Philosophy & History of Medicine

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This London Seminar focuses on The Nature of Man and the Order of the World throughout the history of philosophy and the history of medicine from Hippocrates to the discovery of DNA. It is a demanding course that is taught using primary texts and original manuscript sources available in the Museums, Libraries and Archives of London. Classes will include the analysis of texts and artifacts and site visits to The British Library, The British Museum, The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, The National Gallery, The Wellcome Collection Library and Archives, The Royal Society of London, The Royal College of Physicians, The Science Museum London, The Old Operating Theatre Museum as well as The Gordon Museum at Guy's Hospital, London, which is one of the largest pathology museums in the world and the largest medical museum in the United Kingdom. The course will place an emphasis on the close reading of selected primary texts, supplemented by secondary specialist sources which will enable students to critically evaluate and interpret medical texts, terms, concepts, and theories in a philosophical context. It will also enable students to gain practical knowledge of how to use archival sources for philosophical research. It will give students a unique opportunity to study works of canonical philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Galen, Bacon, Boyle, Locke, and Descartes in a medical context in relation to the works of historically significant physicians, naturalists, and scientists, such as Hippocrates, Vesalius, Harvey, Burton, Willis, Newton, Darwin, Crick and Watson. This course will enable students to understand the close inter-relationship between the study of natural philosophy and the study of medicine from antiquity to the 21st century, since both are dedicated to gaining knowledge about the function of the human body and soul, the order of nature, the cosmos, and the natural world.