Reading Response QuestionsWeeks 1-2, Precepts February 10-12
Email: creager@princeton.edu, or manfredl@princeton.edu
You may use these content-based questions as a springboard for your e-mail reading response, which should, however, focus on more general issues than the specific items detailed here. The response you send in to your preceptor each week should address all of the required readings (especially the primary source readings, which will be the focus for precept discussion); the text may include questions as well as analysis. A check will be given for summarizing readings, a + for analyzing them, and a - for not electronically mailing at least 250 words to your preceptor by one hour before your section meets. No extensions will be granted or late reports accepted for reading response. The first reading response is due in the second week of class, and one will be due every week of term thereafter except the week of the mid-term exam. The precept portion of your course grade will be based on your attendance and vocal participation in discussion as well as on your ten reading responses.
On this handout, I have indicated which readings are primary and which are secondary, in case these historian's categories are not familiar to everyone. (1° denotes primary; 2° secondary.)
Week 1
Coleman, Biology in the 19th Century, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-15) 2° source
pp. 2-3 Why does Coleman say that those who coined the term 'biology' did not feel that the term 'physiology' was suitable, even though the latter term was already in use?
p. 8 What are some of the motivations Coleman lists for the expansion of museum collections of plants and animals during the nineteenth century?
p. 10 In what way was the study of comparative linguistics important as an influence on biological thinking? Does this surprise you? Is it hard to imagine biological thinking before this?
p. 12 What is 'materialism'? 'mechanism'? 'vitalism'? What does Coleman mean when he warns that these are "omnibus terms"?
p. 13 What does Coleman mean by "the assurance that modern physics and chemistry seem to enjoy"? One of Kant's most famous sayings is that each science is scientific only in proportion to the amount of mathematics in it. Does you see any connection? (See also Outram, pp. 55-58, supplemental reading.) Are the sciences still judged similarly today by scientists? By non-scientists?Outram, The Enlightenment, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 (supplemental reading) 2° source
p. 48 Outram states: "Precisely because science was an insecure form of knowledge in the eighteenth century, it had to confront many crucial questions in the way that the established science of today, which can concentrate on problem solving within a clearly delineated intellectual area, does not." The kinds of "crucial" questions Outram has in mind include "the relationship of man to nature, the very possibility of knowledge of the external world," etc. Then, on the same page, she warns us that "[i]n using this word 'science' at all, we are in fact committing the sin of anachronism." What does she mean by this? How would you reword the passage above in a way that would not commit this sin? (At that time, 'natural philosophy' was a term used by many.) As long as we continue writing textbooks or chapters and titling them "Science and the Enlightenment," do we not keep propagating this problem of ahistorical thinking?
p. 53-55 What difficulties for natural philosophy were raised by Condillac? Hume? Kant?
p. 80-85 Pay careful attention to the description of Mary Wollestonecraft's book and the responses to it. When we read an even more famous book by her daughter in a week or two, it may be instructive to look for ways in which May Wollestonecraft Shelley may have been responding to her mother's well-known position, or to the related issues Outram raises here about the universality of human knowledge, feelings, etc. It is interesting to note that Wollestonecraft's husband, William Godwin, also wrote political tracts during the Enlightenment. His optimism for the future of humanity provoked a response from Thomas Malthus in the form of his Essay on the Principle of Population (1979), the sober pessimism which had a profound influence on Darwin as well as influencing biologists of today.Week 2
Carl Linnaeus, "Police of Nature" (1760) 1° source
p. 134 ff. How seriously does the author intend the metaphor of "peasants," "yeomanry," "gentry", etc.? What about the "police of nature"-what kind of order does Linnaeus perceive in the natural world? Note that, independently of the author's intentions, the images used to describe nature can tell us as much about the culture from which the writer comes, as they do about the objects "out there" being described?
pp. 137-38 What does Linnaeus say is the purpose of animals? What view of nature is implied here? Do all things have purposes? Why?
p. 138 ff. How is Linnaeus' description of the "Oeconomy of Nature" different from that of ecologists?
p. 158 ff. What is different about man for this author? What are the sources of man's special treatment? Does the interpretation of wars contradict the image of man presented otherwise?
p. 161 Are you surprised to find observations and predictions of man-made ecological balance in 1760? Who is the "Author" of the "Great Family of Nature"?
pp. 162-64 In seeking to account for the "apparent scene of carnage carried on in nature," to what extent does Linnaeus seem to anticipate Darwin? How are their views different?J. B. Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy (1809), selections 1° source
p. 19 Does Lamarck seem to have an attitude about philosophic interest, as opposed to economic interest, in nature?
p. 20 What does Lamarck say about the classification categories developed by Linnaeus (class, order, etc.)? Does Lamarck believe that there are species of animals and plants in nature? How might this affect his views on the transmutation of species (evolution) or the occurrence of spontaneous generation?
pp. 21-22 What does Lamarck criticize about the Linnaean categories? What does he mean by "affinity"?
p. 23 What does Lamarck argue about classes, using the duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus) and the spiny anteater (Echidna) as evidence? How do as yet undiscovered fossils of past animals fit into this argument (e.g. the first fossil Archaeopteryx, taken as the earliest bird ancestor, found in 1861)?
pp. 23-24 What does he say is the danger of too elaborate a system of nomenclature?
p. 27 What does Lamarck mean by "synonymy"?
pp. 66-67 Why is Lamarck's search for a "true natural animal series" and a "general law responsible for it different from Linnaeus's classification?Michel Foucault, Preface to The Order of Things (1970) 2° source
pp. xv-xvii What is the point of the crazy classification scheme for Foucault?
pp. xxi-xxiii What does Foucault claim to have shown about Linnaeus' classification and its relation to biology (e.g. to Darwin's theory of evolution)?Lisbet Koerner, "Carl Linnaeus in his time and place" (1996) 2° source
pp. 145-147 What kind of education did Linnaeus have? What sort of work did he do? What was the effect of his novel classification system on the elitism of science?
pp. 147-48 Who did Linnaeus write his scientific handbooks for? What other popular reading materials did they resemble?
p. 148 What was Linnaeus' position on the issue over whether classificatory systems for nature reflect God's design or human perceptions of order?
pp. 149-50 What was Linnaeus's enduring contribution to biology? What was its origin? How does this historian's reconstruction of the invention of this system differ from Linnaeus's own account?
p. 151 Koerner states that "Linnaeus was a typical Enlightenment improver." In what sense does she feel he was typical of his time. Reflecting on the Bowler reading, what other aspects of Linnaeus's science were characteristic of the Enlightenment? How did it rely on the social institutions and technologies of the 18th century?
p. 152 What was the role of Linnaeus's disciples in the history of the voyage of discovery? Why has this been often overlooked by chroniclers of these voyages and other historians? What was Linnaeus's ideal voyager?
pp. 154-55 What criticisms did Linnaeus face and on what grounds? Who were Linnaeus's most enthusiastic supporters?
p. 156 How did Linnaeus view and account for biogeographical change? How did this reflect his religious beliefs?
p. 158 What was the relationship of Linnaeus's botanizing to medicine? At the time that Linnaeus worked, materia medica, including the identification of therapeutic substances from plants, was an important aspect of medical study and practice.Peter Bowler, "Nature and the Enlightenment" (1992) 2° source
p. 139 Why does Bowler say that historians of science today distrust earlier attempts to write history of biology by trying to list 'precursors' of Darwinism in earlier periods? Can you relate this to Outram's warning about Enlightenment 'science'?
pp. 142-43 What criticisms have other historians of science made of Foucault's claims in The Order of Things? What parts of Foucault's analysis seem to have held up against critical evaluation?
pp. 145-46 What was the theory of preformation? Why is it not as ridiculous as it first appears? Why was preformation opposed by the materialists (e.g., la Mettrie in next week's readings)? What differences does Bowler outline between Buffon, his protégé Lamarck, and Darwin?
pp. 147-50 What sources of patronage were available for natural history in the 18th century? How did the British government supply support? What was the role of Kew Gardens? (See, e.g., p. 150 on breadfruit and Capt. Bligh. Also tea, quinine, rubber, gutta percha, etc. in the 19th century.) What was the role of the admiralty?
pp. 153-54 How did Bonnet's discovery of parthenogenesis in aphids affect the status of preformation theory? Trembley's discovery of regeneration in Hydra? What political program was seen as implicit in the "self-active" matter of the new materialism? If you were to guess, upon which side of the political spectrum do you think theories of spontaneous generation would be welcome? What about transmutation of species (as proposed by Lamarck and, later Darwin)?
p. 165 Can you explain the diagram, showing the different between an 18th century classification system and a current-day explanation for those groupings?
p. 167 Does this make sense with what you read in the passage from Linnaeus's writings?
pp. 173-77 What theories were used to account for geographic distribution of plants and animals in the 18th century and before? What problems had been raised for these theories by the discovery of the Americas?
