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 Middle Ages. We will primarily focus on astrology, which used to be a science but no longer is, in relation to what we call science (in particular, mathematics, natural philosophy and medicine), theology (in particular, Roman Catholic theology) and talismanic magic, i.e. astrology in relation to science, religion and magic. One of my main arguments is that this medieval Aristotelian-Ptolemaic understanding of nature is the matrix out of which modern science was born during the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-18th centuries. The main figures to be treated in this course are Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200-1280), his most famous student, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), and Roger Bacon (ca. 1214-94).

1. Knowledge of the methods in the history of science.
2. Knowledge of the main themes in the history of medieval 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 medieval writings on the natural world.
4. This course will also provide the conceptual foundations for further study in Renaissance and 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.

This course will be conducted in five modules corresponding to the structure of the textbook. Please read the relevant chapters for the week before class on Thursday.
Week I: Introduction (Chapter 0 is mandatory); read pp. 1-66 for Th, 67-92 for Fr.
Week 2: Astrology and Science (Chapters 1 and 2, mandatory; chapters 3 and 4 are suggested reading); read ch. 1 for Th, ch. 2 for Fr.
Week 3: Astrology and Theology (Chapter 5, mandatory; chapter 6, recommended); read pp. 1-38 for Th, and 38-83 for Fr.
Week 4: Astrology and Magic (Chapters 7 and 8 are mandatory); read all of ch. 7 for Th, read as much of ch. 8 as you can for Fr; and make sure that you read all of the conclusion to ch.8 and part 3 overall (i.e. pp. 51-60).
Week 5: Institutional Foundations and Cultural Expressions (universities and society) (Chapters 9-11 and conclusion, mandatory); read chh. 9 and 10 for Th, chh. 11 and Concl for Fr.
N.B. All of the chapters will be fair game in the exam! Also, please do not distribute these chapters as the book has not yet been published.

The primary textbook for the course is my Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250-1800 (2019). Volume I, “Medieval Structures (1250-1500): Conceptual, Institutional, Socio-Political, Theologico-Religious and Cultural.” I will provide PDFs of the chapters for the students on Moodle, who will also be encouraged to follow up many of the references therein in the library. The link for the chapters in Moodle is:
https://moodle.unive.it/mod/folder/view.php?id=87770

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 I have 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 ones understanding of the course material, which is often challenging to understand.

orale