HPS 210F Scientific Revolutions
Essay 2
Due date:
Length:
Late penalty:
Format:
Monday 29th November
2000 words (10% rule = below 1600 too short, above 2200 too long)
5% per day (see course outline)
 1.5 or Double Spaced; Justified in similar fashion to this essay sheet;
start each new paragraph with an indent; use a reference format of your
choice (footnotes, endnotes, in text citation); include a bibliography; your
first page is a cover sheet indicating which essay you chose, your name
and student number, and an e-mail contact; number your pages.
 Your first paragraph MUST contain your thesis statement and a brief
summary of the body of evidence you will draw upon to support that
thesis (standard essay format for paragraph one). After the first paragraph,
though, you may make use of a variety of written formats to prove your
thesis (dialogues, play, narrative story, and so on). You will be evaluated
according to the requirement of standard essay format in paragraph one,
and your ability to ‘make your point’ from then on, whatever format you
utilize.
 Choose one (1) out of the following five (5) topics. Clearly indicate your choice.
 Value is 30% of Course Grade.
 A guide to some useful sources has been placed on the course website
 For each essay, provide minimal information to establish the context for your debate
and chosen authors (birth-death dates, nationalities, goals, etc). Such information can be
drawn from (appropriately acknowledged) secondary sources. Your focus must be on
constructing a debate, with an appropriately narrow focus, rather than re-hashing
secondary source information.
Essay # 1: Galileo and the Church
Having read Galileo’s “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” (1616) and the general
approach to the ‘Galileo Affair’ put forward by Brooke & Cantor (1998), compare and
contrast an opponent of Galileo (writing during the period 1609-1640) with either John
William Draper (1874) or Andrew Dickson White (1896). Using Galileo’s ‘Letter’, a
chosen opponent of Galileo, and Brooke & Cantor, to what extent does the critique of
either Draper or White aid or hinder our understanding of the issues of the time?
Sources:
 Galileo Galilei, “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” (1616), in Stillman Drake
(ed.), Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo. [many copies, plus short term loan]
 Brooke & Cantor, “The Contemporary Relevance of the Galileo Affair”
 John William Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (NY:
Appleton & Co., 1874) [several copies, plus an online access through UTCat]
 Andrew Dickson White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom, 2 vols. (London: MacMillan, 1896) [several copies, plus online access
through UTCat]
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Essay #2: Descartes
Present your own ‘re-enactment’ of an historical debate about a specific aspect of
Descartes’ natural philosophy, during the period 1637-1720. You have two options for
constructing your re-enacted debate, each one requiring the use of at least one primary
source.
In option one, select an opponent of Descartes (1637-1720) and construct a debate
by comparing and contrasting Descartes with the opponent. Debates have ‘sides’, and you
must use at least one primary source for one side, though you may construct the other
side from either a primary or a secondary source.
In option two, choose two commentators on Descartes during the period 16371720, one a supporter and one an opponent of Descartes. Similar to option one, you must
use at least one primary source (an actual commentator on Descartes), though you may
construct the second commentator’s views by drawing upon a secondary source.
Your re-enactment can be either fictional or real. If real, then you will be
presenting the views of contemporaries who either wrote to each other or wrote about
each other and lived at the same time or in the same place. By fictional I do not mean
“make up whatever you like and claim this and that ‘could’ have been said”. I mean you
are dealing with authors who commented on each other’s writings or on Descartes’
writings, but did so separated through time, say one writing in the 1650’s and one writing
in the 1690’s, but discussing the same points of conflict. In either case, you should
indicate the time-frame(s) and geographic location(s) in which your debate is situated.
Specific aspect guidelines: You are NOT required to re-hash the full life and
times and all possible issues pertaining to your chosen writers. Pick a very narrow
area/subject and devote your essay to it. Your focus must be on Cartesian writings about
the Vortex theory, theories of matter and motion, or specific Cartesian explanations of
natural phenomena (such as magnetism, optics and perception, organic growth, etc). You
may refer to Cartesian epistemology (theories about how the world is known, and what is
to be considered knowledge), but it should not be your focus. Note that such writings,
during the period 1637-1720, provoked discussion not only about the adequacy of the
theories themselves, but about the implications such work had for issues like atheism and
God’s actions and status in the world. A word of caution: you probably will not find a
complete supporter and opponent. Instead, authors would indicate support here and
opposition there, but they were usually clear about their overall preference. Indicate
overall preference, and use the details of the author’s position to add depth to the debate
you are presenting.
* In either of the two options mentioned above, you may also (entirely at your
discretion) quote directly from Descartes (if you chose option 2), or use a secondary
source on Descartes (appropriately acknowledged), to give your understanding of the
supporter/opponent relation to Descartes’ position.
Suggested authors: Henry More, Cudworth, Robert Boyle, Christian Huygens,
Thomas Hobbes, Malebranche, Walter Charleton, John Locke, Gottfried Leibniz, Kenelm
Digby, Joseph Glanville. Readings to consult: Dear, Millen, Shapin and Henry. Be sure to
avoid vague, sweeping assertions!
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Essay #3: Newton
What was the status of ‘gravity’ and ‘occult qualities’, and could matter have ‘active
principles’? Answer these questions by giving the answer of Newton, or a follower of
Newton (Newtonian), and comparing it to alternative answers, provided during the period
1661-1750. The point here is to display what was involved, from the perspective of a
writer during the period 1661-1750, in discussing the status of gravity and whether matter
could have active principles.
You must use at least one primary source. Your essay must capture the views of
Newton/Newtonians and opponents of Newton/Newtonians, so that a primary source
must be used for one of the ‘sides’, though you may use a secondary source to help you
construct the opposing side. You will find that “Newtonianism” spread during 1687-1750
on the back of discussions, not strictly about technical mathematical questions, but about
issues such as the activity of God, how matter acted in relation to God, and how motion
could be accounted for in terms of principles derived from God’s plan. Opponents of the
Newtonians debated them on just those grounds, and I want you to bring out the flavour
of that type of debate. In other words, present the debate in its contemporary form (16611750), with all its richness and strangeness (to we moderns).
Gottfried Leibniz might be your first choice for exploring alternative answers, but
you could also do some research and present the account of a neo-Cartesian or some
other Leibnizian that you unearthed. For Newton, you could consult Book III of the
Principia (1687, 1st edition), the “General Scholium” of the Principia (1713, 2nd edition),
and the famous Query 31 of the Opticks (1717, 2nd edition). You may also wish to look at
one of the Boyle Lectures, such as Samuel Clarke, William Whiston, or William Derham.
The Henry (‘The Mechanical Philosophy’) reading, as well as references in
Cunningham (‘How did the Principia get its name’), Millen (on occult qualities) and
Shapin (on ‘social uses of science’), will assist your research. Use the bibliographies to
unearth primary sources.
* In this essay, you might find it easier to write if you simply use two primary
sources, but this is at your discretion. Be sure to develop a narrow focus.
Essay #4: 17th Century Experiment
You must choose an English experimentalist of the period 1640-1720 and, by selecting at
least one of their works in which they relay the results of experiments, turn your reader
into a “virtual witness” of either one or two of the experiments reported in that work.
Especially in England in the latter half of the 17th century, natural philosophers
claimed to be doing things in a different way than had been done before. They claimed to
have given birth to a new type of activity. This activity was experimental activity, or
putting nature to the test, and it was said to yield ‘facts of nature’ (theory-neutral
statements of phenomena). The reporting of such experimental activity often took the
form of historical reportage, in which we hear about where the experiment took place,
who was the audience, what was done and how and when it was done. The reader of such
reports is transformed into a “virtual witness”, as if you were there and could now repeat
the experiment.
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* If you wish to do so, you may also choose a Continental experimentalist and
contrast that person’s experimental activity with that of the English experimentalist. Are
the experimental reports of the same style or a different style? Choosing this option
increases the difficult of the essay, but it would also mean your grade might be
significantly improved if you do the contrast well.
The references provided below will assist your research, both in providing
guiding questions about experiments (especially Shapin (1988) and Dear (1990)), and in
providing references to 17th century writers for you to look at.
 In the reader:
- Steven Shapin, “The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England”, Isis, Vol.
79, No. 298, September 1988: 373-404.
 Freely available in journals:
- Peter Dear, “Miracles, Experiments and the Ordinary Course of Nature”, Isis, Vol. 81,
No. 309, December 1990: 663-83.
- John Henry, “Occult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in
Pre-Newtonian Matter Theory”, History of Science, Vol. 24, Part 1, No. 63, March 1986:
335-81.
- Simon Schaffer, “Godly men and mechanical philosophers: souls and spirits in
Restoration natural philosophy”, Science in Context, Vol. 1 (1987): 55-85.
Essay #5: Bug Hunt: God, People, Social Order, and the Physical World
Choose a writer that published a book dealing with natural philosophical questions in the
period 1600-1720. The writer could be discussing any aspect of astronomy, cosmology,
physics, or generation. Your goal is to demonstrate how the writer brought together, into
the one coherent way of thinking about nature (how it was made, what was in it, how its
‘parts’ interacted, and so on), a specific set of beliefs, which here we will call ‘elements’.
The ‘elements’ are: beliefs about the character and activity of God, the nature of people,
how the social order is and should be organized, and the nature of the physical world.
This topic is essentially a book review, asking you to tackle a full text of a 1600-1720
writer, in which you form a thesis concerning that authors individual and precise mix of
the ‘elements’.
Do not attempt this essay if you plan to just summarize what the author said, or if
there is even a slight chance your essay might turn out as a summary. You must select an
author for whom you can make a clear case that their thinking incorporates the abovementioned elements, which was a clear ‘trend’ in the 17th century. When you write your
paper you must be able to intelligently select examples from that writer that illuminate
the broad 17th century trend of integrating beliefs on God, People, the Social Order, and
the Physical World. Do not turn in an essay that claims your selected writer is not an
example of this trend, as your essay would only be saying “here is my author, he/she does
not match that trend . . . the end.” Such an essay would fail. This is why the essay topic is
called a ‘bug hunt’: plenty of authors match the trend, so if you choose this essay then be
prepared to discard a writer if, after a preliminary skim, you don’t think there is enough
material to illuminate the above-mentioned trend. Your thesis would be about the precise
way in which your chosen author mixes the elements.
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