PHIL 331: Philosophy, Science and Religion (Dr. Vailati)
Fall 2012
Where to reach me: PB 2212; phone: 3376; homepage:
http://www.siue.edu/~evailat; email: evailat@siue.edu
Office hours: M. 11-12, T. 5-6, and by appointment when necessary.
Course Description and Goals
This course introduces students to some of the historically and conceptually
important interaction between philosophy, science and religion from the
beginning of the Scientific Revolution to the reactions to Darwinism.
Although the modern science often presented new problems for religion, their
relation was not always confrontational. Still, there was tension, and often
philosophers tried to provide either a middle ground on which science and
religion could amicably coexist or even interpenetrate, or an insurmountable
barrier between them so that each could develop in its autonomous sphere. At
other times, philosophers appropriated science, or what they perceived as
science, in order to attack specific religious views or even religion in
general. In this course, we shall try to disentangle all these different
strands by looking primarily at the history of the relations among philosophy,
science, and religion from the scientific revolution to the present.
Required Texts
· Lindberg and Numbers (eds.) God and Nature (UC Press, 1986) (G). Rental
· Mattews, The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy (Hackett, 1989) (M). Rental
· Ridley (ed.) The Darwin Reader (Norton, 1987) (R). Rental
· Drake (ed.) Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (D). Rental
· Brooke, Science and Religion (CUP, 1991) (S). Rental
· Dixon, Science and Religion (OUP, 2008) (TD) Rental
· Material to be downloaded from my homepage (http:www.siue.edu/~evailat); several handouts.
‘Religion and Science’ is a good entry in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Look at it and keep it in mind as we move
along in the course.
Schedule
August 20-29. Intro to topic. Reading: TD, ch. 1; NOMA and Dawkins.
Science and early Christianity. Reading: Lindberg, "Science and the Early Church" (G, 19-48)
Science and religion in the Middle Ages
Preliminary: the solar system according to modern science. What we see when we look at the heavens; how Ptolemy predicts, or even explains, what we see. A mathematical trick Copernicus won’t like: the equant.
Readings:
Handout on late
medieval astronomy and theories of motion.
Grant, "Science and Theology in the Middle Ages" (G, 49-75).
August 29: First quiz.
September 5. The God of traditional theology.
The Abrahamic
stories of creation, science, and philosophy: readings: Genesis
I-II (this is Young’s literal translation); the same (but in traditional
version) with hostile, but reasonable, marginal comments.
Philosophy and science impinging on religion: St. Thomas on the
eternity of the world. Readings:
Selection from the Summa: download; Aquinas on
what’s essential and what’s incidental to faith (handout)
How do we read scriptures?
September 10-12.
The scientific
revolution
The astronomical revolution. Readings:
Copernicus (M
33-44); his system in action. Osiander’s Instrumentalism.
The Tychonic
system in action.
Kepler, selections
from Mysterium Cosmographicum and Astronomia Nova (handout). Kepler’s
three laws.
The telescope: Selections from Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius (D 23-37;
50-58)
S, ch. II.
September 17-19.
Galileo and his
condemnation;
Readings:
Galileo (M 53-86); Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (D, 175-216);
Galileo's letter to Castelli and Bellarmino's letter to Foscarini (handout).
The
trial documents. Here is a very good
website for Galileo.
DT, ch. 2.
S, ch. III
September 19: Second quiz
September 24-26. A first attempt at systematization of a new world view.
Descartes.
Readings: Descartes, Selections
from Discourse on Method (download). Letter to
Mersenne of April 1624 (handout); M 94-108
Boyle: Corpuscularianism and the good Christian. Readings: Selection from Boyle
(M 109-23)
Deason, "Reformation Theology and the Mechanistic Conception of
Nature" (G, 167-91)
A rejection: Pascal's fideism. Readings: Selection from Pascal's Pensées (download)
October 1-10.
A second attempt at systematization: Newton's Deus Pantokrator and the
religious use of physics
Readings:
Newton, M 133-58.
First Letter to Bentley (handout).
Bentley, selections from The First Boyle Lecture (handout).
Jacob, "Christianity and the Newtonian Worldview" (G, 238-56).
S, ch. IV.
Davies, "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Science" (handout).
October 3:
Third quiz.
October 10:
Midterm
October 15-17. Is the Bible
believable? Deism and Theism.
Readings:
Locke: Science and Reason as delimiting Religion: selections from An Essay
on human understanding (download-1;
download-2).
Tindal’s Deism: selections from Christianity Old As Creation (handout).
S, ch. V.
Octoiber 22-29.
Antireligious interpretations of
science: Naturalism and Secularism
Readings:
D'Holbach, selections from System of Nature (handout).
Hahn, "Laplace and the Mechanistic Universe" (G, 256-76).
Q. Smith ‘Kalam Cosmological Arguments for Atheism’ (handout).
M. Ruse Atheism, Naturalisn and Science: three in one? (handout)
October 31.
Miracles and God’s presence.
Readings:
Hume's First Enquiry, ch. 10 (download)
TD ch. 3.
October 31: Fourth quiz
November 5-7. Geology,
scriptures and the discovery of deep time
Readings:
Burnett, selections from Sacred Theory of the Earth (handout)
Selections from Lyell's Principles of Geology (handout)
Rudwick, "The Shape and Meaning of Earth History" (G, 296-321)
USGS on geologic time.
S, ch VII.
November 12-14 and 26-28 (Note that Thanksgiving week is a holiday). Paley; Darwin, and Darwinism; creationism
Selection from
Paley’s Natural
Theology: read chs. 1-3.
Darwin, R 84-135; 175-204. Darwin on God's existence (handout).
DT ch. 4.
Gregory, "The Impact of Darwinian Evolution" (G, 369-90).
Behe, Dembski, and their critics (handout); for fun, check out some Common anti-evolutionist claims and the standard answers to them
Handout from Ruse's book Can a Darwinian be a Christian? Listen to Debate between Plantinga and Dennet on Evolution and Religion
DT ch. 5
November 28:
Fifth quiz; Paper
due.
December 3-5. Brooke, Science and Secularization (handout).
Final Discussion.
Course requirements and grades
1. Five multiple-choice quizzes, each worth 5% of the course grade. Some will be in class, some take-home. No make-ups unless in extreme circumstances.
2. Three unannounced in-class pop quizzes each worth 3% of the course grade. Only those present in class may take them.
3. A group class presentation of 20-25 minutes, worth 10% of the course grade. Make sure you show up and give the presentation when you signed for it. Failure to show up or lack of preparation will result in loss of points.
4. A midterm, worth 20% of the course grade
5. A paper, typed, double-spaced, 5 full pages long, on the topic of your presentation. The paper is worth 20% of the course grade
6. A final exam, consisting of a multiple choice quiz and a short essay, worth 16% of the course grade. The topic of the short essay will be chosen by me out of the following Topics for the final exam.
There are 100 possible points in this course. The breakdown in terms of grade is as follows: 100-90: A; 89-79: B; 78-68: C; 67-57: D; 56 or fewer: F.
Academic policies
1. The issues we deal with in this course are complex and require a considerable amount of background knowledge without which discussion quickly degenerates into nonsense. Unavoidably, there will be some amount of lecturing.
2. Students are responsible for knowing what has been said in class. Keep in mind that discussion in and outside class is essential to master the issues covered in this course. Papers or quizzes may be based on classroom discussions not derived from any written material. If for any reason you miss some classes, make sure to find out, from some other student or from me, what has been done in class.
3. Plagiarism will be dealt with in accordance with CAS draconian guidelines.
4.
Attendance
for the duration of the class is required; missing more than 5 classes without
proper excuse will reduce one’s course points by 10%.
Class Behavior
Please avoid texting, reading extraneous material, chatting, or sleeping. All of these show lack of respect for me and your colleagues. In general, behave civilly.
Presentations
You will be placed in a group of 2 or 3 people. It is
your responsibility to coordinate your part of the presentation with
them. The group presentation will contain an expository part (What
does the author say?) and a critical part (Is the author right? What are his/her strong and/or weak
points?). In addition, the group will
identify and introduce a discussion point that will get your peers thinking
about the topic of your presentation.
Papers
Be aware that you cannot write a satisfactory paper in one evening or one night
unless you have thought about it at length before. You are encouraged to give
me rough drafts of your papers. Keep in mind that I can return them with
significant comments only if: i) they are given to me at least one full week
before the papers are due; ii) they are written reasonably clearly. Rough
drafts consisting only of disjointed paragraphs or, worse, mere paragraph
headings cannot be properly evaluated. You may turn in your rough drafts
as many times as you like, compatibly with the above requirements.
Grading
criteria
A paper providing mere information adequately and accurately in clear prose
substantially free of spelling and grammatical mistakes will be in the C
range. A paper which in addition to meeting this requirement shows some
originality supported by reasonably clear and cogent arguments will be in the B
range. A paper showing significant originality, clarity and cogency will
be in the A range.
My reading a student's rough draft of a paper does not entail, although it
makes it somewhat likely, that the paper, even if my comments are considered,
will get a B or an A. Often a bad paper must be revised more than once
to become good. Papers merely consisting of a composite of material taken from
web sites, articles, or books are not acceptable. You need to provide thoughts
of your own.
5% of the paper’s grade will be subtracted for every solar day it
is late.
Spelling and
grammar
Papers must be written in correct
English. Papers containing grammatical or usage errors will have to be
resubmitted and will lose 10% of their grade.
Students who feel unsure about their command of grammar should make sure
to remedy the problem as quickly as possible by using the writing center, for
example.
Many students often confuse the following words:
it's/its; there/their; cite/site; principal/principle; than/then;
to/too/two; who's/whose; weather/whether; conscience/conscious; since/sense;
coarse/course.
In addition, students are often guilty of the following misspellings:
arguement; diety; devine; concieve; decieve; percieve; sieze; truely;
wholely.
If unsure about how to spell these words correctly, check a dictionary.