College Seminar (101-6-20)
Topic
What Science Can't Teach Us: A Humanities Approach
Instructors
Vivasvan Soni
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-339: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
NOTE: This class is open only to first-year undergraduates selected to be Kaplan Humanities Scholars.
What Science Can't Teach Us: A Humanities Approach to Making Sense of the World
The great political theorist Isaiah Berlin once said that there is an old quarrel between two rival ways of knowing the world: a paradigmatically scientific form of knowledge that is produced by methodical, systematic inquiry, and a more impalpable alternative that has been variously characterized as good judgment, wisdom, or art.
In this course we will be examining various oppositions related to this rivalry, like the distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge, between empiricism and aesthetics, between reason and emotion, and between fact and value.
One major aim of this course is to use these oppositions to help explore some differences between the sciences and the humanities. It is often taken for granted that the natural sciences aim at knowledge that is theoretical, empirical, rational, and fact-based; but there is much less certainty about whether the humanities should be guided by the same paradigm of knowledge, or whether it would be better served by adopting a fundamentally different conception of its aims and methods. Are there distinctively literary or aesthetic ways of knowing, different from the sciences? What do arts, practices, feelings and values teach us that knowledge cannot?
We will pursue these questions by engaging both literary and philosophical texts.
Course enhancement possibilities
We anticipate inviting scholars to the class to reflect on the nature of research in humanities, and we also hope to arrange a visit to a museum or two to explore the unique epistemological problems posed by the visual arts: How are museums organized differently, either to present knowledge or stimulate aesthetic appreciation? Does scientific information need to be presented aesthetically, and do art museums do more than present information?
Class Materials (Suggested)
Sample texts may include:
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (selections)
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller"
Isaiah Berlin, "On Political Judgment"
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience
Rudolf Carnap, "The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language"
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (selections)
Paul Feyerabend, Against Method
Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science (selections)
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (selections from Div. I)
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (selections)
Thomas Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions (selections)
Michael Oakeshott, "Rationalism in Politics"
William Wordsworth, The Prelude (selections)
Class Notes
NOTE: This class is open only to first-year undergraduates selected to be Kaplan Humanities Scholars.
Class Attributes
WCAS College Seminar
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for First Year & Sophomore only
Add Consent: Department Consent Required
Drop Consent: Department Consent Required