The History & Philosophy of  Science

About This Course

To prepare for this course, students will explore the basic concepts of metaphysics, and the structural development of scientific inquiry. 

Throughout the duration of the course, students will analyze primary sources authored by influential intellectuals such as Hippocrates, Archimedes, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Mendel, Darwin, and Einstein. Additionally, students will explore riveting subjects including the meteor impact believed to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, the historical connection between humans and the cosmos, the myths surrounding time, and an examination of the challenges and contributions of lesser-known scientists. The course will also encompass scientific advancements in Ancient Egypt, China, and the Middle East.

HOW DID RECORDED SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY BEGIN AND EVOLVE TO TODAY'S FIELDS OF SCIENCE?

Primary Resources in the History of Science

THE BEGINNINGS

Hippocrates, The Hippocratic Corpus (c. 420 BC)

Plato, Timaeus (c. 360 BC) [Plato Foundation translation]

Aristotle, Physics (c. 330 BC)

Aristotle, History of Animals (c. 330 BC)

Archimedes,  The Sand-Reckoner (c. 250 BC)

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (c. 60 BC)

Ptolemy, Almagest (c. 150 AD)

Nicolaus Copernicus, Commentariolus (1514) and On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543)

THE BIRTH OF THE METHOD

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620)

William Harvey, De Motu Cordis (1628)

Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)

Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist (1661)

Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665)

Isaac Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687/1713/1726)

READING THE EARTH

George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Natural History: General and Particular (1749-1788)

James Hutton, Theory of the Earth (1785)

Georges Cuvier, Preliminary Discourse (1812)

Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (1830)

Arthur Holmes, The Age of the Earth (1913)

Alfred Wegener, The Origin of Continents and Oceans (1915)

Walter Alvarez, T. Rex and the Crater of Doom (1997)

READING LIFE (WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO US)

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy (1809)

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859)

Gregor Mendel, Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1865)

Julian Huxley, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (1942)

James D. Watson, The Double Helix (1968)

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (1976)

E. O. Wilson, On Human Nature (1978)

Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981)

READING THE COSMOS (REALITY)

Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1916)

Max Planck, “The Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory” (1922)

Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life? (1944)

[Edwin Hubble, The Realms of the Nebulae (1937)] Fred Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe (1950)

Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977)

James Gleick, Chaos (1987)