Honors
470 / Phil 470
History
and Philosophy of Science, Part I:
from Aristotle to Galileo
Dr. Timothy McGrew, Spring 2006
Required and Supplementary Texts:
The following texts are required:
Dennis Danielson, The Book of the Cosmos
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens
Galileo Galilei, Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
A considerable amount of additional reading will be handed out in class or made available online at
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/honhps06.htm
In addition, material will be presented in class lectures that is unavailable in any other form. All of this additional material is fair game for tests and quizzes.
Course Description: This course is an exploration of themes in the history and philosophy of science, with special attention to the life and work of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler and Galileo. Beginning with the necessary background in the physics and astronomy of Aristotle, we will study the development of the modern view with an eye to the conceptual and epistemological problems encountered in the transition to the new physics and astronomy, culminating with a close reading of most of Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. In order to keep the course within manageable bounds, we will focus primarily on astronomy and dynamics, though there will be interesting sidelights thrown on mathematics as well as biology, chemistry and other branches of science.
Course Requirements: This course meets Tuesday and Thursday of each week from 2:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. except for the days noted on the course schedule. Late assignments cannot be made up without a medical excuse except in very unusual situations. Because important material for papers and quizzes may be presented in class lecture that cannot be found elsewhere, it is imperative that you come to class and take careful notes. You are responsible to obtain notes from another student in the class if you miss a day.
Attendance and quality (but not necessarily quantity) of class participation are taken into account in the determination of the final grade. In particular, I reserve the right to subtract five points from the final grade for each unexcused absence beyond the third.
There is a fair amount of reading assigned for this course. This includes a large number of primary sources -- documents that were written by philosophers and scientists to describe their speculations and experiments rather than simplifications written by journalists or popularizers. These are the documents from which the history of science is constructed. Most of them do not require specialized knowledge beyond the occasional use of a bit of geometry or high school algebra, but they do require concentration. Students are expected to come to class having done the reading indicated on the syllabus and may be subjected to unannounced quizzes.
Academic Integrity: You are responsible for making yourself aware of and understanding the policies and procedures in the Undergraduate Catalog (pp. 271-272) that pertain to Academic Integrity. These policies include cheating, fabrication, falsification and forgery, multiple submission, plagiarism, complicity and computer misuse. If there is reason to believe you have been involved in academic dishonesty, you will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct. You will be given the opportunity to review the charge(s). If you believe you are not responsible, you will have the opportunity for a hearing. You should consult with me if you are uncertain about an issue of academic honesty prior to the submission of an assignment or test.
Grading: The grade for the course will rest primarily on three exams – two midterms and one final. Each of these will be weighted at 25% of the grade. The remaining 25% of the grade will be computed from attendance, quizzes, and the quality of class participation.
The grading scale for written work and quizzes is:
|
A 93-100 |
B 83-87 |
C 73-77 |
D 60-67 |
|
B/A 88-92 |
C/B 78-82 |
D/C 68-72 |
E below
60 |
Course Schedule
The following schedule is tentative. Because the material is difficult, some of it may take longer than the indicated time. You are expected to do the readings in accordance with the sequence of topics even if we are off schedule. Any alterations in exam dates will be announced in class ahead of time.
Items listed with a D followed by a number indicate a reading in the Danielson anthology. Occasionally this will also be followed by some page numbers, e.g. D6, 39-42 means reading number 6 in Danielson, pages 39-42.
Items marked with an asterisk (*) are recommended but not required reading. They are not vital for quizzes and exams, though they may contain material that will be presented in lectures and might therefore be helpful in studying. They are primarily included to assist students in researching areas of interest. A few of these items (particularly readings from Boyer) will be most profitable to students who have some background in elementary calculus.
Part I: The Aristotelian System
Week 1:
The relation between history of science and philosophy of science. The Victorian view of pre-modern science. Atomism: The background to Aristotle. Aristotle's cosmology: The potency of place; plenism and the critique of the atomist theory of the void. The theory of the elements. Democritus's cone paradox.
Primary Sources:
Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius on atomism and the void, in Danielson D4. You can find a lengthier excerpt from Lucretius (including most of what Danielson quotes) in a prose translation here.
Aristotle, critique of the notion of a void, Physics IV, 6-8, online
Aristotle, the potency of place, Physics IV, 1 and 12, in Danielson D6 to p. 38, also available here
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, ch. 2
*Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks (NY: Collier, 1956), pp. 180-2 (cone paradox)
*Boyer, The History of the Calculus and its Conceptual Development (NY: Dover, 1949), chs. 1-2
Week 2
The shape, size, and structure of the earth in the Aristotelian system.
Primary Sources:
Aristotle on the shape and size of the earth, On the Heavens, in Danielson D6, 39-42. For those whose textbooks have not yet come in, a fuller excerpt can be found here.
Aristotle, De Caelo II, 13, elided from p. 40 of Danielson D6
Eratosthenes on the size of the earth, as relayed by Osserman, in Danielson D8
Secondary Sources:
Handout on the four elements
Butterfield on the Aristotelian system as it came into the middle ages, The Origins of Modern Science, 29-36, online
*Cohen on pre-Copernican astronomy, The Birth of a New Physics, 24-35
Week 3
Aristotle's cosmology: the size and structure of the heavens.
Primary Sources:
Eudoxus on the structure of the heavens, in Aristotle, Metaphysics XII, 8, online
Sosigenes objecting that Eudoxus's spheres do not save the phenomena, in Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo, online
Archimedes on the size of the heavens, The Sand Reckoner, relaying the ideas of Aristarchus, in Danielson D7
Secondary Sources:
C. S. Lewis on the size and structure of the medieval cosmos, in The Discarded Image, 97-9, online
Week 4
Aristotle's dynamics. Motion as derivative and communicated by contact; natural motion and the question of explanation; the Aristotelian proportion.
Primary Sources:
Aristotle on natural motion, De Caelo I, 2-3, online. [Reading Questions] (Chapter 2 includes the tripartite division of natural motions)
Aristotle, fragments from De Caelo and Physics, online. [Reading Questions]
Aristotle on the proportion between force and motion, Physics VII, 5, online [Reading Questions]; cf De Caelo 273b 30 - 274a 2, online
Aristotle on ballistic motion and air, Physics IV, 8, online (A passage already encountered in the course of the critique of the void, but important in the present context because of the difficulties that ballistic motion presents for Aristotle's theory of motion. Historically crucial.)
*Aristotle, Physics VIII, 9, 265a, on the primacy of circular motion, quoted at length in Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks, 109-10
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, ch. 3
*Cohen on Aristotle's Physics, The Birth of a New Physics, chs. 1 and 2
*Boyer on conceptions of infinity and exhaustion in antiquity, The History of the Calculus, 14-48
Week 5
The Ptolemaic system: epicycles, eccentrics, and equants. The scientific case against a moving earth.
Primary Sources:
Ptolemy, Almagest I, in Danielson D11 [Reading Questions]
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield on Aristotle and Ptolemy, The Fabric of the Heavens, chs. 4 and 5
First take-home exam
Part II: From Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
Week 6
Aristotle from late antiquity to the high middle ages: critiques and modifications. The rise of impetus theory in John Philoponus. The condemnation of 1277. The conceptual clarification of a heliocentric model in Buridan and Oresme. The Merton school and the clarification of accelerated motion.
Primary Sources:
Philoponus criticizes Aristotle's position on free fall [Reading Questions] and ballistic motion [Reading Questions], online (cf Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics, 7-8)
Maimonides against the reality of epicycles and eccentrics, Guide II, 24, online
Buridan denies the reality of epicycles but affirms that of eccentrics, Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle XII, questions 10-11, online
*Heytesbury articulates the mean speed rule developed at Merton College, Oxford, Rules for Solving Sophisms, online
*Oresme on the proof of the mean speed rule, Treatise on the Configuration of Qualities and Motions III, vii, 251-3, online
*Tempier, Condemnation of 1277, selections, in Grant 45-9
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, 165-9, 214-7. This contains a number of quotations from Oresme and an explanation of the mean speed rule.
*Butterfield on the theory of impetus, The Origins of Modern Science, 13-28
*Ernest A. Moody, "Galileo and Avempace, "in Wiener and Noland, eds., The Roots of Scientific Thought, 176-206
*Boyer on progress toward calculus in the middle ages, The History of the Calculus, ch. 3
Part III: The Copernican Revolution
Week 7
The achievement of Copernicus. The question of realism. Osiander's unsigned preface.
Primary Sources:
Copernicus, On the Revolutions, Preface and book I, in Danielson D18
Cardinal Schoenberg's letter, online
Osiander's unsigned Letter to the Reader, online
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, 169-80
Blake, "Theory of Hypotheses among Renaissance Astronomers," selections online
*Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics, ch. 3
*Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 36-48
Week 8
The gradual acceptance of the Copernican system. The "Golden Chain" argument. Lingering problems with Copernicus's model. Tycho Brahe: his observations and his compromise. The nova of 1572 and the comet of 1577.
Primary Sources:
Selected reactions to Copernicus: Appreciation of the "Golden Chain" argument by advocates (Rheticus, Maestlin, Kepler, Galileo) and opponents (Gemma Frisius, Praetorius, Tycho), online
Tycho Brahe, De Nova Stella, in Danielson, D21
Digges, a realist view of the Copernican system, in Danielson, D22
Secondary Sources:
Thomas Kuhn, an unsympathetic evaluation of the "Golden Chain" argument, from The Copernican Revolution, pp. 178, 180-1, online
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, 182-9
Part III: The Revolution Unfolds: Kepler and Galileo
Week 9
Kepler's achievements. The Cosmographical Mystery: cosmology as geometry. Kepler's use of Tycho's data. The great retroduction: On the Motion of Mars. Kepler's defense of realism in astronomy. The unification of astronomy and physics.
Primary Sources:
Kepler, selected passages on
the nature of astronomy and scientific method.
Kepler, correspondence with Galileo, 1610, in Danielson D26
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, 198-209
Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, excerpt online
*Blake on Kepler's realism in astronomy
*Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics, 127-47
*Gerald Holton, "Johannes Kepler's Universe: Its Physics and Metaphysics," in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought (Harvard University Press, 1973), 69-90
*N. R. Hanson on the nature of Kepler's reasoning regarding the orbit of Mars, Patterns of Discovery
*Koyre on Kepler's rejection of a physically infinite universe, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957), 58-87
*R. Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science (Cambridge University Press, 1971), 3-16
Week 10
Galileo's telescopic discoveries and their impact on Copernicanism. Reception of the telescope among astronomers and theologians.
Primary Sources:
Galileo on the moon and the satellites of Jupiter, Siderius Nuncius, in Danielson D24
Kepler, correspondence with Galileo, 1610, in Danielson D26
Martin Horky's letter to Kepler, April, 1610, online
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, 189-98
*Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics, ch. 4
*James Lattis, Between Copernicus and Galileo. Full of fascinating information about the astronomer Clavius, a traditionalist whose life overlapped significantly with that of Galileo
Second take-home exam
Week 11
Galileo the polemicist. Controversies with Scheiner and Grassi. Galileo's conceptual defense of the new astronomy. The Dialogue: Dedicatory letter to the Grand Duke of Tuscany; letter to the discerning reader. The "Galileo affair."
Primary Sources:
Galileo, Dialogues, pp. 3-7
*Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
*Galileo, Excerpts from The Assayer, in Drake, ed., Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, 218-21
*Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics, ch. 5
*Finocchiaro, Galileo on the World Systems, 1-69. An outstanding thumbnail sketch of the significance of Galileo's Dialogue and the trial of Galileo
*Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo. An annotated guide to the primary source documents pertaining to the trial of Galileo
*Ronan, Galileo. An accessible biography of Galileo, including pictures of many of the major figures in the drama
Week 12
Natural motion and Aristotle's logic; heavenly changes and Aristotle's empiricism; human and divine understanding.
Primary Sources:
Galileo, Dialogue, pp. 3-66; 113-21.
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, 210-27
*Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics, 81-126
*Drake and Drabkin, eds., Mechanics in Sixteenth Century
Week 13
The role of Aristotle's authority; rotation, simplicity, and probability; the case against terrestrial rotation; vertical fall, superposition of motions, and the role of experiments.
Primary Sources:
Galileo, Dialogue, selections from the second day, in Drake’s
translation, pp. 123-73
Secondary Sources:
Toulmin and Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens, 228-249
Week 14
The deception of the senses and the relativity of motion; heliocentrism and the telescope; stellar dimensions and the concept of size; stellar parallax.
Primary Sources:
Galileo, Two Chief World Systems, selections from the second and third days, in Drake’s translation, pp. 288-98; 370-95; 416-32.
Final take-home exam