PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

I. Structure of the Course

• Two lectures, one preceptorial weekly; the course will meet during the first week of Reading Period.
• Midterm written exercise to be completed at home during the week of 19 October, in lieu of lecture and precepts. The exercise will consist 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 (available at History Department)

Recommended:

• A. Rupert Hall, The Revolution in Science, 1500-1750 (Longmans)

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 (14 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 (21 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 (28 October)

• 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 (5 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 (12 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 (19 October)

Week VII (2 November)

• 11. Meeting the Sceptical Challenge
• 12. Optics and Mechanicism

Reading:

Marin Mersenne, The Truth of the Sciences, in Readings

Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry and Meteorology (trans. Olscamp), 65-83, 162-173, 332-352

Week VIII (9 November)

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

Reading:

Descartes, The World, or a Treatise on Light, in Readings

Week IX (16 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 X (23 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

Steven Shapin, "Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle's Literary Technology", Social Studies of Science 14(1984), 481-520

Week XI (30 November)

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

Reading:

either E. Mariotte et al., New Discoveries Touching Vision in Readingsor "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 XII (7 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 XIII (4 January)

• 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 No 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