PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

History 291 - Fall 2002
The Origins of Modern Science, 1500-1700
Professor M.S. Mahoney

(Tentative syllabus as of April 2002; subject to change)

I. Structure of the Course

Two lectures, one preceptorial weekly.
Midterm written exercise consisting of an essay of about 1500 words on one of several suggested topics.
Final examination covering the material of the lectures, readings, and preceptorial discussions.

II. Books to be Purchased

Required:

Francis Bacon, The New Organon (Library of Liberal Arts, 97)
William Harvey, The Circulation of the Blood and Other Writings (Everyman's)
Michael S. Mahoney (ed.), Readings in the Scientific Revolution (packet)

Reserve:

Other assigned readings will be found in the Reserve Room at Firestone Library; in some cases the various college libraries may have additional copies. Please keep your fellow students in mind: when you borrow a reading, read it and return it promptly so that others may use it.

III. Lectures and Assignments

Week I (16 September)

1. Introduction: Science, Culture, and History
2. The World of Aristotle and Ptolemy

Reading:

John of Holywood, On the Sphere, in E. Grant (ed.), Source Book in Medieval Science, 442-451

Anon., Theorica planetarum (Models of the Planets), in Grant, 451-465

M.S. Mahoney, "Ptolemaic Astronomy in the Middle Ages", in Readings

Background: You may feel the need to acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with the main lines of European history during the 16th and 17th centuries. On reserve is J. Blum, R. Cameron, T.G. Barnes, The Emergence of the European World (2nd ed.), of which Chaps. 9 and 10 are pertinent to the start of this course.

Week II (23 September)

3. The World on Its Head: Copernicus' On the Revolutions
4. The Union of Head and Hand: Vesalius' On the Structure of the Human Body

Reading:

Copernicus, On the Revolutions (trans. Rosen), vii-xvii, 3-26, 227-254

C.D. O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 317-324

J.D.deC. Saunders and C.D. O'Malley, The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels (spend some time looking at Vesalius' drawings)

Week III (30 September)

5. Shaping the World: Renaissance Engineering
6. Machines and Motion: Galileo's Two New Sciences

Reading:

S. Drake and I.E. Drabkin, Mechanics in Sixteenth-Century Italy, 3-26, 63-78, 241-258

Galileo Galilei, Discourses and Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (trans. Crew and DeSalvio, or Drake), 49-68, 105-118, 127-141, 151-158, 190, 197-214, 268-280 (N.B. the page numbers here refer to those of the standard Italian edition and are given in brackets in the Crew-DeSalvio translation and at the side of the page in the Drake translation)

Week IV (7 October)

7. Breaking the Circle: Kepler's New Astronomy
8. The Cosmological Crisis: Galileo's Two World Systems

Reading:

Curtis Wilson, "How did Kepler Discover His First Two Laws?", Scientific American (March 1972), 92-106

Galileo Galilei, The Assayer, selections in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (trans. Drake), 231-280

Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (trans. Drake), 46-80, 140-188

Week V (14 October)

9. The Promise and Threat of Magic
10. Bacon on Truth and Utility

Reading:

William Eamon, "Technology as Magic in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance" Janus 70(1983), 171-212

Francis Bacon, The New Organon, Book I

Week VI (21 October)

11. Meeting the Sceptical Challenge
12. Optics and Mechanicism

Reading:: Marin Mersenne, The Truth of the Sciences; Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry and Meteorology (trans. Olscamp), 65-83, 162-173, 332-352

MIDTERM BREAK

Week VII (4 November)

13. The Cosmology of Light: Descartes' World
14. The Mechanical Philosophy

Reading:: Descartes, The World, or a Treatise on Light

Week VIII (11 November)

15. The Motions of the Body: Harvey's Theory of Circulation
16. The Sublimity of the Mundane

Reading:: William Harvey, The Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; Descartes, Discourse on Method, Sect. V

Week IX (18 November)

17. The Virtuosi
18. Salomon's House

Reading:: Accademia del Cimento, Essayes of Natural Experiments (1667), sels. in Readings; Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665), sels. in Readings

Week X (25 November)

19. Learning to Work Together
20. Pendulums and Falling Bodies

Reading:: either E. Mariotte et al., New Discoveries Touching Vision in Readings or "The Hooke-Newton Dispute Over Colors" (a collection of xeroxed articles by the two authors on reserve under Hooke's name); M.S. Mahoney, "Christiaan Huygens: The Measurement of Time and of Longitude at Sea", in H.J.M. Bos et al. (eds), Studies on Christiaan Huygens, 234-270

Week XI (2 December)

21. Pendulums and Moons: Newton's Principia
22. "Nature conformable unto herself": The Newtonian World

Reading:: Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (ed. Cajori), xvii-xxxiii, 1-28, 40-41, 398-418, 543-547; Newton, Opticks (ed. Cohen), Query 31

Week XII (9 December)

23. Competition on the Continent
24. The Light of Science: St. Petersburg and Beijing

Reading:: D'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse, Part II; Nathan Sivin, "Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China -- Or Didn't It?", in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I. Bernard Cohen (ed. Everett Mendelsohn), 531-554

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

History 291 - Fall 2002 The Origins of Modern Science, 1500-1700 Professor M.S. Mahoney