Time Schedule:
Paul Boynton
HONORS 220
Seattle Campus
Evolution of an idea or concept central to the natural sciences. Intended for non-science majors. Content varies from year to year. For University Honors Program students only. Offered: A.
Class description
Science, Magic and the Passage to Modernity Honors 220C/CHID 270A Autumn 2012 (5 credits) SLN 14904,12084
Instructor:
Paul Boynton, Physics Box 351560 boynton@uw.edu
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Taking a long view of Western civilization, science, and philosophy, one may wonder how we came to our current state of modernity's starkly materialist flavor in contrast with the mystical richness of pre-Renaissance conceptions of the natural world. In Science, Magic and the Passage to Modernity (SMPM), we trace a circuitous path to our current worldview by examining the historical/philosophical roots of the culture of scientific inquiry; that is, how human experience/perception of the physical world has been interpreted in four historical periods: Classical Antiquity, Hellenism, the late Renaissance, and the early Twentieth Century. In doing so, we discover not only the success and power of our modern way of knowing the world of matter and energy, but also its inherent limitations and self-imposed boundaries that become evident when attempting to extend it to accommodate the full range of human experience.
Through these four historical periods we pursue the philosophical response to two natural phenomena that were eventually seen as closely related: 1) terrestrial gravitation, and 2) the visible aspects of motion in the heavens. Studying the history of approaches to interpreting these basic observations of nature provides insight to how we have come to our current perception of the natural world.
The wide-ranging topics covered in this history of ideas will borrow heavily on and directly inform concepts you have already met or will encounter in literature, history, and philosophy classes during your academic adventures at the UW. You may be surprised by the foundational connections between the intellectual structure of modern science and a number of seemingly peripheral issues: Pre-Socratic concerns regarding the distinction between belief and knowledge, the tension between thought and experience in classical philosophy, Hellenism's retreat from reason, late medieval Scholasticism, Renaissance magic, Cartesian dualism, Newton's towering but schizophrenic intellect, and Einstein's surprisingly Pythagorean vision. These are but a few elements in an intriguing story of rationally disciplined human creativity that recounts the emergence of modern science and the scientific underpinnings of modernity. Please join us for the telling.
SMPM is intended for liberal arts students, not for science majors. Familiarity with only the most elementary aspects of high school algebra and geometry is presumed. Reasoning and critical thinking, on the other hand, will be fully exercised. Also, some background in the history and/or philosophy of the Western world is assumed. A mid-term hour exam will comprise 15% of the course grade, a final exam 25%, written assignments 35%, and a research paper 25%. There are no required textbooks or monographs for this course. Reading materials will be linked to the course web site.
Student learning goals
Introduction and Goals What are the historical and philosophical connections between the heretical vision of the natural world boldly proclaimed by Thales in 6th-century-BCE and the development of 21st-century science as we know it? "Honors 220: Science, Magic and the Passage to Modernity" is a story, a chronicle of a series of milestones in a fascinating history of ideas beginning with the Milesian School of Pre-Socratic philosophy up to the era the Enlightenment and extending to modern times. This story embodies many recurrent themes, some of which are:
Aspiring to make sense of the human experience of the natural world.
Distinguishing between belief and knowledge.
Expressing faith in a rational world and in the inevitable triumph of the human intellect to render it intelligible.
Occasionally losing faith in a rational world, despairing of the power of reason.
Discovering the fundamental principles of the natural World. Struggling to construct a rational (geometrical/mathematical) model of the Cosmos that is validated empirically---by solving Plato's fabled homework problem.
Recognizing that human understanding may rise to the mastery of nature thereby achieving power, progress, wealth and the common good, the well-worn signatures of modernity
Other themes we will explore may be quite familiar to humanities majors, yet at this point may not at all appear related to science — even so, each is a key element in this story:
Striving to find the boundary between natural and supernatural.
Mythopoeic legends, metempsychosis, and the Greek mysteries.
Hellenistic syncretism, Gnosticism and the Neoplatonism of Augustine, and Plotinus.
Averroes, Petrarch, and Renaissance Humanism.
Aquinas and Scholasticism.
The Florentine academy, Renaissance Naturalism, the Hermetic Tradition, and the reinvention of magic.
The Great Chain of Being.
Doxography, pseudepigraphy and Whiggish historiography
The Reformation, 30-years War, and the 17th century Quest for Certainty
The first major goal of this course is to reveal natural philosophy (referred to as “science” only since the latter decades of the 19th century) to be closely linked to arts and letters up through the Enlightenment, as well as connected to the mystical (even magical) traditions of the previous two millennia. Moreover, to thereby recognize that modern science is every bit as imaginative as any scholarly or even artistic pursuit.
Only in the 20th century does a wall begin to form between physical sciences and the humanities. A second goal is to penetrate that wall — to come to appreciate how scientists perceive and make sense of the physical world based on carefully defined ontological and epistemological fundamentals whose role and value are made clear by understanding the historical context in which new ideas (about how to make sense of the collective human experience of the natural world) successively emerge and choices are made.
A third goal is for non-science majors to come to recognize within their own experience the important historical linkages between science and the humanities by encountering in this course historical figures, events and concepts that are already familiar to them in the context of studies in other courses, then to have these concepts take on deeper meaning because of these newly revealed connections. In this way, science is brought into sharper focus when viewed within that broader scope of human experience exposed in the course of liberal learning.
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
