History Of Science Antiquity To 1700 Lawrence Principe (Audio Lectures)

Frederick Gregory
University of Florida
Ph.D., Harvard University


Frederick Gregory is Professor of History of Science at the University of Florida, where he has taught for 25 years.

Professor Gregory earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Wheaton College. After graduating with a seminary degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Wenham, Massachusetts, he completed his Master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin and went on to Harvard University for his Ph.D. in the history of science…

In the period 1700-1900, kings and empires rose and fell, but science conquered all, taking the world by storm.

Yet, as the 1700s began, the mysteries of the universe were pondered by "natural philosophers"—the term "scientist" didn't even exist until the mid 19th century—whose explanations couldn't help but be influenced by the religious thought and political and social contexts that shaped their world.

The radical ideas of the Enlightenment were especially important and influential. In this course you see how the work of these natural philosophers prepared the way for the more familiar world of science we recognize today.

Understand Two Centuries of Scientific Discoveries From An Unusually Qualified Professor

To navigate this complex a mix of social factors and scientific knowledge requires a teacher of very specialized background. Trained as both a mathematician and seminarian before receiving his doctorate as a scholar of scientific history, Professor Frederick Gregory brings an unusually apt perspective to the era covered by this course. It was a time when the Church's influences on science were often profound.

Dr. Gregory has organized the course around six main themes:
inquiries into the history of the cosmos
investigations into the realm of living things
the largely successful attempt to break away from occult explanations of chemical phenomena
the contrasting persistence of occult appeals in explaining natural phenomena
the proliferation of the number and kind of physical forces discovered and investigated, thereby opening up broad vistas for the future
the recurring theme of the relationship of God to nature.

In moving back and forth across two centuries, the lectures touch on many of the scientific disciplines we know today, including chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, paleontology, and others. And they often cover in detail famous experiments and discoveries in areas as divergent as electromagnetism, fossil analysis, and medicine.

Beyond Einstein: Familiar Names, and Some Surprises, Too

You will find names that leap out as familiar, like Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur, Max Planck, Antoine Lavoisier, and Albert Einstein.

And you'll meet some of the greatest names in the histories of non-scientific disciplines. These include thinkers as diverse as Immanuel Kant, Johann von Goethe, Herbert Spencer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Paine, to name but a few. All of them entered the fray to leave their mark on the annals of scientific inquiry.

But you'll also learn about others within this fledgling scientific community whom you may never have encountered before. Do you know about Nicolas Malebranche… Jakob Moleschott… Robert Chambers… Abraham Werner… William Whewell… or a remarkable woman named Mary Somerville?

Though perhaps less familiar than the scientific minds with whom we have grown up, their roles in the developing history of science were equally important.
The Interaction of Science and Society

The discussions of scientific principles always show how science developed and how scientific inquiry influenced, and was influenced by, the culture of which it was a part. Any discussion of such influence, of course, must take into account the impact of religion.

The Church's precepts played a role in investigations in almost every area of natural science, from the mechanical laws that governed the behavior of the universe and the bodies within it to the debate over God's role in embryonic development.

You'll even learn about a ferocious debate over the possibility of extra-terrestrial life that had its roots in the 13th century.

The debate—which Professor Gregory dubs "The Extra-Terrestrial Life Fiasco"—ultimately involved Thomas Aquinas, the papacy (more than once), Thomas Paine, and the Master of Cambridge University's Trinity College.
Captivating Portraits of an Era and Its People

The debate is just one of many episodes that amplify the themes of the course and are simply fascinating in their own right, conveying a vivid portrait of an era and the people who helped shape it.

You'll learn how:
the already raging firestorm over the possibility of evolution led Darwin to delay publishing his own findings
the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was involved in coining the term, "scientist"
the self-educated daughter of a British naval officer became a major scientific authority in Victorian Britain.

This course will give you a multi-disciplined picture of science in its historical context as it explores the ideas that took the world by storm.

Beyond that obvious benefit, it will also allow you to enjoy a provocative and nuanced look into an era of excitement and exploration, as scientific thought changed and adapted to accommodate a radically changing world.

This history of science series beginning in the 18th century works very well on its own, and is also designed to follow chronologically from Professor Lawrence M. Principe's 36-lecture course on the history of the foundations of science, The History of Science: Antiquity to 1700.



http://rapidshare.de/files/21732967/History_Of_Science_-_Antiquity_To_1700_-_Lawrence_Principe_.part1.rar.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/21739251/History_Of_Science_-_Antiquity_To_1700_-_Lawrence_Principe_.part2.rar.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/21738656/History_Of_Science_-_Antiquity_To_1700_-_Lawrence_Principe_.part3.rar.html



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Discovery of Ancient Civilizations - Brian Fagan
Govind Sreenivasan - Europe And The Wars Of Religion
Great Ancient Civilizations Of Asia Minor - Kenneth Harl
Great Figures of the Old Testament Amy-Jill Levine
Great World Religions - Christianity Robert Oden
History of Ancient Egypt - Bob Brier
King Arthur And Chivalry Bonnie Wheeler
Philosophy and Religion in the West - Phillip Cary
The Terror of History - Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition
Ancient Near Eastern Mythology - Shalom Goldman
Rome and The Barbarians - Kenneth W. Harl
Practical Philosophy - Greco-Roman Moralists
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James Hall - Philosophy Of Religion
Bob Brier - Great Pharaohs Of Ancient Egypt
Plato's Republic - David Roochnik
Americas Religious History - Patrick N Allitt
Patrick Allitt - Victorian Britain
David Roochnik - Introduction To Greek Philosophy
The High Middle Ages - Professor Philip Daileadeк
Kenneth Bartlett - Italian Renaissance
Jeremy Adams - Thomas Aquinas, The Angelic Doctor
History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts - Robert Bucholz
William Cook - Francis of Assisi
Philip Daileader - The Early Middle Ages
Gary W Gallagher - American Civil War
History of the United States Part 1,2,3 Allen C. Guelzo
Teofilo Ruiz - Medieval Europe
History of Russia - From Peter the Great to Gorbachev - Mark Steinberg
The Odyssey Of Homer - Professor Elizabeth Vandiver
The Iliad Of Homer - Professor Elizabeth Vandiver
Herodotus, The Father Of History - Elizabeth Vandiver