HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

This course is a core educational activity for the MA in Philosophical Sciences. The main focus of this course will be on the construction and understanding of science in the Renaissance. We will primarily focus on three disciplines: astrology, magic and medicine, and we will see how these changed (or not) from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The main figures to be treated in this course are Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94).

1. Knowledge of the methods in the history of science.
2. Knowledge of the main themes in the history of Renaissance thought in relation to the cosmos, human beings and the natural world, and a good knowledge of the related historiography thereon.
3. The capacity to analyze Renaissance writings on the natural world.
4. This course will also provide the conceptual foundations for further study in Early Modern history and philosophy of science.

There are no prerequisites for this course besides the ability to read and speak English and to understand it when spoken as well as an interest in learning the materials presented. A knowledge of Latin is also valuable in this course, but not necessary.

This course will be conducted in five modules corresponding to the structure of the the main text we will be reading (and which I will provide on Moodle), namely, a working draft of volume II of my monograph, Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge. Volume II, Renaissance Structures: Continuities and Transformations. Please read the relevant chapters for the week before class:
Week 1: Overall Introduction
Week 2: Part 1: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, his early and transitional works (1486-89)
Week 3: Part 2: Marsilio Ficino's De vita libri tres (1489)
Week 4: Part 3: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's attack on astrology (1493-94/96)
Week 5: Overall Conclusion

H Darrel Rutkin, Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge. Volume II, Renaissance Structures: Continuities and Transformations (forthcoming)

An oral exam based on the material studied during the course.

The primary didactic methods will be the analytic presentation and discussion of the material presented in the textbook, which will involve close readings and analyses of primary sources, mainly in Latin, which have been translated into English. For those who know Latin, there will be some emphasis on exploring the material in the primary sources. This will mainly be a lecture course, but I hope also that much discussion will be generated.

Inglese

I hope to encourage discussion of this material in the classroom, unless the class is too big. I have found that this is a very effective way to deepen one's understanding of the course material, which is often challenging to understand.

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