HON 273: The Human
Event—Science Focus
Spring 2008
Joel Hunter
Last modified: February 21, 2009
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Policies
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Current Announcements
—Event!— Join me and your classmates for a free public event featuring one of our own Barrett Faculty Fellows, Dr. John Lynch. The Science Cafe series at the Arizona Science Center presents "Evolution and Faith Revisited: Can the Two be Reconciled?" on Friday, February 20 starting at 5:30 pm. Class credit is available .
—Date Change!— Our movie night is now Friday, April 10. We will view Proteus starting at 6:30 pm in Discovery Hall, Room 250. There will be about 30 minutes of discussion afterwards.
Please remember that this page gives
the latest information on readings and in all cases overrides the printed syllabus.
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Office: Irish A 223
Hours: MWF 12:30—2:30, or by appointment
Email: This is the best way to contact me. joel
dot hunter at asu dot edu.
HON 273 is
one of the second semester follow-ups to HON 171 Human Event. Our focus is on a
selection of foundational scientific ideas in the modern period (especially
those of Galileo, Newton and Darwin) and an investigation of their implications
for us as human beings. We are particularly interested in critically examining
these primary texts for what they conceive to be the nature of the world, the
physical, life, space and time. What kind of knowledge does scientific work and
products yield? If a theory is deemed to be true, what does “truth” mean in the
scientific context? Is scientific knowledge regional or universal? Does science
hold the prerogative to determine these questions? Is science value-, politics-
and culture-free? Given that science is one form of human enterprise among
many, how are we to understand its place within all of the possibilities of
human activity? What is the proper relationship between scientific activity and
other forms of systematic and theoretical study?
To explore these issues and answer these questions, we will examine the primary texts as both repositories of scientific knowledge as well as historical-cultural products. One way in which we will bring focus to these “big” questions and issues is to critically analyze the aesthetic dimension of scientific objects and ideas; particular attention will be paid to the visual culture of science. At the end of the course, the student should be able to articulate their particular philosophy of science and defend their positions on many of these issues.
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Broadening of your cultural background and historical awareness,
particularly with relation to philosophical and religious modes of thought
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Cultivation of multi-disciplinary perspectives
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Development of frameworks for self-directed learning and working
within a pluralist society
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Improvement of skills in close reading, critical discussion and
evaluation & construction of oral and written arguments
Please
purchase only these editions. They are available at the ASU Bookstore and
online.
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Space from Zeno to
Einstein: Classic Readings with a Contemporary Commentary. Nick Huggett, ed. MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 0262581698 [Space].
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The Island of Dr.
Moreau. H. G. Wells. Penguin Classics, 2005. ISBN:
014144102X [IDM].
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The Cambridge Quintet: A Work of
Scientific Speculation. John L. Casti. Basic Books, 1999. 0738201383 [CQ].
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Additional readings are available online in
pdf [WEB]. See links below.
Please see
the printed Syllabus and Syllabus Supplement for further details about
assignments and their assessment.
| Participation | 30% |
Five reflection exercises (2% each) |
10% |
| Five quizzes (2% each) | 10% |
| Thesis papers | 50% |
| W | 21-Jan | Introduction to the Class and Self-Assessment
Questionnaire
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Unit I: Space and Time
Before the
Modern Era
| F | 23-Jan | Plato and Euclid, Space pp 1-2 and 15-20
We are reading a brief excerpt from the Timaeus and some excerpts from Euclid’s Elements.
Plato (429-347 BCE) Euclid (fl 300 BCE) as shown in Raphael's School of Athens (1511) |
| M | 26-Jan | Zeno (of Elea), Space pp 29-36
Although he lived 150 years before Euclid systematized his geometry in the Elements, we read Zeno’s work as a challenge to the Euclidean theory of space. Zeno’s works have not survived, so we will rely on the interpretations of his arguments by Plato, Aristotle and Simplicius.
ca 490-430 BCE In order to fully appreciate the thought that motivates Zeno's arguments, it would be worth your while to supplement your study with Parmenides' "poem" On Nature.
And the enigmatic Fragment 3, "For the same thing is for thinking and for being," articulates a connection that is in principle necessary for a science which purports to yield truthful accounts of nature: the transparency of the thought-to-reality bond.
Parmenides (as shown in Raphael's School of Athens [1511]) ca 515-450 BCE |
W F |
28-Jan 30-Jan |
Aristotle, Space pp 53-60 Aristotle, Space pp 61-71
For Aristotle, good scientific explanations were logical deductions from first principles, thus the theorems of Euclidean geometry are paradigmatic for Peripatetic scientific method. One of the important philosophical issues concerns how we are to understand the first principles themselves, i.e., how are they to be explained? N.B.: to understand Aristotle’s concepts of space, place and motion in the Physics, you will need to familiarize yourself with his cosmology and the elements (look ahead to Friday's reading of On the Heavens Book I, Ch 8 and Book II, Ch 4).
384-322 BCE |
This excerpt is from Fragment 2:
The Modern
Era
| M | 2-Feb | Descartes, Space pp 91-98 We are reading excerpts from The Principles of Philosophy (1644).
The portrait on the left was painted by Frans Hals in 1649, one year before Descartes' death.
1596-1650
On the right is a page from the Principles illustrating the configuration of vortices, which are large circling bands of particulate matter. The vortices are comprised of atom-sized (or even smaller) material that interacts with the "large" visible bodies we observe. The three kinds of matter together with his three laws of nature (we will be examining the first two) offer a fully mechanical account of the movement of celestial bodies, including gravity. |
W F |
4-Feb 6-Feb |
Newton, Space pp 107-125
We are reading excerpts from his two foundational texts, De Gravitatione (ca 1666) and Principia (1687). Supplemental reading (optional): additional excerpts from De Gravitatione, “Descartes, Space and Body” [PDF].
1643-1727
On the right is Newton's monument in Westminster Abbey. He's resting his elbow on four of his works (the Principia is the bottom one). The inscription which is partially cut off at the bottom of the photograph reads: "Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25th December, 1642, and died on 20th March 1726/7." Don't miss William Blake's depiction of Newton (1795)! |
M W |
9-Feb 11-Feb |
Clarke-Leibniz correspondence; Papers 1-3, Space pp 143-149 Clarke-Leibniz correspondence; Papers 4-5, Space pp 149-158
Written in 1715-16, the Newtonian Samuel Clarke and Newton critic Gottfried Leibniz debate issues of physics, philosophy and theology. Known in his day primarily for his works in theology and metaphysics, Samuel Clarke was an adovocate and popularizer of Newton's natural philosophy. Like William Paley, he was a proponent of natural religion. Gottfried Leibniz made enormous contributions to philosophy, mathematics (he independently discovered infinitessimal calculus), ethics, law, history, and physics. Denis Diderot once remarked: When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz, one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.
Clarke (1675-1729) Leibniz (1646-1716) |
| F | 13-Feb | Berkeley and Mach, Space pp 169-180
George Berkeley, the Irish bishop of Cloyne, was one of the triumvirate of famous British empiricists (John Locke and David Hume being the other two). He is perhaps the most radical of the three, famous for his claim Esse est percipi ("To be is to be perceived"). In his two major philosophical works (Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous) he argues against the reality of mind-independent material objects or substances. Thus, he rejects both rationalist and empiricist substance dualisms. As with so many thinkers of his period, Berkeley studied and wrote on many subjects: mathematics, psychology, economics, physics, medicine, and theology. He argued that scientific inquiry was properly concerned with explaining the regularities of our perceptions, not causal explanation. In our reading, we find Berkeley rejecting Newton's notions of absolute space, time and motion. One must keep in mind that Berkeley rejects any ultimates attained by abstraction. So "forces"--including gravity--that are not perceived with the senses are regarded as "occult" (hidden) causes, and cannot be concrete physical qualities. Space and motion are only observable because of relations between bodies; therefore, space and motion are relative, and physics is only concerned with the effects of motion, not its causes (which are non-physical). Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few. --Siris (1744)
1685-1753
Ernst Mach, whose name gives us the unit for the speed of sound, draws an important conceptual distinction between physiological space and geometrical space. Physiological space is the product of the structures of our cognition, and entwined with psychological meaning. Geometers abstract from physiological space to construct unbounded and infinite geometrical space. Neither type of space is absolute. Mach argues that physics has a biological or psychological basis in the activity of measurement.
1838-1916 We are reading excerpts from Berkeley’s De Motu (1721) and Mach’s Science of Mechanics (1883). Both Berkeley and Mach argue for the concept of relationism. Note well that this view (relational or relative spaces) is not the same thing as modern relativity theory, which is relativistic.
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The
Contemporary Era
| M | 16-Feb | Poincaré, Space 235-242
We are reading a brief excerpt from Space and Geometry. Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) was an outstanding mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science. He made significant contributions to the science of the very small (quantum theory) and the very large (celestial mechanics). He introduced and formulated the principle of relativity, and developed the mathematical description (Lorentz transformations) Einstein would need for his theory of special relativity. Poincaré argued for conventionalism in geometry. This is the doctrine that geometric phenomena are determined by convention. In Science and Hypothesis he wrote, The axioms of geometry therefore are neither synthetic a priori judgments nor experimental facts. They are conventions; our choice among all possible conventions is guided by experimental facts; but it remains free and is limited only by the necessity of avoiding all contradiction. Nothing from nature, self-evidence, or any other universal feature of human existence uniquely selects Euclidean axioms; we simply find them more convenient. "The axioms of geometry are merely disguised definitions." |
| W | 18-Feb | Einstein, Space 253-260
We are reading an essay entitled "The Problem of Space, Ether, and the Field in Physics," from a collection of Einstein's essays called Ideas and Opinions (1954). Like other natural philosophers, Einstein's work spanned several areas of study: the physics of the very small and the very large, mathematics, ethics, and religion. Walter Isaacson has published a masterful biography entitled Einstein: His Life and Universe.
1879-1955 |
| F | 20-Feb |
Draft of Paper 1 due in class: Peer Review Bring two copies of your introductory paragraph, which will include your thesis statement, and two copies of the strongest objection to your position. |
Unit II: Cosmology
Before the Modern Era
| M | 23-Feb | Pierre Duhem, To Save the Phenomena, Introduction and Ch 3 [PDF]
Most of his work has not been translated into English, but we will be reading excerpts from two of his major volumes: To Save the Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo (1908) and The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906). In philosophy of science circles, Duhem's name has been attached to that of Willard v. o. Quine in the so-called Quine-Duhem thesis, which holds that theoretical explanation is underdetermined by any given set of observational data. Empirical evidence is insufficient to alter a theory. As a criterion for the "boundary problem" of distinguishing legitimate science from pseudo- or folk science, the Quine-Duhem thesis is an alternative to the popular "falsification" thesis of Karl Popper. Duhem is perhaps best known for his criticism of the construction and use of models in physics, an indication of his instrumentalist beliefs. He insists that models blur an important distinction that must be maintained between representing and explaining. Duhem argues that English scientists in particular were prone to believe that they understood a physical phenomenon if they could build a model of it. (1861-1916) |
One of the founders of physical chemistry,
The Modern
Era
W F |
25-Feb 27-Feb |
Copernicus, Revolutions and Osiander’s Foreward [PDF]
We are reading the Foreword of Lutheran Reformer Osiander (left) to Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium and then selections from Copernicus' work itself. We will spend some of our time analyzing the two paintings depicted here of Copernicus. To the right is a portrait of him on the epitaph monument in St. John's Cathedral in Torun, Poland (his birthplace), ca 1580. The painting below, entitled Astronomer Copernicus: Conversation with God, is by Polish artist Jan Matejko, 1872.
Andreas Osiander (1498-1552)
Copernicus (1473-1543)
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| M | 2-Mar | Kepler, Epitome of Copernican Astronomy [PDF]
He was fascinated by the geometrical harmonies of regular polygons, which he believed were congruent with the physical structure of the universe. Medieval philosophers had described the closed system of the world as the "music of the spheres" (following Pythagoras), but in Harmonices Mundi (The Harmony of the Worlds), Kepler sought to describe planetary motion in terms of their "harmonics," a musical transposition of the planets' minimum and maximum angular speeds.
Right: the frontspiece to Kepler's Rudolphine Tables (1623), which is a catalog of the known stars at the time (about 1,500 altogether) and lookup tables for locating the planets. The drawing honors the great astronomers of the past: Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho.
(1571-1630)
Left: an engraving of Kepler's Platonic solid model of the solar system from his first work, Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596). |
| W | 4-Mar | Galileo, Starry Messenger [PDF]
The first work of Galileo's that we are reading is Sidereus Nuncius, the Sidereal (or Starry) Messenger, the first scientific treatise of telescopic observations. The title page of the first edition is shown to the right.
(1564-1642)
Galileo built his first 3x spyglass in the early summer of 1609, and by August presented an 8x instrument to the Venetian Senate. But it was with the 20x instrument (left) that he observed the Moon, stars and Jupiter and four of its moons in the autumn of 1609. It was the observations made during this period of his research that led to his Starry Messenger text.
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| F | 6-Mar | Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina [PDF]
The duchess Christina was the granddaughter of Catherine de Medici, the widow of Ferdinand I de Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany who had appointed Galileo to his post as professor of mathematics at Pisa in 1588. Galileo wrote the granddaughter of his former patron in 1615 to explain how he understood the relation between his astronomical discoveries and the Bible. This correspondence was prompted by the events of a dinner party at which Cosimo Boscaglia argued that, on the basis of the Bible, the Earth had to be the fixed center of the universe. Christina had asked Benedetto Castelli, a Benedictine monk and former student of Galileo's, to respond to these arguments. Castelli, who now filled Galileo's position as mathematics professor at Pisa, wrote to Galileo about the evening's events and his old teacher replied with a long letter to the Grand Duchess. Even as the heliocentric thesis grew more dangerous to hold publicly, Galileo revised and expanded the letter, but it was not printed until much later. Galileo declares himself a realist about locations and movements of the Sun and planets, for he argued that the Copernican thesis was not just a convenient mathematical tool, but described the real physical arrangement of the universe.
(1565-1637) |
| M-F | 9-13 Mar | Spring Break |
| M | 16-Mar | Galileo, recap and review
What do these paintings suggest about the conflict between science and religion? Consider them in their specific historical context. Both were painted a few years after the bicentennial of Galileo's trial. What do the intervening 200 years suggest about the status of the individuals and institutions as they are depicted in the mid-19th century?
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| W | 18-Mar | Tribunal It is proposed: to change the theory of the world system according to the Copernican heliocentric thesis. Galileo presents new observations for us to consider. Are these empirical findings sufficient to overturn the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system? Why or why not? Let the debate begin! |
F |
20-Mar |
Duhem To Save the Phenomena, Conclusion
[PDF] and excerpt from Aim and Structure
of Physical Theory [PDF]
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| M-F | 23-27 Mar | Casti, The Cambridge Quintet |
| M | 30-Mar | Draft of Paper 2 due in class: Peer Review Bring two copies of your introductory paragraph, which will include your thesis statement, and two copies of the strongest objection to your position. |
Unit III: Biology
W F |
1-Apr 3-Apr |
Darwin, Origin of the Species, Chs 2-4 [PDF]
Darwin, Origin, Ch 14 [PDF]
(Darwin, ca 1837) |
M W |
6-Apr 8-Apr |
Darwin, Descent of Man, Chs 6-7 [PDF] Darwin, Descent, Chs 8, 19, 20 [PDF]
Darwin, 1879 |
F |
10-Apr |
Film: Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision New York Times review. We will not meet at our regular time in the morning. Instead we will screen this documentary on the work of Ernst Haeckel. The show begins at 6:30 pm in Discovery Hall 250. Discussion will follow.
Haeckel is most (in)famous for his recapitulation theory, which is summarized by the slogan "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." This theory has no scientific currency, but one of its most notorious achievements was the popularization of the fraudulent "embryo drawings," shown below right.
(1834-1919)
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| M | 13-Apr | Tribunal It is proposed: that the diversity of species is a result of natural selection and that all species are descended from a common ancestor. Darwin presents new observations and an hypothesis for us to consider. Are the empirical findings sufficient to establish evolution as a scientific theory? Why or why not? Let the debate begin! |
| W | 15-Apr | Thomas H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics [PDF]
(1825-1895) |
F M |
17-Apr 20-Apr |
H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
(1866-1946) |
| W | 22-Apr | Edmund O. Wilson, Sociobiology, “Man: from sociobiology to sociology” [PDF]
(1929 - )
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| F | 24-Apr | Richard C. Lewontin, “Sociobiology as an adaptationist paradigm ” [PDF]
(1929 - ) |
| M | 27-Apr | Steven P. Rose, et al. “Not in our genes” [PDF]
The Guardian did an excellent profile of him in 2001.
(1938 - ) |
W F |
29-Apr 1-May |
Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life, “Philosophical aspects of Darwinism” [PDF] pp 38-45 Jonas, pp 45-58
(1903-1993) |
| M | 4-May | Final(?) thoughts, Re-assessment, and evaluation |
We will examine the non-standard views of this remarkable biologist, naturalist and artist. Of particular interest to us is the metaphysical system which he believed led to the fusion of science and art.
Despite his initial skepticism about Darwin's theory, Huxley became an energetic promoter and defender of Darwin. He was quicker to publish ideas about human evolution, which appeared in his 
Lewontin is an evolutionary geneticist and philosopher of science,
and is the Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at Harvard's 
Together with his "radical science movement" colleagues Lewontin and Leon Kamin, Rose attack theories which promote an evolutionary explanation of human social behavior, such as Wilson's (above) and Richard Dawkins' (most famously in the popular 1976 book The Selfish Gene).
German-born philosopher who taught for over 20 years at the New School for Social Research. 
| S | 10-May | Paper 3 due electronically by 12:00 noon. |