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Man and the Natural World in the Enlightenment (P01719)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : HCA-P-ManNatWor

This is a course on the history of science in the Enlightenment. Developments in scientific knowledge can be seen, in many ways, to have provided the defining ethos for the whole Enlightenment movement; dramatic changes in natural philosophy and the understanding of the physical world provided the inspiration and the foundation for the Age of Reason. The course will explore:

- The origins of the Enlightenment in the scientific movement of the seventeenth century (especially the work of Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton).

- The various ways in which the aim of the Enlightenment was to provide a 'science of man', including the origins of scientific psychology and a rational basis for morality.

- The variety of ways in which religion interacted with the scientific worldview, contrasting the tradition of natural theology in Britain with the more secular approach in France, and considering the rise of deism and atheism.

- The impact of new scientific discoveries on the culture of the Enlightenment, including electricity, magnetism, developments in chemistry, and in the life sciences, and new ideas about light, heat, and energy.

- The ways in which even supposedly technical knowledge can be shown to reflect the social and political (including religious) preoccupations of the discoverers and propagators of that knowledge.

Entry Requirements

? This course is not available to visting students.

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Postgraduate (School of History and Classics), (School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Schedule E)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : Semester 2 (Blocks 3-4)

? Contact Teaching Time : 1 hour(s) 50 minutes per week for 11 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

Students who successfully complete the course will have acquired an in-depth knowledge and understanding of crucial aspects of the cultural and intellectual history and historiography of science in the Enlightenment. In particular, they will have acquired:

- an awareness of the role of science in the historical development of European culture, particularly of the eighteenth-century.
- an ability to appreciate the constructive interaction between ideas and the historical contexts in which they are developed.
- skills in the methods and approaches of intellectual history. In particular to be able (i): to analyse coherent (though now rejected) systems of ideas about nature and society, (ii): to locate ideas in their historical contexts, (iii): to assess critically the extent of the Enlightenment's contribution to modern cultural values.
- a critical understanding of how dominant cultural values are established and challenged, and to be able to apply this understanding to contemporary culture.