Master course
Conceptions of space in the scientific revolution
Semester I 2015-2016
Tuesday 16-18
One of the most persistent received views in the history of philosophy/history of science
attributes the emergence of modern science to a change in the representation of space. It
originates in the books of the iconic and influential historian and philosopher Alexandre Koyré.
According to Koyré, the scientific revolution is the product of “two fundamental and closely
connected actions”: the dissolution of the Aristotelian cosmos (the “closed world” of the
ancients and medievals) and the “geometrization of space.” Thus, modern science began when
Galileo and Newton started to do physics in the tri-dimensional, Euclidean space. As most of the
other foundational stories of the Scientific Revolution, Koyré’s account has been repeatedly
criticized and qualified. And yet, there is something fundamentally appealing in his connection
between the fundamental breakthroughs of the early modern classical mechanics and the
“geometrization of space.” It is intuitively compelling to think of “modern physics” as something
taking place “in space” and of the universe of the moderns as consisting of infinite, homogenous,
tri-dimensional space, in which bodies are placed according to the laws of mechanics and
geometry.
The purpose of this course is to rehearse some of the elements of this standard story by appealing
to primary texts. Most of our meetings will be organized as reading groups. Students will be
required to read and discuss, but also to make short presentations of the authors under discussion,
as well as to analyze and comment primary and secondary sources.
Objectives
The course has two main objectives. First, I would like to investigate the diversity of competing
conceptions of space in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We will discuss to what extent
these competing conceptions of space were also paired with different conceptions concerning the
relations between physics (natural philosophy), mathematics and theology. Second, I would like
to offer an alternative story to Koyre’s “geometrization of space.” My story will investigate how
a science of space seemed to have emerged from discussions and debates over a cluster of natural
philosophical concepts we would assimilate today to the notion of force. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries these concepts were called virtues or faculties, and were sometimes
associated with minds, animal faculties or even souls.
Course materials
The course will primarily consist in reading, discussing and investigating primary sources. The
list of reading contain some of the canonical texts of the scientific revolution (Galileo’s
Dialogue, parts of Newton’s Principia, Descartes, Principles of philosophy, Berkeley, De motu)
and some lesser known (or even completely unknown) texts belonging to William Gilbert,
Thomas Digges, Giordano Bruno and Francis Bacon.
Syllabus
1
Theme
Required readings
The standard story (1): Koyre’s interpretation Koyre, Chapters 1-3
of the interplay between metaphysics,
astronomy and theology
2
The standard story (2): A “geometrization” or Primary source/text:
a “materialization of space
Galileo, Dialogue, Day I (fragments)
3
Koyre, Chapter 4
D. M. Miller, Introduction
The end point of the standard story: the Newton, De gravitatione
Newtonian absolute space. Newton’s scholium Newton, Principia, Scholium to the
to the definitions
definitions
4
5
6
7
Koyre, Chap. 5, 6
The early Copernicans: mathematics, physics Thomas Digges, A Perfect Description of
and the metaphysical costs of the dissolution of the Celestial Orbs
the celestial orbs
Galileo, Dialogue, Day I (fragments)
Secondary sources: Omodeo, Chap. 4
(supplementary: 2-4)
The early Copernicans (II): metaphysics and Bruno, The Ash’ Wednesday Supper
theology
Secondary sources: Gatti, Giordano Bruno
and the Renaissance Science, chapter 3
Gilbert’s magnetical philosophy and the Gilbert, De magnete, Book V (ch XI-XII),
“science of the orbs themselves”
Book VI (ch. I-III)
Secondary readings:
Gatti, Chapter 4
D.M. Miller, Chapter…
Kepler’s celestial phyiscs: “a cosmological Kepler, Astronomia nova, Introduction
rooftop on the magnetic philosophy”
8
9
The anti-vitalist
philosophy
programme:
mechanical Descartes, Principles of philosophy, part II
(4, 11, 12, 13, 15, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29,
38, 39), Part III (28)
Dealing with forces in the mechanical Kenelm Digby, Two treatises, (on the
philosophy: Digby, Hobbes and various other magnet)
programs of “mechanizing” the world picture
10 Galileo’s physics: the problem of force
Galileo, Dialogue, Day II (fragments),
Day III (fragments)
Secondary sources :
D.M. Miller, Chapter
11 Mutual interactions: forces in space
Newton, Optical queries (on the bending
of light rays), Principia (action/reaction,
mutual gravitation)
12 Newton and the problem of action at a distance Newton’s letters to Bentley
Leibniz Clarke correspondence
13 Back to Newton’s scholium to definitions: a
philosophical conversation on absolute space
14 Concluding remarks
Assignments
Seminar presentation: introduce the author (30% of the evaluation)
The seminar will begin with a 20 min presentation of the author whose text is under discussion.
Students are required to choose one author and to prepare such a presentation, focusing on the
context of the text for the seminar and the relevant details for its understanding. In introducing an
author it is important to emphasize what was his general plan/project and how does our reading
relate to that more general plan. Also, I would like to know more about the intellectual context in
which our author’s ideas have developed, about his intellectual sources, friends and foes, about
his successes (in his own time: was he read? Did he have students and followers?) and failures.
Try to reconstruct a portrait as free as possible from the various biases of the various
historiographies.
Analyze a primary source (from the bibliography) (30% of the evaluation)
Write a 4-6 pages ‘introduction to a primary source from the bibliography. Explain its main
ideas, define its terms, place it in the context (among the author’s other writings, for example),
provide the reader with the appropriate footnotes (definitions, explanations of terms, references
to the background etc.) and the running commentary that would help her understand the text
better.
Final paper (30 % of the evaluation)
Bibliography
Koyré, Alexandre. 1958. From the closed world to the infinite universe. Library of Alexandria.
Miller, David Marshall. 2014. Representing space in the scientific revolution. Cambridge University Press.
Primary sources
Newton, Scholium to definitions, General Scholium
Newton, De gravitatione
Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, Part II
Galileo, Dialogue on the two world-systems, day I-III
Gilbert, De Magnete, book V, ch. XII, book VI ch….
Kepler, Astronomia nova, Introduction
The correspondence Leibniz - Clarke
(http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/catalogue/viewcat.php?id=THEM00224 )
(Leibniz 1 (1-4), Clarke 1 (1-3), Leibniz 2 (1), Clarke 2 (1), Leibniz 3 (1-7), Clarke 3 (2-8),
Leibniz 4 (3-6, 7-11, 13-20, 41), Clarke 4 (all), Leibniz 5 (29-53, 60)).
Francis Bacon, Theory of the heavens
Bruno, The Ash’ Wednesday’s Supper…
Berkeley, De motu (52-66)
Secondary bibliography
Freudenthal, Gad. 1983. Theory of Matter and Cosmology in William Gilbert's De magnete. ISIS 74
(1):22-37.
Gatti, Hilary. 2002. Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science: Broken Lives and Organizational Power.
Cornell University Press.
Koyré, Alexandre. 1958. From the closed world to the infinite universe. Library of Alexandria.
Miller, David Marshall. 2014. Representing space in the scientific revolution. Cambridge University Press.
Omodeo, Pietro Daniel. 2014. Copernicus in the Cultural Debates of the Renaissance: Reception, Legacy,
Transformation. Brill.
Pumfrey, Stephen. 2011. 'Your astronomers and ours differ exceedingly’: the controversy over the ‘new
star’ of 1572 in the light of a newly discovered text by Thomas Digges. British Journal for the
History of Science 44:29-60.