Core 3300: Human Knowledge
Spring 2006
Professor Mary Buzan
Office: OM 322
Phone: 793-3891
Email: buzanm@mcmurryadm.mcm.edu
Office hours: MW 1:00-4:15
TR 9:30-12; 1-5
And by appointment
Course Description
This course will acquaint you with the definition and meaning of human knowledge and its relationship with culture. It will emphasize the cultural background and influence of three major scientific achievements:
Euclidean geometry in Ancient Greece
In addition, the course will develop your “cultural literacy” by using classic literary and dramatic texts.
Course Prerequisites: CORE 1300, CORE 2300, and the completion of the Science general education requirement.
Texts
Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Penguin.
Cornford, Francis, trans. Plato. The Republic. Oxford.
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Penguin.
Brecht, Bertolt. Galileo
Voltaire. Candide.
“Readings for Core 3300: Human Knowledge.” McMurry Print Shop.
Assignments
Your actual course work will include the following:
Participating in class activities—listening, notetaking, discussing, contributing to a range of group activities
Plan to take the tests at the scheduled time. I will drop 2-3 quiz
grades.
Grading
I will compute your final course grade according to the following percentages:
60% Tests
10% Essay
20% Daily quizzes
10% Class participation (includes attendance)
Attendance
Don’t miss. I will academically drop any student with five or more
absences.
Integrity
I expect you to approach course work in a spirit of honest inquiry and
commitment. You must credit any outside sources that you consult—fellow
students, computer texts, and/or written texts.
CORE 3300: Semester Outline
Part 1
Ancient Greece: What is the nature of reality?
Part 1 of the course explores Euclidean geometry as a major scientific achievement 1) by examining its cultural setting, specifically tracing the concepts of fate, necessity, order, justice, and rationality in ancient Greek religion, drama, law, music, architecture, and philosophy and 2) by showing the effects, strengths, and limitations of the Euclidean axiomatic-deductive-systematic model for later Greek and European concepts of human knowledge.
Jan 17 Beginning the journey. Connections to other Core courses.
Presenting “The Allegory of the Cave” and discussing its relationship to
the search for human knowledge. Mythological and historical background
of The Oresteia. Begin reading Agamemnon, pp. 13-23, 103-172.Jan 19 Plato, Darwin, and others on human nature.
Introducing Greek Theatre—Literature as knowing. Prepare for Quiz
1 over reading and lectures.
Jan 24 Reading/review quiz. Two ideas of Necessity: Taboo and the Blood
Curse;
Rational Persuasion. Read The Libation Bearers, pp. 173-226. 277.
Jan 26 Read The Eumenides, pp. 227+ Classical Greece: Architecture and Sculpture.
Jan 31 Reading/review quiz over the week’s discussion and assignments. Begin reading The Republic,
1-102. Use Readings Book questions as guides. Attend especially to the definitions of justice;
discussion of the soul, its care and feeding; education; definitions of the virtues. Do not look for
a blueprint for society.
Feb 2 Intellectual context of The Republic—The Presocratics and The Pythagoreans. Read The Republic,
119-155. Consult Readings Book questions and outline by Tom Alexander.
Feb 7 Reading/review quiz. Justice and education.
Feb 9 Test 1 Read The Republic, 175-235. Note discussion of Guardians of the State, the
position of women, the philosopher king.
Feb 14 Reading/review quiz. Read Republic, 235-263, 301-359.
Feb 16 Workshop
Feb 21 Reading/review quiz. Plato and Aristotle.
Feb 23 Aristotle’s model of knowledge.
Feb 28 Reading/review quiz. The Euclidean Synthesis. Roman technology. Islamic science. History of education. Essay 1 assigned.
Mar 2 Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s Cosmology. Transition to the Middle Ages.
Part II
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Europe:
What is the nature of the universe?
Part II of the course examines the impact of a scientific innovation on society as a whole, using Newtonian mechanics as a case study. Our study focuses on 1) the existing paradigm of motion; 2) the revolutionary era during which the new paradigm is introduced; 3) the nature of the Newtonian synthesis; and 4) the influence of the new understanding in creating new ways of looking at all of life in a rational manner (the Enlightenment).
Mar 7 Lecture review quiz. From the Middle Ages to the early Renaissance. Essay 1 due.
Mar 9 Test 2
March 13-17 Spring Break Keep your eyes on the heavens.
Mar 21 The early Renaissance. The cultural revolution called Renaissance: the rebirth of classical
learning, humanism, painting, sculpture, literature. New theories of celestial and terrestrial
motion—the Scientific Revolution. Read “Pre-Newtonian Astronomy” and “Summary of
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” in Readings book.
Mar 23 The Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.
Mar 28 Reading/review quiz. Read Brecht’s Galileo.
Mar 30 Discussing Brecht.
Apr 4 Reading/review quiz. The Baroque. The Protestant Reformation.
Apr 6 The Newtonian synthesis. The cultural assimilation of Newton: The Enlightenment. Deism. The
Enlightenment and the arts.
Apr 11 Reading/review quiz.
Apr 13 Test 3 Read Voltaire’s Candide.
Apr 18 Quiz. Read Origin, 11-48.
Part III
Victorian England: What is the nature of humanity?
Part III of the course investigates the impact of Darwin’s theory about species on the scientific and non-scientific community. Our study considers 1) the social and scientific context of the 19th century; 2) pre-Darwinian theories of evolution; 3) Darwin’s Origin of Species, and 4) the impact and influence of Darwinism.
Apr 20 Introduction to Victorian England. Industrial Revolution. Pre-Darwinian ideas. Read Origin, epigraph, 53-129.
Apr 25 Reading/review quiz. Workshop on Darwin. Read Origin, 130-172.
Apr 27 Reading/review quiz. Workshop on Darwin. Read Origin, 173-233, 435-460.
May 2 Workshop on Darwin
May 4 The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis. Truth and knowledge
in social context. The Cave.
Final Exam, Thursday, May 11, at 8:00 a.m.