HIST 1941 - The History of Science in Europe: From the Ancient Legacy to Isaac Newton

(crosslisted)
(also BSOC 1941, STS 1941)(HB) (HA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

P. Dear.

How did the approaches to knowledge of nature that developed in medieval and early-modern Europe create an enterprise that associated the practical manipulation of nature with scientific truth? This course surveys intellectual approaches to the natural world from the theologically-shaped institutions of the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. Ancient Greek authors such as Aristotle and Archimedes were used in diverse ways that came to usher in an era of European global expansion. By the late 17th century, a new kind of practically applicable science attempted to demonstrate Francis Bacon’s famous claim that “knowledge is power.”