Science and Technology in the Early Modern World c1400-1800 CE

               
Professor Olson        
email: olson@hmc.edu       
office: Parsons 1257

T, Th, 1:15-2:30 p.m.
Beckman 126
Phone:  74476

General course objectives:

To learn about the conceptual and social characteristics of early modern “science,” with special emphasis on:

• Why the “scientific revolution” occurred in Western Europe rather than in the Islamic Empire or in East Asia, both of which were economically and culturally more “advanced” at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
• What the relationships were between science and technology in the Early Modern world.
• How scientific developments and institutions interacted with religious developments and institutions in Early Modern Europe.
• The major  “paradigms” which guided scientific investigations in the Early Modern world.

Course Requirements and Basis for Grading:

Quizzes: 25%
There will be a series of four (4) short quizzes during the semester as well as several colloquia, conferences, or lectures sponsored by the STS program.  The best three (3) quizzes and the best two (2) page critical review of an STS or otherwise approved event will be averaged for 30% of the grade.  Writeups on events should be submitted within one week of the event reviewed.  Late reviews will be accepted but will have points deducted for lateness –1 point per intervening class session.

Response papers: 25%
To encourage students to read materials in a timely fashion and to determine what issues are causing students the most confusion, I am asking for a one to two page response to the readings for each session to be turned in to olson@hmc.edu by 10:00 a.m. on the day of the class session. Please, embed your comments directly in the email message rather than include them as attachments, it is amazing how much extra time it takes to look at and print out 40-50 messages when they are attachments. The response should either (i) state the most important thing that you learned from the readings for that day and the most important question that the reading raised without answering to your satisfaction, or (ii) disagree with some point made by the author and explain why I should take seriously your disagreement.  Responses will be graded on a two point scale-- 0 points for no response or one that shows virtually no effort to grapple with the material, 1 point for a response that demonstrates any reasonable attempt to understand the subject matter, 2 points for a thought-provoking response.  To calculate this portion of the grade, I will average the best 17 responses (~2/3 of the total number, so in principle you can get a perfect grade while skipping about 30% of the reading).  An average of less than 1.0 gets an F, 1-1.33 gets a C, 1.34 -1.66 gets a B, and > 1.66 will get an A.

Research Paper: 25%
Each student will write a 7-10 page research paper on a topic of her/his choice approved by the instructor.  This paper will be due by the beginning of class on December 6.

Take Home Exam: 25%
A comprehensive take home examination based on study questions handed out at the beginning of the semester will be handed out on the last day of Classes (December 13.)  You have until 5:00 P.M. on December 19 to turn in the final.  Students are encouraged to form study groups to prepare for the final; but the final is to be taken individually, closed book and closed notes. Please note: HMC students are automatically covered by the college’s honor code for the final exam.  Non-HMC students should be aware that when taking HMC courses ( of which this is one), they are also governed by HMC honor code regulations.

The instructor may raise or lower your grade by 1/3 of a grade ( i.e. by a + or – ) if he judges your contributions to class discussions to have been unusually substantial or unusually negligible.

Recommended Book Purchases: The following have been ordered through Huntley Bookstore.  Major portions of each will be used during the semester in roughly the order listed.

• Marie Boas Hall, The Scientific Renaissance
• Paracelsus, Essential Readings
• Marcus Hellyer, ed., The Scientific Revolution
• William Harvey, The Motion of the Heart and the Blood in Animals
• I.B. Cohen and Richard Westfall, eds., Newton
• Thomas Hankins, Science in the Enlightenment

A few additional readings will be collected in a course packet and made available either on reserve at Sprague Library under Olson,“History 81" or for purchase through the HMC Humanities and Social Sciences Office, 1267 Parsons Hall.

Important Dates:

• Quiz #1: September 27
• Quiz # 2: October 24
• Quiz # 3: November 15
• Research paper due: December 6
• Quiz #4:   December 13
• Final exam: December 19, 5:00 p.m. 

Writeups on events should be turned in within one calendar week after the event. They will be accepted late but will be graded down for lateness.

Schedule of Topics and Readings:
The following schedule is provisional and is subject to change at the whim of the instructor or as a consequence of heavy lobbying by the other members of the class.  It suggests topics for each meeting and coordinates readings with lecture-discussion topics. (Lectures and readings are intended to supplement one another; so though I hope that there will be some overlap, it should never be complete.)  The Sources of Additional Perspectives sections are for those who might want to follow up special lines of interest and for use in getting started on paper topics.  Please do the common readings before the class sessions for which they are assigned and submit your responses and questions so I can tailor the lecture-discussions to address puzzling issues.  I will probably begin most class sessions with responses to FAQ’s.  Note: the common readings for the course average under 100 pp. per week, a modest number, though the schedule is somewhat uneven.

Part 1:
Introductory matters and why the scientific revolution occurred in Europe

Meeting 1—September 4
Introduction to the course; discussion of definitions of “science” and “technology” and why definitions matter; why study the history of science and technology; brief comments on historiographic traditions.

Common reading:
Andrew Cunningham & Perry Williams, “ De-centering the ‘Big Picture’: The Origins of Modern Science and the Modern Origins of Science,” pp. 218 - 246 in Hellyer, ed., The Scientific Revolution.

If you want to understand my general take on what is often at stake in the definition of “science” and on critical issues in the historiography of science, read the interchanges between me and Norman Levitt at the beginning of the course packet. Note that my response to Levitt is part of the article attributed to him.

Sources of Additional Perspectives: Overviews of the Scientific Revolution.
I have assigned a set of texts for this course because of the relatively detailed information that they contain within a coherent organizational structure; but you might notice that the original copyright dates for the two main texts, by  Boas and Hankins are nearly 50 and 35 years old ; so their interpretive perspectives are somewhat dated and significantly different from my own.  Early modern science has been the subject of intensive re-interpretation over the past couple of decades; but most of the recent overviews, such as those by Dear and Shapin listed below, have been very short books that are theoretically interesting and sophisticated but thin on information, which is why I have chosen not to use them.  Other persons teaching this course would certainly organize it differently.   For those interested in the historiography, I have listed below several “classics” and recent interpretive overviews in roughly  chronological order. The first two books on the list have had tremendous impact on the field, but I do NOT recommend using them without the corrective of perspectives represented by later works.

• E.A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Sciences (1924).
• Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science (1948).
• Allen G Debus, Man and Nature in the Renaissance (1978) and Richard Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics (1971) [paired, like Boas and Hall, but one generation later].
• R. Olson, Science Deified and Science Defied: The Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture, Vol. 2. C1640-1820. (1990).
• David Lindberg and Robert Westman, eds., Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (1990).
• Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (1996).  The first really “post-modern” interpretation of the scientific revolution which begins with a great first sentence: “There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it.”
• James McClellan III and Harold Dorn, Science and Technology in World History (1999) The first  overarching attempt to integrate the history of science and technology into a world historical rather than a purely Western historical context.
• Margaret Osler, ed., Rethinking the Scientific Revolution (2000).  Interesting not only because Margaret and her contributers represent one important trend in the discipline, but also because she taught at HMC early in her career.
• Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, 1500-1700 (2001). Currently my favorite brief treatment of the Scientific Revolution in Europe.

Meeting 2—September 6.
The special character of higher educational institutions and other sources of patronage for knowledge production in Early Modern Europe –the first precondition for the scientific revolution.

Common reading:
John Gascoigne, “A reappraisal of the role of universities in the Scientific Revolution”, in David Lindberg and Robert Westman, eds., Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 207-260. (In course packet/on reserve)

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science, Islam, China, and the West (Cambridge, 1993).
• Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist’s Role in Society (Englewood Cliffs, 1971).
• A.G. Dickens, ed., The Courts of Europe, Politics, Patronage and Royalty, 1400-1800. (London, 1977).
• R..J. W.  Evans, Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual History, 1576-1612. ( (Oxford, 1973).
• Pamela Smith, The Business of Alchemy, (Baltimore, 1994).

Meeting 3—September 11
European Technical and Economic Dynamism: Cities, Merchants, Artisans, and Status –the Second Precondition for the Scientific Revolution

Common Readings:
Edgar Zilzel, “The Genesis of the Concept of Scientific Progress,” pp. 251-275, in Phillip Wiener and Aaron Noland, eds., The Roots of Scientific Thought (New York, 1957). In course packet.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• [Franz Borkenau and Henryk Grossman], “Controversy: The Emergence of Science Out of the Production Process,” Science in Context, 1 (1987): 105-191.
• Arthur Clegg, “Craftsmen and the Origin of Science,” Science and Society, 43 (1979): 186-201. (Though this article includes some gross distortions, it raises very important issues as well).
• Pamela Smith, “Vital Spirits, Redemption, Artisanship, and the New Philosophy in Early Modern Europe,” in Margaret Osler, Rethinking the Scientific Revolution, pp. 119-136.
• Richard W. Hadden, On the Shoulders of Merchants: Exchange and the Mathematical Conseption of  Nature in Early Modern Europe , (Albany, 1994).
• Mary Poovy, A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and  Society (Chicago, 1998).
• Lynn White Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change, (Oxford, 1962).
• Henry Heller, Labour, Science, and Technology in France: 1500-1620 (Cambridge, 1996).

Meeting 4—September 13:
Renaissance Humanism, Christian Humanism, and Hermeticism : The Rise of a Manipulative Mentality among Scholars–a third precondition for the Scientific Revolution.

Common Reading:

• M. Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 17-49.
• R. Olson, Science and Religion, 1450-1900, pp. 25 -56. In course reader.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Paolo Rossi, Philsophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era (N.Y., 1961).
• Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (N.Y., 1964).
• --------------, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (London, 1972).
• Antonia McLean, Humanism and the Rise of Science in Tudor England (N.Y., 1972)
• Paul Mandrou, From Humanism to Science: 1400-1700 (Baltimore, 1978).
• Stephen McKnight, Sacralizing the Secular: The Renaissance Origins of Modernity, Baton Rouge, 1989.
• Richard Olson, Science Deified and Science Defied, Vol. 1 (Los Angeles and Berkeley, 1982), Chs. 7-9.
• -------------, Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: 1450-1900 ( forthcoming, Westport, 2004), Ch. 2. “Christian Humanism, Hermeticism, and Shifting Goals for Natural Knowledge.”  Draft available from Olson.

Meeting 5 & 6—September 18 & 20
The importance of Printing and Travel – the Fourth Prerequisite for the Scientific Revolution

There will be special arrangements made for these class meeting(s) which will  require splitting the class into  smaller groups to meet in the Special Collections room at Honnold Mudd Library to examine a number of early scientific texts, including the first edition of Euclid with diagrams, an early edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, one of the earliest printed astronomical treatises, a critically important herbal, an important “Machine book,” Georg Agricolla’s De re metallica, some alchemical texts and a few other interesting early books.

Group A will meet Sept. 18, 1:00-1:40
Group B will meet Sept. 18, 1:50-2:30
Group C will meet Sept. 20, 1:00-1:40
Group D will meet Sept. 20, 1:50-2:30

Common reading:

M. Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 49-70,
and one of the following chapters from Nick Jardine and Maina Frasca-Spada, Books and the Sciences in History, depending on your specific interests. (On reserve at Sprague)

Ch. 2, “Printing the World,” pp. 35-48. (On maps and geography)
Ch. 5, “Illustrating Nature” pp. 90-113. (On the importance of printed visual images)
Ch. 6, “Astronomical books and courtly communication,” pp. 114-131.
Ch. 7, “Reading for the philosopher’s stone,” pp. 132-150. (On alchemical texts and readers).

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge, 1979).
• -------------------, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1983).
• Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book, The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800. (London, 1984).
• Roger Chartier, The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1994).
• William Brandon, New Worlds for Old:Reports from the New World and their Effect on the Development of Social Thought in Europe (Athens, Ohio, 1986).
• Urs Bitterli, Cultures in Conflict: Encounters between European and Non-European Cultures, 1492- 1800, (Stanford, 1986). 

Meeting 7—September 25:
The revival of Multiple Mathematical Traditions and the Spread of Numeracy: Art, Engineering, Navigation, Mechanics, and Accounting in Early Modern Europe–the cases of Brunelleschi and Stevin.

Common Reading:
Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 197-210.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Peter Dear, Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution, Chicago, 1995.
• E.J. Dijksterhuis, Simon Stevin: Science in the Netherlands Around 1600, The Hague, 1970.
• Giorgio de Santillana, “The Role of Art in the Scientific Renaissance,” pp. 33-65 in Marshall Clagett, ed., Critical Problems in the History of Science, Madison, 1959.
• Mordechai Feingold, The Mathematician’s Apprenticeship: Science, Universities, and Society in England, 1560-1640, Cambridge, 1984.

Part 2:
Quickening Interest in Natural Knowledge –c 1500-1620

Meeting 8—September 27
Quiz # 1 (first 25 min.); The rise of Alchemy, Natural Magic, & Astrology; The “Book of Secrets” tradition.

Common Readings:

• Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 166-196.
• Hellyer, ed. Pp. 157 -177.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Copenhaver, Brian, “Natural magic, Hermeticism, and Occultism in Early Modern Science,” pp. 261-301 in David Lindberg and Robert Westman, eds., Reapparaisals of the Scientific Revolution, (Cambridge, 1990).
• Loraine Daston and Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature: 1150-1750, (N.Y., 1998).
• Alisson Coudert, Alchemy: The Philosopher’s Stone, (Boulder, 1980).
• Allen G. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsan Science and Medicine in the 16th and 17th  Centuries, (N.Y., 1977).
• Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, (Berkeley, 1972).
• William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, (Princeton, 1994).

Meeting 9—October 2
The Life and Works of Paracelsus–Physician, Alchemist, Theologian, and Rebel.
 
Common Reading:
Paracelsus, Essential Writings, pp. 45-104, 109-144, 173-191.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine, (N. Y., 1962).
Charles Webster, From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science, (Cambridge, 1982).

Meeting 10—October 4
Anatomy and Early intimations of the mechanical philosophy

Common Reading:

• Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 129-165, 265-286;
• William Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart and the Blood in Animals (all).

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Nancy Sirasi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, (Chicago, 1990).
• Charles O’Malley, Andreus Vessalius of Brussels, (Berkeley, 1965).
• Robert G. Frank, Jr., Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists, (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980).

Meeting 11—October 9
The Copernican Revolution -1- Technical Issues and What did Copernicus Think that he was doing?

Common Reading:
Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 70-89.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Jerome R. Ravetz, Astronomy and Cosmology in the Achievement of Nicolas Copernicus, (Warsaw, 1965).
• Edward Rosen, Three Copernican Treatises, (N.Y., 1959).
• Noel Swerdlow and Otto Neugebauer, Mathematical Astronomy in Copernicus’s De revolutionibus,
  2 volumes, (N.Y., 1984).

Meeting 12—October 11
The Copernican Revolution-2 - What did other people think that Copernicus had done.

Common Reading:

• Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 90-128.
• Hellyer, pp. 44 - 471.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Thomas Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, (N.Y., 1957).
• Edward Rosen, Copernicus and the Copernican Revolution, (N.Y., 1984).
• Howell, Kenneth J., God’s Two Books: Copernican Cosmology and Biblical Interpretation in Early Modern Science, (Notre Dame, 2002).
• Owen Gingerich, The Book Nobody Read, (N.Y., 2003).
• Owen Gingerich, The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Kepler, (N.Y., 1993).

Meeting 13—October 16  
Precision and Accuracy: Issues in the Works of  Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler

Common Readings:
Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, pp. 287-312.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, (N.Y., 1959, reprinted Chicago, 1990)
• J.L.E. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century, (N.Y., 1963).
• John R. Christianson, On Tycho’s Island: Tycho Brahe and his Assistants, 15780-1601, (Cambridge, 2000).

Meeting 14—October 18
Mechanics and Mathematics at the end of the 16th century–background for Galileo’s revolution in physics.

Common Reading:
Boas-Hall, pp. 197 - 237.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Stillman Drake and I.E. Drabkin, Mechanics in the 16th Century, (Madison, 1969).
• William Wallace, Galileo and His Sources, (Princeton, 1984).
• Rene Dugas, A History of Mechanics, (London, 1957), esp. Chs. 5-7.

Part 3
From Galileo to the Time of Newton

Fall Break: October 20-22.

Meeting 15—October 24
Quiz#2; Galileo’s Early career; Galileo as Courtier, Observational Astronomer, and Academician– His first run-in with the Holy office of the Inquisition.

Common Reading:
None: Study for the Quiz.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism, (Chicago, 1993).
• Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, (Chicago, 1978).

Meeting 16—October 30
Galileo’s Copernicanism, His Troubles With Urban VIII, His Role as Symbol of the Scientific Martyr.

Common Reading:
David Lindberg, “Galileo, The Church, and the Cosmos,” pp. 33-60., in David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers, eds., When Science and Christianity Meet, (Chicago, 2003). In course packet.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Richard Westfall, ed., Essays on the Trial of Galileo, (Vatican City, 1989).
• Annibale Fantoli, Galileo: For Copernicanism and For the Church, ed. & trans., George Coyne, (Vatican City, 1996).
• Maurice Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History, (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1989).
• Davia Sobel, Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoire of Science, Faith, and Love, (N.Y., 1999).
• Pietro Redondi, Galileo: Heretic, (Princeton, 1987).

NO MEETING NOVEMBER 1 –OLSON at HSS meeting  –Start working on Papers.

Meeting 17—November 6
Galileo’s Mechanics and Galilean Mechanics through 1669.

Common Reading:
A.R. Hall, From Galileo to Newton, pp. 36-77.  In course reader.     

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• William Wallace, Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo’s Science, (Princeton, 1984).
• Michael Segre, In the Wake of Galileo, (New Brunswick, N.J., 1991).
• E.J. Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization of the World Picture, (Oxford, 1961), pp. 248-462.
• Rene Dugas, Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century, (New York, 1955).

Meeting 18—November 8
“Experimental” Philosophy and the Social Reorganization of Early Modern Science –4 models–
The Jesuit Colleges, the Accademia del Cimento, the Academie des Sciences, the Royal Society of London.

Common Reading:
Hellyer, pp. 72 - 100..

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Mordechai Feingold, ed., Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, (Cambridge, Mass., 2002).
• John O’Malley, et. el., eds., The Jesuits: Cultures, Science, and the Arts, (Toronto, 1999).
• John L. Heilbron, Elements of Early Modern Physics, (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1982).
• John L. Heilbron, The Sun and the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories, (Cambridge, Mass., 1999).
• Roger Hahn, The Anatomy of A Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666-1803, (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1971).
• Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth Century England, (Chicago, 1994).
• I.B. Cohen, ed., Puritanism and the Rise of Modern Science, (New Brunswick, 1990).

Meeting 19—November 12
The Triumph of “Mathematical,” “Mechanical,” and “Corpuscular” Natural Philosophy --
Social, Religious, and Psychological dimensions.

Common Reading:

• Hellyer, pp. 101 - 129
• Olson, Science Deified and Science Defied, Vol. 2, pp. 15 - 37 . In Course packet

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Robert Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton, (Oxford, 1966).
• Steven Shapin and Simon Shaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump, (Princeton, 1985).
• J.A. Bennett, “The Mechanics Philosophy and the Mechanical Philosophy," History of Science, 24 (1986): 1-28.
• Margaret Osler, Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy, (Cambridge, 1994).
• Richard Olson, “On the nature of God’s Existence, Wisdom, and Power: The interplay between Organic and Mechanistic Imagery in Anglican Natural Theology–1640-1740,” in Fred Burwick, ed.,  Approaches to Organic Form, (Boston, 1987).
• ___________, Science and Religion in the Western Tradition, 1450-1900, (Westport, forthcoming, 2004), Ch 4, “Science and Religion in England – 1590-1740. (Draft available).
• Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman, Instruments and Imagination, (Princeton, 1995), esp. Ch. 8., pp. 178-220.

Meeting 20—November 15:
Quiz #3, Extending the Mechanical Philosophy to Living Beings (Iatromechanics) and to Humans and Their Societies

Common Readings:

• R. Olson, Science Deified and Science Defied, Vol. 2, pp. 37 -61. In course packet.
• R. Olson, “Historical Reflections on Feminist Critiques of Science: The Scientific Background to Modern Feminism,” History of Science, 28 (1990): 125 - 147.  In course Packet

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Londa Shiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex?: Women and the Origins of Modern Science, (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), esp. Chs. 6 & 7.
• Graham, Mental Machinery: The Origins of Psychological Ideas, Prt 1 –1600-1850. (Baltimore, 1992).
• I. B. Cohen, Interactions: Some Contacts between the Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, (Cambridge, Mass., 1994).

Part 4:
Newton, Newtonian Culture, and the Industrial Revolution

Meeting 21—November 27
An Overview of Newton’s Life, Newton and Mathematics

Common Readings:
I.B. Cohen and Richard Westfall, eds., Newton, Part 9, pp 373-377, 406-413. (Persons with great interest in mathematics may want to puzzle out other segments of Part 9.)

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Richard Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, (Cambridge, 1980).
• John Fauvel, et. al., eds., Let Newton Be!, (Oxford, 1988).

Meeting 22—November 29
Newton as an Alchemist and Experimentalist, Newton’s Emphasis on Method, Experimental Newtonianism

Common Readings:

• Newton, pp. 299-324, 111-121, 145-161, 167-181.
• Thomas Hankins, Science in the Enlightenment, pp. 46 -80.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Betty Jo Teeter-Dobbs and Margaret Jacob, Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism, (Atlantic Highlands, 1995).
• Betty Jo Teeter-Dobbs, The Foundation of Newton’s Alchemy, (Cambridge, 1975).
• _________________, The Janus Face of Genius: The Role opf Alchemy in Newton’s Thought, (Cambridge, 1991).
• I.B. Cohen, Franklin and Newton: An Inquiry into Speculative Newtonian Experimental Science and Franklin’s Work in Electricity as an Example Thereof, (Philadelphia, 1956).

Meeting 23—December 4
Newton’s Principia and Enlightenment traditions of Celestial Mechanics and Rational Mechanics.

Common Reading:

• Newton, pp. 221-248., 253-271.
• Hankins, Science and the Enlightenment, pp 1-45.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• John Herivel, The Background to Newton’s Principia: A Study of Newton’s Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664-1684, (Oxford, 1965).
• I.B. Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics, (Baltimore, 1987).
• I.B. Cohen, Introduction to Newton’s Principia, (Cambridge, Mass., 1971).

Meeting 24—December 6
The Human Science in the Enlightenment

Common Readings:

• Turn in research paper today
• Haskins, pp.158 - 190.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Frank Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton, (Oxford, 1974).
• Margaret Jacob, The Newtonians ands the English Revolution, (Ithaca, 1976).
• James Force, William Whiston: Honest Newtonian, Cambridge, (1985).
• James Force and Richard Popkin, Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Newton’s  Theology, (Dordrecht, 1990).
• John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment: Science, Religion, and Politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution, (Cambridge, 1989).
• Larry Stewart, The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in  Newtonian Britain - 1660-1750. (Cambridge, 1992).
• Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760-1820, (Cambridge, 1992).
  Geoffrey Sutton, Science for a Polite Society: Gender, Culture, and the Demonstration of  Enlightenment, (Boulder, 1995).
• Vincenzo Ferrone, The Intellectual Roots of the Italian Enlightenment: Newtonian Science, Religion, and Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century, (Atlantic Highlands, 1995).
• James Secord, “Newton in the Nursery: Tom Telescope and the Philosophy of Tops and Balls, 1761-1838,” History of Science, 13 (1985):127-139.

Meeting 25—December 11:
Science and the Industrial Revolution –a Special Role for Chemistry

Common Readings:

• Hankins, pp. 81 - 112.
• Hellyer, pp. 194 - 215.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Archibald Clow & Nan Clow, The Chemical Revolution: A Contribution to Social Technology, (London, 1952, reprinted, Philadelphia,1992).
• Robert Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in Eighteenth Century England, (Oxford, 1963).
• A.A. Musson and Eric Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, (London, 1969).
• Peter Mathias, ed., Science and Society: 1600-1800, (Cambridge, 1972).
• Charles C. Gillispie, Science and Polity in France at the end of the Old Regime, (Princeton, 1980).
• Neil McKendrick, “The Role of Science in the Industrial revolution: A Study of Josiah Wedgewood as a Scientist and Industrial Chemist,” in Mikulas Teich and Robert Young, Changing Perspectives in the History of Science, (Boston, 1973), pp. 279-318.

Meeting 26—December 13
Course evaluations, Quiz # 4, distribution of final examination questions.

Final Examinations are to be taken closed book, closed notes during a continuous 3 hour period. I encourage students to join together in study groups to prepare answers for the study questions; but exams are to be taken individually under the provisions of the HMC Honor Code.

The Exam is due for on December 19 at 5:00 p.m.