Philosophy of Science

Undergraduate catalogue

Modern science is often characterized by a number of important properties: the use of experiments, the idea of laws of nature as governing the behavior of things in nature, the idea of natural science as intimately related to mathematics. Bacon pioneered the use of experiment, Descartes pioneered the idea of a mechanistic world, and Galileo pioneered the application of mathematics to natural philosophy. Using largely primary sources, in this class we will examine these three important figures, and the initial reception given to their ideas. Two lectures, one precept.