by the
term has long been a
matter of debate, but he seems to use it to name what might be
called “the world
process”: the most basic thing in the universe.
Subsequent to Heraclitus, but still prior to Plato, the
Pythagoreans used the term

“logos” to name their most characteristic idea: the universe is
an ordered thing, and the
order can be found in and described by numbers.
These days, when we say or think that something or other is
“logical,” what we
mean is that it is characterized by clear thinking or that it is a
natural consequence of the
circumstances. One is tempted, then, to describe logic as a
mental thing that follows or
piggybacks on the universe outside of us. The Greeks, however,
considered logic to be
the order of the universe, not simply a mental process in
humans. So, to the extent that we
are thinking logically, we are directly imagining the shape and
order of the universe.
Viewed in this way, logic would seem to be a very powerful
tool for imagining
what the universe is really like: the truth of the universe. From
these considerations, logic
would seem to be the truest arrow in the quiver of our critical
thinking.
The concept of logic espoused here is a Greek one. It is
implicit in the ideas
attributed to Thales, but informs the writings of nearly all of the
thinkers that we call
Greek philosophers, finding its most systematic expression in
the works of Aristotle. It
assumes a universe separate from and anterior to human
consciousness.
Logic, then, may be described as the study of the most basic
characteristics of the
universe that is inhabited by all of us. It provides us with the
landscape for correct
reasoning in that correct reasoning is understood to be grounded
in the nature of things.
Logic contains the basic principles for studying “being as

being” as Aristotle has it.
Logic provides the ground rules for all critical thinking and
expression, which
must be accepted by all in order to avoid what logicians Cohen
and Nagel call the
Gray 1
stultification of all thought. Among these ground rules are the
laws of thought and some
common inferences that apply to all things that are or may be.
A possibly unsatisfactory aspect of some of these ground rules
is that they cannot
be proved as such because there are no more basic assumptions
that can be formulated
into premises from which they can be drawn as conclusions. We
simply agree to agree to
them so that discourse can proceed.
If by discourse we mean broadly a connected series of
utterances, which may in
some cases be written down, then we might ask what
“connected” actually means. If, for
instance, you were relaxing at home some evening, and a knock
at the door caused you to
open it to a man who was uttering a series of animal names, you
would be puzzled and
perhaps frightened because you might not know how these
actions connected to anything
else in your life. But if you opened your door to a neighbor who
informed you that the
house next door was on fire, your puzzlement and fright might
lead you to think of
calling 911 or of stepping outside to assess the situation.
In the first instance, the animal names do not constitute a claim

or complete
thought, so there is no consciousness of anything’s being true or
false, and no
consciousness of anything else’s being true or false as a
consequence. In the second
instance, the truth of the claim that the house next door is on
fire would mean that other
things were true. Among these might be that smoke is present or
that your own house is
in danger of igniting.
Precisely in that space between the utterance of “the house next
door is on fire”
and the next event that takes place is where we must search for
logic. Our search consists
of exploring the relationship between the truth of one claim and
the truth of another. That
relationship is limited: if one claim is true, then the next claim
can be true, or false, or
unknown.
Let us consider the claim, “The current month is January.” If
this claim is true,
then we can find the truth of the claims, “Next month is
February,” “Last month was
April,” and “Next month it will be cold.” These claims are
respectively true, false, and
unknown (the last is unknown because we do not know the
relevant geographical area).
One of logic’s most important areas of study is the relationship
of implication or
entailment. Cohen and Nagel claim that logic just is the study of
implication. We do not
necessarily have to agree with that claim to understand the
importance of the relationship,
so let us consider it.
We say that one claim implies or entails a second claim if and
only if it is

impossible for the first claim to be true and the second claim to
be false. Consider two
claims: (1) “My sister lives in Syracuse” and (2) “I am not an
only child.” If it is true that
my sister lives in Syracuse, then it must be true that I am not an
only child. We say that
claim (1) implies claim (2), or claim (1) entails claim (2), or
claim (2) necessarily follows
from claim (1).
Gray 2
Now consider two further claims: (3) “My sister lives in New
York” and (4) “I can
easily visit my sister.” Is it possible for claim (3) to be true, and
claim (4) to be false? It
would certainly be possible if I made the claim from Tokyo or
jail. So, we cannot say that
claim (3) entails claim (4).
When two claims are related by implication or entailment, then,
like Sherlock
Holmes, we can make a deduction from one to the other. We can
deduce from the truth of
“My sister lives in Syracuse” that “I am not an only child.” But,
we cannot deduce from
“My sister lives in New York” that “I can easily visit my
sister.”
The relationship of implication or entailment is strict and
formal. It only holds if it
is impossible for one claim to be true and another claim to be
false. It is not sufficient that
the second claim be highly likely. The truth of “the sun rose
this morning” does not imply
the truth of “the sun will rise tomorrow morning” even though

every day in human
memory has affirmed the likelihood of the latter. It is
conceivable that the sun could go
nova or that something could interfere with the earth’s rotation,
making it false that the
sun will rise tomorrow.
The relation of implication depends on the thing being
implied’s being part of the
meaning of the thing implying. If I have a sister living in
Syracuse, then I cannot be an
only child because the meaning of “only child” is that a person
has no brother or sister.
The most basic rules governing relationships such as
implication are three in
number and are often referred to as the laws of thought (though,
as Cohen and Nagel
point out, they are not about thought at all, but the universe
itself). The first is the law of
identity: a thing is equal to itself. In terms of discourse, if a
claim is true, then it is true.
The second is the law of non-contradiction: a thing cannot be
itself and not itself at the
same time. In terms of discourse, a claim cannot be true and
false at the same time. The
third is the law of the excluded middle: a thing exists, or it does
not exist; there is nothing
in between these two states. In terms of discourse, a claim is
true or it is false.
Logic, to sum up these points, can be seen as the description of
the most general
qualities of things in the universe and the study of the most
basic relationships among
them. Critical thinking employs logic, as well as other tools, to
determine and
communicate truths about a shared universe that exists
independent of the thinker.

We make claims about this universe such as “today is warmer
than yesterday,” and
according to the law of the excluded middle, these claims are
either true or false.
Thinking might be described as the process of moving one’s
attention from one claim to
another. In doing so, one evaluates the truth or falsity of some
claims in an effort to
determine the truth or falsity of others. This is the process of
inference.
When the relationship between the claims under consideration
is one of
implication, then we are making a valid inference, which is
completely reliable because it
is necessary or truth preserving. Such inferences are very
useful for finding and
expressing truths, but they are limited to a small number of
forms.
Gray 3
The best known of these forms is the modus ponens. A modus
ponens is a valid or
deductive inference that takes the form “If P, then Q; P is true;
therefore Q is true” (where
P and Q can stand for any proposition). In plainer English: If I
run a mile, then I get tired.
I run a mile; therefore, I get tired.
A related inference is the modus tollens. It is also a valid or
deductive inference,
and it takes the form “If P, then Q; Q is not true; therefore P is
not true.” In natural
English: If it rains, then the corn grows tall. The corn does not
grow tall; therefore, it

doesn’t rain.
The modus ponens and modus tollens are valid argument forms
in addition to
being valid inferences. They each consist of two propositions (a
proposition can be
thought of as the meaning or content of a sentence that is either
true or false) that offer
reasons to ascribe truth to a third proposition. The propositions
offered in support are
called premises and the proposition being supported is called
the conclusion. An
argument, for our purposes, consists of at least two propositions
(the number is
theoretically infinite); the truth of at least one of which is
supported by the others.
While arguments containing valid inferences, deductive
arguments, are extremely
effective in elucidating truths, they are not the only kind if
argument. Other arguments
contain inferences that support the truth of their conclusions but
do not guarantee it the
way that deductive arguments do. The inferences in these
arguments rather than being
necessary are only probable inferences. An example of such an
inference is “There are
low, dark clouds in the sky, so there will be a thunderstorm.”
Can we think of a situation
in which it is true that there are low, dark clouds in the sky, but
no thunderstorm occurs?
If the answer is yes (which it is), then we cannot claim a
relationship of implication or
entailment between these propositions, and we cannot claim that
the second one is
necessarily true. The first proposition offers only probable
support for the second, so we
cannot call the inference a deduction. We must call it a probable

inference or an
induction.
We are now in a position to clarify what critical thinking
means in the context of
this course. Critical thinking is a mental search for what is true.
It manifests itself in the
use of verbal or written arguments, containing deductive or
probable inferences offered in
support of some claims. Critical thinking is never demonstrated
by those who offer only
conclusions or answers without premises or reasons. Slogans
shouted at demonstrations,
no matter how loudly, or painted on signs or billboards, no
matter how boldly, cannot be
analyzed or evaluated for their truth value until the premises are
made explicit and the
inferences characterized according to the time-honored
principles of the study of logic.
Gray 4

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