HSCI 3833: The Scientific Revolution
MW 3:00 – 4:15 PM
Bizzell Library 521
Professor: Kathleen Crowther
Office: PHSC 602
Phone: 325-2247
Office hours: MW 9-11 a.m.
email: [email protected]
Professor: Rienk Vermij
Office: PHSC 606
Phone: 325-5416
Office hours: MW 4:30-5:00 p.m.
email: [email protected]
Course Description:
This course explores the "Scientific Revolution" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this
period there were a series of dramatic shifts in understanding of the natural world, including the
replacement of geocentric cosmology with heliocentric, the rise of experimental methods, and the
development of new techniques for observing and describing natural objects. Fifty years ago,
historians of science located the birth of modern science in this period and dubbed it the "Scientific
Revolution." Present historians of science are much more skeptical about whether modern science
was "born" at any point in time. Although the term "scientific revolution" has stuck as a label of
the period, there is no longer a clear consensus on what it entailed - when and why the Scientific
Revolution happened, who and what were involved, even if the concept makes sense at all. These
debates are not just about what happened in the past but about how we today define science and
how we understand the place of science in the modern world. In this course we will explore some
of the different definitions and interpretations of the Scientific Revolution through an in depth
examination of the lives and work of four men: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), René Descartes
(1596-1650), William Harvey (1578-1657) and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). Readings
will include key primary texts as well as relevant secondary literature.
General rules
Everyone is expected to keep up with the reading schedule, and to participate in class discussion of the
reading. You are examined both over the assigned readings and over the information the instructors
give in class. If you have to miss a class, please let us know in advance. It is the responsibility of the
students to find out what has been taught in classes they may have missed.
Please use your OU email account, or arrange for email to be forwarded from that account to the
one you use. This will ensure that you receive course-related emails. It is the policy of the
university to excuse the absence of students that result from religious observances and to provide
without penalty for the rescheduling of examinations and additional required class work that may fall
on religious holidays. Please see the instructors in advance.
Required Texts:
Paolo Rossi, The Birth of Modern Science, trans. Cynthis De Nardi Ipsen (Oxford: Blackwell,
2000)
Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)
Ernan McMullin (ed.), The Church and Galileo (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2005)
Maurice A. Finocchiaro (ed. and trans.), The Essential Galileo (Hackett Publishing Company,
2008)
René Descartes, The World and Other Writings, trans. and ed. Stephen Gaukroger (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998).
All other readings are available on-line.
Assessment
There are four sections in the course. Each of the four sections will be assessed by a take-home
essay exam.
At the end, the students will write a research paper. They have to choose a subject for the essay by
the middle of the course. Please make sure that the instructors agree with the subject before you
engage with the research.
Grading Policy:
4 essay exams (3-5 pages)
Final research paper (ca. 10 pages)
60% (15% each)
40%
Schedule:
INTRODUCTION: THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
Week 1
Jan 19. Introduction
Week 2
Jan 24. The Scientific Revolution
Reading: (1) Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science 1300 – 1800, rev. ed.
(New York: Free Press, 1957), ch. 10; (2) Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams, "Decentring the ‘big picture’: The Origins of Modern Science and the modern origins of
science" British Journal for the History of Science 26 (1993): 407-32.
Jan 26. The Scientific Revolution
Reading: Rossi, The Birth of Modern Science, intro, chs. 1, 3, and 4
SECTION I: GALILEO GALILEI
Week 3
Jan 31. Cosmology from Aristotle to Copernicus
Reading: (1) Nicholas Copernicus, On the Revolutions, excerpts; (2) Rossi, chapter 5
Feb 2. Galileo and the Court
Reading: (1) Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, chapters 1-2; (2) Galileo, Starry Messenger (in
Finocchiaro)
Week 4
Feb 7. Responses to the Starry Messenger
Reading: (1) Roger Ariew, "Galileo's Lunar Observations in the Context of Medieval
Lunar Theory," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (1984) 15: 213-226; (2)
Rossi,
chapter 6
Feb 9. Galileo and the Church
Reading: (1) Nicholas Steneck, Science and Creation in the Middle Ages: Henry of
Langenstein (d. 1397) on Genesis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), ch. IV;
(2) Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (in Finocchiaro)
Week 5
Feb 14. Responses to the Letter to the Grand Duchess
Reading: Ernan McMullin, "The Church's Ban on Copernicanism, 1616" in Ernan
McMullin (ed.), The Church and Galileo (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre
Dame
Press, 2005), pp. 150-190.
Feb 16. The Trial of Galileo
Reading: (1) Galileo, Dialogue, excerpts (in Finocchiaro); (2) Michael H. Shank,
"Setting the Stage: Galileo in Tuscany, the Veneto, and Rome" in Ernan McMullin (ed.),
The Church and Galileo (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp.
57-87.
FIRST ESSAY EXAM DUE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 5:00 P.M.
SECTION II: RENÉ DESCARTES
Week 6
Feb 21. Newton
Reading: Rossi, chapter 17 (Newton), 9 (mechanical philosophy)
Feb 23. The Newton Project (http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=1)
Week 7
Feb 28. Descartes, general principles
Reading: Descartes, The World, 3-32
Mar 2. Descartes, specific theories
Reading: Descartes, The World, 32-75
Week 8
Mar 7. Christiaan Huygens
Reading: Huygens, On the motion of bodies from impact (http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/
Mahoney/texts/huygens/impact/huyimpct.html)
Mar 9. Mechanistic physiology
Descartes, The World, 99-169
SECOND ESSSAY EXAM DUE FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 5:00 P.M.
SPRING BREAK
SECTION III: WILLIAM HARVEY
Week 9
Mar 21. Anatomy from Aristotle to Mondino
Reading: (1) Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of
the Anatomical Projects of the Ancients (Scolar Press, 1997), chs. 1-3; (2) Katherine
Park,
"The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy" Renaissance
Quarterly (1994) 47: 1-33.
Mar 23. Renaissance Anatomy
Reading: Cunningham, Anatomical Renaissance, chs. 4-6.
Week 10
Mar 28. Film: William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood
Reading: (1) Harvey, De motu cordis, excerpts; (2) Rossi, chapter 12
Mar 30. Reception of Harvey's Work
Reading: (1) French, William Harvey's Natural Philosophy, ch. 6; (2) Robert G. Frank
Jr., Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists: A Study of Scientific Ideas (Berkeley:
University of
California Press, 1980), ch. 1.
Week 11
Apr 4. Theories of Reproduction
Reading: TBA
Apr 6. Harvey's Work on Generation
Reading: Harvey, De generatione, excerpts
THIRD ESSAY EXAM DUE FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 5:00 P.M.
SECTION IV: ANTONI VAN LEEUWENHOEK
Week 12
Apr 11. Instruments
Readings: (1) Albert Van Helden, "The Birth of the Modern Scientific Instrument,
1550-1700", J.G. Burke ed., The Uses of Science in the Age of Newton (Cambridge U.P.
1983) 49-84; (2) M. Fournier, The Fabric of Life. Microscopy in the Seventeenth Century
(John Hopkins U.P. 1996), pp. TBA
Apr 13. Leeuwenhoek
Readings: (1) K. van Berkel, "Intellectuals against Leeuwenhoek. Controversies about the
Methods and Style of a Self-Taught Scientist", L.C. Palm and H.A.M. Snelders ed., Antoni
van Leeuwenhoek 1632-1723. Studies on the Life and Work of the Delft Scientist
Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of his Birthday (Rodopi 1982), pp. 187-209; (2)
Rossi, chapter 16.
Week 13
Apr 18. Microscopy and natural philosophy
Readings: (1) Edward G. Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of
Discovery (Cambridge U.P 1996), pp. 61-68; (2) Eric Jorink, Reading the Book of Nature
in the Dutch Golden Age, 1575-1715 (transl. Peter Mason) (Brill 2010) pp. TBA.
Apr 20. Malpighi
Reading: Guido Giglioni, "The Mechanics of the Body and the Operation of the Soul in
Marcello Malpighi's Anatomy", D.B. Meli ed., Marcello Malpighi, Anatomist and
Physician (Olschki 1997), pp. 149-174.
Week 14
Apr 25. Leeuwenhoek, primary sources
Readings: TBA.
Apr 27. Idem
FOURTH ESSAY EXAM DUE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 5:00 P.M.
CONCLUSION
Week 15
May 2. TBA
May 4. TBA
FINAL PAPER DUE WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 5:00 P.M.