MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY 2

The course focuses on the so-called “scientific revolution” in astronomy (approximately from Copernicus to Newton) and on its historical-philosophical meaning. Ideally, the course should be attended after the courses on ancient and medieval philosophy of the bachelor program.

capacity of contextualization and analysis of selected texts that inform the so-called "scientific revolution" in astronomy; cognition of their historical-philosophical relevance; critical understanding of some historiographical readings in their regards.

basic capacity of critical reading and textual interpretation; basic philosophical competences; rudiments of Euclidean geometry.

The course analyzes the historical and philosophical process that led to the acceptance of the heliocentric model of the solar system in the framework of the rising modern cosmology amd in dialogue with the voices of some of its main actors (Nicolaus Copernicus, Georg Joachim Rheticus, Erasmus Reinhold, Tycho Brahe, Giordano Bruno, Thomas Digges, William Gilbert, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Tommaso Campanella, René Descartes, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Johannes Hevelius, Robert Hooke, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley, among others).

main reference work:

- Aviva Rothman (ed.), The Dawn of Modern Cosmology. From Copernicus to Newton, Penguin Books, London, 2023.

And one article of choice among the following:

- Robert S. Westman, "The Astronomer's Role in the Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Study", History of Science, vol. 18, 1980, pp.105-147.

- Nicolas Jardine, "The Places of Astronomy in Early Modern Culture", Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 29, 1998, pp.49-62.

- David Wootton, The Invention of Science. A New History of the Scientific Revolution, Penguin Books, London, 2016 (2015), ch. 4 “Planet Earth”, pp. 110-162.

- Bruce T. Moran, "Christoph Rothmann, the Copernican theory, and institutional and technical influences in the criticism of Aristotelian cosmology", Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 13, 1982, pp.85-98.

- Kathleen Crowther, "The Scientific Revolution", in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750, vol. II, Cultures and Power, ed. Hamish Scott, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp.56-80.

- Pietro Daniel Omodeo and Jonathan Regier, "Celestial Physics", in The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution, eds. D. Marshall Miller and D. Jalobeanu, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp.238-253.

The oral exam consists in (1) reading and explaining a selection of texts from those presented in class, and (2) a critical comment of an article of choice among those listed above.

After a general introduction on the concept of “scientific revolution” as related to the age of the Renaissance and Early Modernity, the lectures will be directed towards reading, contextualization and commentary of chosen texts about the “dawn of modern cosmology”(to quote Aviva Rothman's title), with a particular stress on their historical and philosophical significance.

English

Supplementary material will be presented in class and uploaded for reference on the Moodle page of the course.

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