STS 002 (HASS-D, Category 5) Professor David Kaiser

Fall 2002 (HASS CI Subject) STS Program

x2-3173; dikaiser@mit.edu

Subject Description: This subject traces the evolution of ideas about nature, and how best to study and explain natural phenomena, beginning in ancient times and continuing through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A central theme of the subject is the intertwining of conceptual and institutional relations within diverse areas of inquiry: cosmology, natural history, physics, mathematics, and medicine.

Assignments: As a HASS CI Subject, there will be a heavy emphasis upon writing and oral communication. There will be three papers assigned for a total of 20-24 pages of writing over the course of the semester. The first paper (4-5pp) will be due in class on Wednesday, 25 September. The second paper (6-7pp) will be due in class on Wednesday, 30 October. The second paper will be revised and resubmitted on Wednesday, 20 November, so that students will have an opportunity to work on specific writing skills before preparing the final paper. The final paper (10-12pp) will be due in class on Wednesday, December 11. Students will also take turns making prepared oral presentations for the recitation sections. Presentations for recitation section will involve a summary of assigned readings and presentation of study questions pertinent to that week’s material. The student will then lead the ensuing discussion for the remainder of that week’s recitation section, based on his or her opening presentation. In addition to these written and oral communication assignments, there will be an in-class midterm on Monday, 21 October. No late papers will be accepted.

Grading: Written and oral communication performance will account for 80% of the final grade. Note that HASS CI subjects fulfill Phase One of the MIT Writing Requirement for juniors and seniors. Students must receive a grade of B- or better in order to pass Phase One.

Your final grade will be based on: Paper 1 (20%); Paper 2 (20%); Paper 3 (25%); Midterm (20%); Participation in recitation sections (including oral presentation) (15%).

Readings: Required books for the subject are available for purchase at the MIT COOP, 3 Cambridge Center in Kendall Square, (617) 499-3230. There is also a packet of readings for the subject, available on-line through the Hayden Library EReserves. The books are also on reserve at the Hayden Library Reserve Room. Reading assignments should be completed before each lecture. Readings from the packet are marked with an asterisk (*) in the syllabus. The following books are required:

David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

I. Bernard Cohen and Richard S. Westfall, eds., Newton: Texts, Backgrounds, Commentaries (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995).

Wednesday, 4 September: Introductory Lecture

Monday, 9 September: "What is Science?"

*1. Paul Feyerabend, "‘Science’: The Myth and its Role in Society," Inquiry 18 (1975): 167-81.

*2. Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 91-107.

Wednesday, 11 September: The Presocratics

*1. G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 88-91.

*2. Henri Frankfort, "Explanations of Natural Phenomena in the Ancient Near East," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 6-7.

3. David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 1-34.

Monday, 16 September: Plato’s World.

*1. Plato, "The Allegory of the Cave," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 7-9.

*2. Plato, Timaeus, selections from Timaeus and Critias, translated by Desmond Lee (New York: Penguin, 1965), pp. 40-6, 66-8, 70-1, 73-9.

*3. G. E. R. Lloyd, Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), pp. 66-79.

*4. Norriss S. Hetherington, "Plato’s Cosmology," in Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Norriss Hetherington (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 79-81.

5. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 35-45.

Wednesday, 18 September: Aristotle’s Physics

*1. Aristotle, Physics, translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), Book II, pp. 329-34; Book III, pp. 342-5.

*2. Aristotle, On the Heavens, reprinted in Theories of the Universe: From Babylonian Myth to Modern Science, edited by Milton K. Munitz (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1957), pp. 89-92, 97-100.

*3. Norriss S. Hetherington, "Aristotle’s Cosmology," in Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Norriss Hetherington (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 95-103.

*4. G. E. R. Lloyd, "Greek Science and Society," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 17-19.

5. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 47-62.

Monday, 23 September: Student holiday, no class.

Wednesday, 25 September: Aristotle and Hippocrates on Biology and Medicine

*1. Aristotle, "Parts of Animals" and "On the Generation of Animals," in The New Aristotle Reader, edited by J. L. Ackrill, 4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 220-32, 241-50.

*2. Aristotle, "Problems Connected with the Drinking of Wine and Drunkenness," "Problems Connected with Sexual Intercourse," and "Problems Connected with Fatigue," in The Works of Aristotle, series edited by W. D. Ross, volume VII, Problemata, edited by E. S. Forster (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), pp. 871-85.

*3. Hippocrates, "The Oath," in Hippocratic Writings, edited by G. E. R. Lloyd, translated by J. Chadwick et al. (New York: Penguin Classics, 1978), p. 67.

*4. Hippocrates, "On the Sacred Disease," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 12-13.

*5. G. E. R. Lloyd, Science, Folklore, and Ideology: Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999), pp. 58-61.

6. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 62-8, 111-25.

Monday, 30 September: Ptolemy and Euclid

*1. Ptolemy, The Almagest, translated by R. C. Taliaferro, in Great Books of the Western World, edited by Robert M. Hutchins, volume 16 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1938), pp. 5-14, 86-93.

*2. Euclid, The Elements, in Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, by Robert Potts (London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1877), pp. 1-7.

*3. James Evans, "Ptolemy," in Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Norriss Hetherington (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 122-30.

*4. John Heilbron, Geometry Civilized: History, Culture, and Technique (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 241-5.

5. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 85-105.

Wednesday, 2 October: Galen and Alexandrian Engineers

*1. Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, edited and translated by Phillip de Lacy (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1978), Book II, pp. 65-71, 104-29.

*2. "On the Construction of Artillery: Application of Empirical Formulae," in A Source Book in Greek Science, edited by Morris R. Cohen and I. E. Drabkin (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948), pp. 318-26.

*3. Robert S. Brumbaugh, Ancient Greek Gadgets and Machines (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966), pp. 75-91.

*4. Benjamin Farrington, "Greek Philosophy and Technology," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 16-17.

5. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 125-31.

Monday, 7 October: Arabic Science

*1. Nasir al-Din Al-Tusi, Memoir on Astronomy, translated by F. J. Ragep, (New York: Springer, 1993), volume 1, pp. 194-204, 212-4, 222 (even-numbered pages only).

*2. E. S. Kennedy, "Late Medieval Planetary Theory," Isis 57 (1966): 365-78.

*3. A. I. Sabra, "The Appropriation and Subsequent Naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval Islam: A Preliminary Statement," History of Science 25 (1987): 223-43.

4. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 161-82.

Wednesday, 9 October: Medieval European Universities

*1. "The Condemnation of 1277," and "Typical Scientific Questions Based on Aristotle’s Major Physical Treatises," in A Source Book in Medieval Science, edited by Edward Grant (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 45-50, 199-205.

*2. Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 70-85.

*3. Joseph Ben-David, "The Emergence of the Professional University Teacher in the Medieval University," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 37-41.

4. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 183-213.

Monday, 14 October: Columbus Day holiday, no class.

Wednesday, 16 October: Medieval Technology

*1. Jean Gimpel, The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages (New York: Gower, 1988), pp. 147-70.

*2. Lynn White, Jr., "Technology in the Middle Ages," in Technology in Western Civilization, edited by Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), volume 1, pp. 66-79.

Monday, 21 October: In-class Midterm Examination

Wednesday, 23 October: Patronage, Alchemy, and Humanism

*1. John G. Burke, ed., Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 51-57, 72-77, 85-7.

*2. Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 28-35, 148-53, 156-7.

Monday, 28 October: Vesalius and Anatomy

*1. Andreas Vesalius, The Epitome of Andreas Vesalius, translated by L. R. Lind (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969), pp. xxxi-xxxvi.

*2. Selected plates from The Illustrations from the Work of Vesalius, translated and edited by J. B. de C. M. Saunders and Charles O’Malley (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1950), pp. 42-5, 92-3, 100-1, 104-5.

*3. Andreas Vesalius, On the Fabric of the Human Body, Book 1, translated and edited by W. F. Richardson and J. B. Carman (San Francisco: Norman, 1998), pp. 45-9, 385-97.

*4. Giovanna Ferrari, "Public anatomy lessons and the Carnival: The Anatomy Theatre of Bologna," Past and Present 117 (November 1987): 50-106.

Wednesday, 30 October: The Copernican Revolution

*1. Nicolas Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavens, translated by Edward Rosen, edited by Jerzy Dobrzycki (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. xv-xvii, 3-11, 18-22, 244-7.

*2. Michel-Pierre Lerner and Jean-Pierre Verdet, "Copernicus," translated by James Evans, in Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Norriss Hetherington (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 147-73.

Monday, 4 November: Tycho Brahe and the New Astronomy

*1. Tycho Brahe, "Reform of Copernicus and Ptolemy," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 99-102.

*2. Owen Hannaway, "Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science: Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brahe," Isis 77 (1986): 585-610.

Wednesday, 6 November: Kepler: Mysticism and Mars

*1. Johannes Kepler, Mysterium Cosmographicum, translated by A. M. Duncan (New York: Arabis, 1981), pp. 62-73.

*2. W. H. Donahue, "Kepler," in Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Norriss Hetherington (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 239-62.

*3. Robert S. Westman, "The Astronomer’s Role in the Sixteenth Century," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 80-4.

Monday, 11 November: Veteran’s Day holiday; no lecture.

Wednesday, 13 November: Interpreting Scripture and the Heavens

*1. Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius: or The Sidereal Messenger, translated by Albert van Helden (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 29-41, 64-5.

*2. Galileo Galilei, Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican, translated by Stillman Drake (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 1-7, 339-56.

*3. "Sentence (22 June 1633)" and "Galileo’s Abjuration (22 June 1633)" in The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History, edited and translated by Maurice A. Finocchiaro (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 286-93.

*4. John Heilbron, The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 3-5, 16-21.

Monday, 18 November: Galileo’s Physics

*1. Galileo Galilei, Discourses on Two New Sciences, translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio (New York: Macmillan, 1914), pp. 42-4, 153-5, 214-8, 244-5, 262-7.

*2. Robert S. Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 3-24.

Wednesday, 20 November: Bacon and the Culture of Collecting

*1. Francis Bacon, New Atlantis, edited by Jerry Weinberger, rev. ed. (Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, 1989), pp. 36-83.

*2. Francis Bacon, The New Organon, in The New Organon and Related Writings, edited by Fulton H. Anderson (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), pp. 39-62.

*3. Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 197-209, 212-3, 216-29, 232-7.

Monday, 25 November: Descartes’s Mechanical Philosophy

*1. René Descartes, "Rules for the Direction of the Mind," in Science & Culture in the Western Tradition, edited by John G. Burke (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1987), pp. 126-7.

*2. René Descartes, Discourse on Method, in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, translated by Elizabeth Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (New York: Cambridge Universe Press, 1978), volume 1, pp. 80-106.

*3. Richard S. Westfall, "The Mechanical Philosophy," in The Construction of Modern Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 25-42.

Wednesday, 27 November: Thanksgiving holiday, no class.

**Note: All readings for this week are from Newton: Texts, Backgrounds, Commentaries, edited by I. Bernard Cohen and Richard S. Westfall (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995).**

Monday, 2 December: Newton’s Dynamics and Gravitation

1. Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in Newton, pp. 227-38, 339-42.

2. I. Bernard Cohen, "Newton’s Method and Newton’s Style," pp. 126-44.

3. Richard S. Westfall, "Newton and Christianity," pp. 356-70.

Wednesday, 4 December: Newton’s Optics and the Culture of Newtonianism

1. Issac Newton, Opticks, in Newton, pp. 115-9.

2. Newton to Oldenburg, February 6, 1672, pp. 171-81.

3. Simon Schaffer, "Glass works," pp. 202-17.

4. Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, "From ‘Newton’s Alchemy and His Theory of Matter,’" pp. 315-24.

Monday, 9 December: England’s Royal Society

*1. Steven Shapin, "The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England," Isis 79 (1988): 373-404.

Wednesday, 11 December: **Paper 3 (10-12pp) due in class **

A List of Informal Suggestions*

1. History isn’t just about learning facts and dates. It’s also about understanding how and why things happened. So don’t get bogged down in taking in all the facts and dates, at the expense of the big picture. The key is to ask yourself, "Why would this event be important, and how does it relate to other events?" These questions give you the framework to hang your facts and dates on. For instance, it’s not so important to remember all the dates that show up in the narratives, but rather to ask, "Which dates refer to especially significant things, and what do they tell us about the order in which things happened?" This is not to say that you can forget all facts and dates, but it is to suggest remembering them within a meaningful context.

2. History readings often give you more details of information than you actually need to remember. Again, here the big picture is important. Authors of historical accounts often include details to make their cases more persuasive or appealing. But on the same principle as above, not all of these details need to be noted down and stored away.

3. History is interpretive. This means that people will sometimes tell different stories about events or attribute different significance to them. When you read history you should keep in mind that the accounts you have before you do not represent the final truth. This does not mean that history is simply made up or that "anything goes." Rather, these historical accounts represent the efforts of (usually) intelligent, thoughtful people to make sense of what we can find out about what happened in the past.

4. History courses often have a lot of reading. Therefore you need to practice active, intelligent reading. Keep asking yourself, "What is the point of this book or article? What am I supposed to be getting out of it?" Then organize your reading around answering those questions. Often it helps to scan material quickly to get a sense of what the point is before really getting into it; often it helps to look back over it after reading it to fix the main points in your understanding.

5. History courses use different kinds of materials that demand different kinds of reading. For instance, a narrative of someone’s life will probably be quicker and easier to read than a historian’s analysis of an event and its reasons. A collection of primary documents will make you ask different questions than will a textbook account.