136-038 The Scientific Revolution

Note

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Normally 12.5 points of first year HPS (or some alternative approved by the Department) see Prerequisites

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This unit surveys a constellation of important changes in the thinking of educated people in seventeenth-century Europe - a group of changes commonly referred to as 'The Scientific Revolution' (because of a belief that these changes led to the development of modern Western science). We examine: the official philosophy of the middle ages, scholasticism, and its notion that material objects were innately active; the appeal of alternative 17c views of the matter as utterly passive; Descartes' mechanical philosophy; the Newtonian retreat from extreme mechanism; the impact of sceptical attacks on the reliability of human reason; the acceptance of a science that was self-confessedly tentative and hypothetical. Throughout the unit, the complexity of the processes governing the acceptance of a philosophy of nature is emphasised; and our discussion is placed into its broader contexts, with religious and political connections repeatedly perused.

Assessment

Written work totalling 2000 words, and a 2-hour examination. Exemption from the examination may be granted on the basis of further written work and/or a class test.

Prescribed Texts

Departmental Subject Readings.

• Descartes, D Cress (trans), Meditations on first philosophy. Hackett.