Instructor: Margaret Schabas
Section: 001
Term: 2
Meets: Mondays 2:00-5:00pm
We will read a number of leading contributors to early modern science with the goal of deepening our appreciation of the metaphysical and methodological commitments that undergird the pursuit of science. The course will be equally divided between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We will focus mainly on the mechanical philosophy (physics) of seventeenth-century philosophers, while for the eighteenth-centuries philosophers we will expand out to the life sciences and moral sciences. This will include primary sources by Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, Newton, Franklin, D’Alembert, Linnaeus, Buffon, Priestley, and Condorcet. There is no ideal textbook but I will assign two short overviews, Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution and Thomas Hankins, Science and the Enlightenment and place a number of more specialized monographs on reserve.
Grading:
Four précis: 30% (students are to write two-page summaries of four of the primary sources, each graded out of 10%. The one with lowest grade will not count.)
Term paper: 40% (students are to write one research paper, (12-15 pages) with details to follow.)
Final exam: 30% (students are to write one final exam, with the essay questions distributed in advance.)
Note: This course is cross-listed with Philosophy 524.
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