HPSC0003: History of Science, Antiquity to Enlightenment (formerly HPSC1001) Course Syllabus

Transcription

1 : History of Science, Antiquity to Enlightenment (formerly HPSC1001) Course Syllabus session Simon Werrett Course Information Surveys the origins and development of science from the ancient Greeks to Main themes are the origins of science in the ancient world, the nature of the scientific revolution and the spread of science during the Enlightenment. Attend all lectures plus one tutorial per week. Basic course information Assessment: One 2500 word essay; One exam (50%) Timetable: Go to the common timetable: Prerequisites: No prerequisites Required texts: None Course tutor(s): Simon Werrett Contact: tel: Web: Office location: 22 Gordon Square, Room 1.2 Office hours: Tuesdays 3-4, Fridays 12-1

2 Schedule UCL Week Topics Date 6 Introduction OCT 2 6 The Beginnings of Science OCT 3 7 Plato and Aristotle OCT 9 7 Ancient Medicine: Hippocrates and Galen OCT 10 8 Chinese and Arabic Science OCT 16 8 Science in Medieval Europe OCT 17 9 Copernicus and Renaissance Science OCT 23 9 Printing the Moon: Galileo s Starry Messenger. OCT Essay Guidance Session OCT New Philosophies of Nature: Bacon and Descartes OCT Reading Week NOV 5 12 Experiments at the Royal Society NOV Women and the New Science: Cavendish and Merian NOV Newton, Science, and Religion NOV The New Science in Russia NOV Public Science NOV Exploration and Empire: the Voyages of Captain Cook NOV Women and the Enlightenment DEC 4 15 Essay Guidance Session DEC 5 16 Art and Science in the Enlightenment DEC Conclusion DEC 12 2

3 Assessments Summary Essay Examination Description Deadline Word limit Feedback by 50% of final mark 05/12/2018 5pm /12/ % of final mark TBC ASSESSMENT: ESSAY You are required to write an essay of approximately and no more than 2500 words. Answer one of the following questions. Not all topics are covered in these questions, but others may be covered in the examination. Please read the STS Student Handbook for advice on word counts and late penalties. Week 6: Did the Pre-Socratics Invent Science? Week 7: What were the main features of Aristotle s picture of the universe? How did they differ from Plato s? Week 8: Was the Christian Church a hindrance to scientific progress in the Middle Ages? Week 9: What were the features of Renaissance Science? Discuss in relation to either Copernicus or Vesalius. Week 10: Discuss either (a) Francis Bacon or (b) René Descartes s contributions to the history of science. Week 12: Why was Margaret Cavendish excluded from the Royal Society? What was her philosophy of nature? Week 13: What roles did scientific academies serve in the eighteenth century? Discuss in relation to the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Week 14: What were the objectives of Captain Cook s voyages? How did people in the Pacific experience the voyages? Week 15: Did women s opportunities to participate in science improve in the Enlightenment? Week 16: What connections were there between science and art in the Enlightenment? Criteria for assessment The departmental marking guidelines for individual items of assessment can be found in the STS Student Handbook. In addition to the criteria indicated in the STS Student Handbook, the following are the main criteria on which your research essay will be marked. There are no set numbers/ percentages associated with these criteria but we will give you qualitative feedback based on them. 3

4 Referencing You must reference all quotes and all references/ summaries of books, etc. Pick one system for referencing and stick to it. Refer to individual page numbers, not just whole texts, whenever possible. Make sure you are clear what plagiarism means and do not plagiarize in the essay. Bibliography You need to supply a bibliography of all works referenced. You must supply author, title, date, place of publication and publisher. Answers the Question Read the question carefully and answer it specifically - do not give irrelevant material or drift into answering other questions. Organisation Is the essay organized into an introduction, main body and conclusion? Does each part flow naturally into the next one? Is the evidence in a logical order? Introduction You should give an introduction to your essay in no more than one or two paragraphs. Introduce your topic and your line of argument, no more. Good introductions are concise and precise. Clarity We place great emphasis on clarity of argument and expression. Avoid ambiguity and vagueness. Do not assume your reader already knows what you are talking about. Try to keep your line of argument clear. It often helps clarity to divide the main body of the essay into sections (typically three or four for a 2500 word essay). Accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation also improve clarity. Argumentation Is the main argument of the essay clear, coherent and persuasive? Is it properly supported by the evidence available? Conclusion Your essay should have a conclusion which is clearly marked as such (new paragraph, In conclusion ). It should be substantial in summing up what you have argued and exploring the implications of what you have argued. Reading/ use of sources How well have the readings and other resources been used? Does the essay reflect them accurately? Is the essay overly dependent on one source? Independent critique? Does the essay offer some independent critique or thought on the question or does it merely report what is in the literature? Historiography? How aware is the essay of assumptions and methods used to construct a history or to evaluate it? Does the essay discuss what historians have said about the topic and offer some critique of them? 4

5 The criteria of assessment for the examination will be circulated during the module. Aim of the course The general aim of the course is to present an overview of the History of Science from its ancient beginnings up to the end of the eighteenth century. The course does not require any technical knowledge of current science. It is intended to function both as a course in its own right and as a foundation for other courses in Science and Technology Studies. It is hoped that a study of the origins and development of science will provide a better understanding of what science is now. The course is divided into three time periods, The Ancient and Medieval World, The Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment, and it is hoped that you will learn something of the scientific zeitgeist as well as the major advances of those periods; you will have to answer one question on each period in the exam. Objectives of the course By the end of the course, it is hoped that you will have acquired : * a working knowledge of the history of science up to 1800 * an in-depth knowledge of elements of this history, demonstrated in essays and exam answers. * Key essay writing skills; the ability to select the most important facts, to marshal those in argument and an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of that argument. * Some basic historiographical skills; an awareness of anachronism and the basic methods of writing the history of science. Lectures and Readings Week 6 Lecture 1. October 2 - Introduction Lecture 2. October 3 The Beginnings of Science (Connected Module: Science in the Ancient World) October 5 Discuss Reading Part 1: The Ancient and Medieval World Pliny, Natural History, Book 7, chapter 2 ( The Wonderful Form of Different Nations ), Book 8, chapters 1 to 4 (on the Elephant). (Online reading, see the Library reading list) Week 7 Lecture 3. October 9 Plato and Aristotle (Connected Module: Science in the Ancient World) Lecture 4. October 10 (Maerker) - Ancient Medicine: Hippocrates and Galen (Connected Module: History of Medicine) 5

6 October 12 Discuss Reading Week 8 Hippocrates, On the Sacred Disease. (Online reading) Lecture 5. October 16 Chinese and Arabic Science Lecture 6. October 17 Science in Medieval Europe October 19 Discuss Reading Week 9 Thomas Aquinas, On the Eternity of the World. (Online reading) Part 2: The Scientific Revolution Lecture 7. October 23 Copernicus and Renaissance Science Lecture 8. October 24 Printing the Moon: Galileo s Starry Messenger. (Connected Module: Science and the Publishing Industry) October 26 Discuss Reading Galileo, The Starry Messenger (online PDF) (Online reading) Week 10 Lecture 9. October 30 Essay Guidance session Lecture 10. October 31 New Philosophies of Nature: Bacon and Descartes November 2 Discuss Reading Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1626), pp. 1-17, (Online reading) Week 11 - Reading Week no classes, but make sure you re up to date with readings Week 12 Lecture 11. November 13 - Experiments at the Royal Society Lecture 12. November 14 Women and the New Science: Cavendish and Merian 6

7 November 16 Discuss Reading Week 13 Margaret Cavendish, Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668), Part 2, chapters 1 to 11. (Online reading) Lecture 13. November 20 Newton, Science, and Religion (Connected Module: Science and Religion) Lecture 14. November 21 The New Science in Russia (Connected Module: Science in Russia and the Soviet Union) November 23 Discuss Reading Isaac Newton, General Scholium of the Principia (Online reading) Week 14 Lecture 15. November 27 Public Science (Connected Module: Science in Popular Culture) Part 3: The Enlightenment Lecture 16. November 28 Exploration and Empire: the Voyages of Captain Cook (Connected Module: Science and Empire) November 30 Discuss Reading Week 15 Samuel M. Kamakau, The Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii (1842), chapter 8 Captain Cook s Visit to Hawaii (Online reading) Lecture 17. December 4 Women and the Enlightenment (Connected Module: History of Astronomy) Lecture 18. December 5 Essay Guidance session December 7 Discuss Reading Michael Hoskin, Caroline Herschel as an Observer, Journal of the History of Astronomy 36: 4 (2005):

8 Week 16 Lecture 19. December 11 Art and Science in the Enlightenment (Connected Module: Science, Art and Philosophy) Lecture 20. December 12 - Conclusion December 14 Discuss Reading Denis Diderot, Art from the Encyclopédie (1751). (Online reading) Suggested Additional Readings Please consult these readings (most are available on the library online reading list) when you are writing your essay and preparing for the discussion sessions, where you will be expected to comment on at least some of them. The readings provide context and interpretation for the primary sources listed above. You are expected to read from the following list and to prioritize these readings when writing essays and examination answers. If you are unable to access readings please tell the module tutor promptly. The Beginnings of Science Gregory, Andrew, Eureka! The Birth of Science (Cambridge, 2001), chapters 1 and 2 Lindberg, David, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago, 2007), 1-33 (library book) Lloyd, G. E. R., Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle (New York, 1970) (library book) Osborne, Catherine, Pre-Socratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004) (e-book) Plato and Aristotle Gregory, Andrew, Eureka! The Birth of Science (Cambridge, 2001), chapter 3 Men of the World (library book) Lindberg, David, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago, 2007), (library book) Plato, Timaeus (web edition, see the online reading list) Aristotle, On the Heavens (web edition, see the online reading list) Hippocrates and Galen Gregory, Andrew, Eureka! The Birth of Science (Cambridge, 2001), chapter 6 Medicine and the Life Sciences (library book) Lindberg, David, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago, 2007), chapter 6 Greek and 8

9 Roman Medicine Chinese and Arabic Science Cohen, H. Floris, To begin at the beginning: nature-knowledge in Greece and China, in The Rise of Modern Science Explained: A Comparative History (Cambridge, 2015), 7-50 (online text) Fara, Patricia, Science: A Four Thousand-Year History (Oxford, 2009), 43-67: Interactions: China, Islam. (library book) Lindberg, David, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago, 2007), chapter 8 Islamic Science (library book) Ragep, F. Islamic Culture and the Natural Sciences. In D. Lindberg & M. Shank, eds., The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge, 2013), (online text) Nomanul Haq, Syed, That Medieval Islamic Culture Was Inhospitable to Science, in Ron Numbers, ed., Galileo goes to jail, and other myths about science and religion (Harvard, 2009), (library book). Science in Medieval Europe Lindberg, David, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago, 2007), chapters 9 to 11. Lindberg, David, Science and the Medieval Church. In D. Lindberg & M. Shank, eds., The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge, 2013), (online text) Livesey, Steven J., The Medieval University, in A Companion To The History Of Science, ed. Bernard Lightman (Oxford, 2016), (online text) Shank, Michael H., That the Medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of science, in Ron Numbers, ed., Galileo goes to jail, and other myths about science and religion (Harvard, 2009), (online text) Grant, Edward, Physical Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1977) (e-book) Copernicus and Renaissance Science Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing The Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, (Princeton, 2009), chapter 2: Humanism and Ancient Wisdom: How to Learn Things in the Sixteenth Century Westman, Robert S., Competing Disciplines: The Copernicans and the Churches in The Scientific Revolution: Essential Readings, ed. Marcus Hellyer (Oxford, 2008), (online text) Nutton, Vivian, An Historical Introduction to Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Northwestern University online edition, see Reading List) Ravetz, J. R., The Copernican Revolution, in Robert Olby et al., eds., Companion to the History 9

10 of Modern Science (London, 1990), chapter 14 (online text). Carlino, Andrea. "The Book, the Body, the Scalpel: Six Engraved Title Pages for Anatomical Treatises of the First Half of the Sixteenth Century." RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 16 (1988): Printing the Moon: Galileo s Starry Messenger Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book (Chicago, 1998), Introduction (online text) Johns, Adrian, Coffeehouses and Print Shops. In K. Park & L. Daston, eds., The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge, 2006), Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing The Sciences, chapter 4, Mathematics Challenges Philosophy: Galileo, Kepler, and the Mathematical Practitioners. (online text) Wilding, Nick, The Printing Press, in A Companion To The History Of Science, ed. Bernard Lightman (Oxford, 2016), (online text) Swerdlow, Noel M., Galileo's discoveries with the telescope and their evidence for the Copernican theory, in The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, ed. Peter Machamer (Cambridge, 1998), (online text). New Philosophies of Nature: Bacon and Descartes Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing The Sciences, chapter 5 Mechanism and Corpuscles: Descartes Builds a Universe. (online text) Dear, Peter, The Mechanical Philosophy and Its Appeal: A Mechanical Microcosm: Bodily Passions, Good Manners, and Cartesian Mechanism in The Scientific Revolution: Essential Readings, ed. Marcus Hellyer (Oxford, 2008), (online text) Rossi, Paolo, Bacon s Idea of Science, in The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, ed. Markku Peltonen (Cambridge, 1996), Shea, William R., The Magic of Numbers and Motion: The Scientific Career of René Descartes (1991) (library book) Experiments at the Royal Society Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing The Sciences, chapter 7 Experiment: How to Learn Things about Nature in the Seventeenth Century. (online text) Shapin, Steven, The Experimental Philosophy and Its Institutions: Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle's Literary Technology, in The Scientific Revolution: Essential Readings, ed. Marcus Hellyer (Oxford, 2008),

11 Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985) (online text) Women and the New Science: Cavendish and Merian Neri, Janice, The Insect and the Image: Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, (Minnesota, 2011), chapter 5: Stitches, Specimens, and Pictures: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Processing of the Natural World (online text) Etheridge, Kay, Maria Sibylla Merian and the metamorphosis of natural history, Endeavour 35 (March 2011): (online text) Wilkins, Emma. "Margaret Cavendish and the Royal Society," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 68, no. 3 (2014): (online text) Boyle, Deborah, Creatures, chapter 5 in The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish (Oxford, 2018) (online text) Schiebinger, Londa, Women of Natural Knowledge, In K. Park & L. Daston, eds., The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge, 2006), (online text) Newton, Science, and Religion Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing The Sciences, chapter 8 Cartesians and Newtonians. (online text) Kubrin, David, Newton and the Cyclical Cosmos: Providence and the Mechanical Philosophy, Journal of the History of Ideas 28, no. 3 (1967): (online text) Iliffe, Rob, The Religion of Isaac Newton, in The Cambridge Companion to Newton, eds. Rob Iliffe and George E. Smith, second edition (Cambridge, 2016) (online text) Iliffe, Rob, Newton: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2007) (library book) The New Science in Russia Gordin, Michael, The Importation of Being Earnest: the Early St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Isis 91 (2000) 1-31 (online text) Werrett, Simon, The Schumacher Affair: Reconfiguring Academic Expertise across Dynasties in Eighteenth-Century Russia, Osiris 25, no. 1 (2010): (online text) Schulze, Ludmilla, The Russification of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Arts in the Eighteenth Century, British Journal for the History of Science 18 (1985): (online text) Public Science 11

12 Fara, Patricia, An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2002) (library book) Stewart, Larry, Public Lectures and Private Patronage in Newtonian England, Isis 77, No. 1 (March 1986), (online text) Schaffer, Simon, Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century, History of Science 21 (1983): Lynn, Michael R. The Fashion for Physics: Public Lecture Courses in Enlightenment France, The Historian 64 (2002): (online text) Exploration and Empire: the Voyages of Captain Cook Iliffe, Rob, Science and Voyages of Discovery, in R. Porter, ed., The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge, 2003), (online text) Hereniko, Vilsoni, Indigenous Knowledge and Academic Imperialism, In Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History, ed. Robert Borofsky (Hawai'i, 2000), (online text) Salmond, Anne, Tute: the Impact of Polynesia on Captain Cook, In Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments, ed. Glyndwr Williams (Oxford, 2004), (online text) Cook, Andrew S., James Cook and the Royal Society, In Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments, ed. Glyndwr Williams, (Boydell and Brewer, 2004), pp (online text). Women and the Enlightenment Winterburn, Emily, Caroline Herschel: Agency and Self-Presentation, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 69 (2015): (online text) Schiebinger, Londa, The Philosopher s Beard: Women and Gender in Science, In R. Porter, ed., The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge, 2003), ) (online text) Shteir, Ann B., Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science: Flora's Daughters and Botany in England, (Baltimore, 1996), chapter 2 Women in the Polite Culture of Botany (online text) Science and Art in the Enlightenment Daston, Lorraine, Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective, Social Studies of Science 22, no. 4, (1992): (online text) Pannabecker, John R. Representing Mechanical Arts in Diderot s Encyclopédie, Technology and Culture 39 (1998): (online text) 12

13 Klonk, Charlotte, Science, Art, and the Representation of the Natural World. In R. Porter, ed., The Cambridge History of Science (Cambridge, 2003), (online text) Crary, Jonathan, Techniques of the Observer, October 45 (1988): 3 35 (online text) Course expectations Students are expected to attend all classes, and to be prepared to discuss the readings which they should bring to class either in hard copy or electronic format. Students should read and make notes on essential texts, thinking of questions to ask about them in class. If a student cannot attend, please let the module tutor know beforehand. Important policy information Details of college and departmental policies relating to modules and assessments can be found in the STS Student Handbook All students taking modules in the STS department are expected to read these policies. 13