136-338 The Scientific Revolution (Science 3)

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Prerequisites

Normally two second year HPS subjects see Prerequisites

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Subject Description

This subject is identical in all respects to 136-038, except for the assessment. It 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 4000 words, and a 2-hour examination.

Prescribed Texts

Departmental Subject Readings.

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