Fall 2006 Course Description

PHIL428M Topics in the History of Philosophy: Descartes and Mechanism; (3 credits)

Instructor: Lindley Darden

Tuesdays 4-6:30, SKN 1115

Satisfies the history of philosophy requirement for philosophy majors and graduate students.

This course explores the relation between the mechanical world view of the seventeenth century and mechanisms in contemporary science. About the first two thirds of the seminar will concentrate on the seventeenth century, especially Descartes' work: "Give me matter and motion and I will make a world." The last third of the seminar examines recent work in philosophy of science to characterize mechanisms as they are used in contemporary science, especially biology. However, students may investigate the role played by mechanisms in physics, chemistry, cognitive neuroscience, medicine, economics or other area, if they wish.

Questions to be addressed: What was the mechanical world view of the seventeenth century? What was Descartes' view and how did it differ from other accounts? How did his view change as his work developed? What, exactly, is a mechanism? What counts as an adequate description of a mechanism? How is the contemporary conception of a mechanism related to seventeenth century mechanical philosophy? What roles do analogies to human contrivances, such as clocks and automata, play in Descartes' work and in making mechanisms intelligible? Why are diagrams a particularly perspicuous way to represent mechanisms? What is distinctive about mechanistic explanation? How does the search for mechanisms shape the search for evidence and the design of experiments? Are there strategies for discovering mechanisms? What is distinctive about theories that describe mechanisms? What is the relationship between mechanisms and laws of nature? What is the best way to understand the notion of causality implicit in the notion of a mechanism? What are functions, from the perspective of mechanisms? How are mechanisms investigated by different scientific fields integrated? When, where, and why has/does a mechanistic approach fail?

Students should have developed good analytical reasoning and writing skills before taking this course.

Required Books:

Westfall, Richard S. (1977), The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics. New York: Cambridge University Press

ISBN 0-521-29295-6 paperback

Descartes, Rene (1998), The World and Other Writings. Stephen Gaukroger (ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.

ISBN 0521636469 paperback

Descartes, Rene (2000), Philosophical Essays and Correspondence (Descartes). Roger Ariew (ed.) Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.

ISBN: 0872205029

Additional articles from contemporary philosophy of science will be assigned.