Part II primary source seminars

Part II students' guide: Primary sources

Seminars are held in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

Seminars

Asiatick Researches

Charu Singh (4 seminars, Michaelmas Term)

Asiatic Researches (Calcutta, 1788–1839)

For most historians of science, 'learned society' and 'scientific journal' are synonymous with the Royal Society of London and the Philosophical Transactions or Nature. What forms did these key institutions of modern science take in colonial and non-western locations beyond Europe? This seminar focuses on Asiatic Researches, the transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal that was established in Calcutta in 1784 by Europeans employed by the English East India Company. This society aimed to study 'the history and antiquities, the arts, sciences, and literature, of Asia'. Its members contributed a vast amount of learned information on a wide range of subjects including British 'discoveries' of South Asian language families and fossils; vivid accounts of the region's natural history and geography; and descriptions of local socioreligious groups and their scientific and medical knowledge. Until the admission of South Asians beginning in the 1840s, the society's members and contributors to this publication were predominantly European administrators, judges, physicians, military surveyors, and engineers, who are often grouped together as scholarly 'orientalists' in later scholarship. Their reportage on South Asia (and 'Asia' more broadly) relied on interactions with local actors but rarely mentioned them. The primary readers of the society's transactions – published in English in a multilingual British colony – were in Europe. In these seminars, we will explore Asiatic Researches as an intellectual and material artifact of the history of science and colonialism and global scientific publishing.

Théâtre D'opéra Spatial

Tom McClelland (4 seminars, Michaelmas Term)

• Théâtre D'opéra Spatial, image by Jason Michael Allen, 2022
• Margaret A. Boden (2007), 'Creativity in a nutshell', Think 5(15), 83–96

In 2022, artist Jason Michael Allen submitted his picture Théâtre D'opéra Spatial to the Colorado State Fair art competition. When it won first prize in the 'digital art' category, it emerged that Allen created the picture using the AI image-generating platform Midjourney. This triggered a global controversy, with some condemning it as the death-knell of authentic art and others hailing it as the culmination of staggering advances in Machine Learning. The Théâtre D'opéra Spatial debacle raises a number of pressing philosophical questions. In particular, when an image like this is created who, or what, is doing the creating? According to an ongoing legal case brought against Midjourney, AI image-generating platforms are nothing but '21st-century collage tools' that plagiarise the intellectual property of hard-working human artists. But according to advocates like Allen, users of these platforms are themselves artists who creatively coax images from the AI by entering the right prompts. A more dramatic possibility is that the AI itself is the real locus of creativity. An AI can only generate images thanks to what it learns from a body of existing images, but is this really so different to a human artist? Delving into a cluster of moral, legal, psychological, aesthetic and metaphysical issues, this seminar seeks to make sense of Théâtre D'opéra Spatial and the technological revolution that it represents.

Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist

Matt Farr (4 seminars, Michaelmas Term)

• P.A. Schilpp, Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, Library of Living Philosophers (Illinois: Open Court, 1951)

The Library of Living Philosophers is a long-running series of edited volumes dedicated to influential philosophers. That one such volume was dedicated to Einstein is testament to the philosophical significance of his work in the foundations of physics. This volume, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp and coinciding with Einstein's 70th birthday, contains a collection of essays by leading philosophers and scientists covering concepts such as reality, measurement, and the nature of space and time, stemming from Einstein's physics. We will focus on key philosophical essays within the volume, Einstein's own replies to these, and the role of these debates in contemporary philosophy of science.

Du Bois and The Souls of Black Folk

Richard Staley (4 seminars, Michaelmas Term)

• W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1903)

In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois published a remarkable book that furthered nearly a decade of research and advocacy in history, economics and sociology but that in intent and form broke with the usual forms of those disciplines – and has since become foundational for our understanding of African Americans and Black Studies more generally, especially for its introduction of the concept of the veil and double consciousness in thinking across the colour line. This primary source seminar sets The Souls of Black Folk and Du Bois's career in the context of his earlier work, the ambivalent reception that he received amongst different groups over time, his later work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the recent resurgence of sociological interest in Du Bois. It will raise questions about activism and academic work, the relations between history, economics and sociology – and social and economic justice – and the significance of concepts of science, values in research and empirical methods, thereby providing foundational insights into the ongoing project of decolonising the sciences. A helpful guide to internet-accessible resources is available.

Comparative Psychology

Marta Halina (4 seminars, Michaelmas Term)

• C. Lloyd Morgan, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (London: Walter Scott, 1894/1903)

The British psychologist and ethologist, Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852–1936), is regarded as a key founder of the scientific study of animal minds. In his An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1894), Morgan states: 'In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale' (p. 53). This now famous (or infamous) statement is known as 'Morgan's Canon' and has been described as 'perhaps the most quoted statement in all of psychology'. What role does Morgan's Canon play in contemporary research on animal minds? Is it justified? How does our understanding and use of the Canon today compare with Morgan's original formulation? In this seminar, we address these questions by examining Morgan's Canon from historical, philosophical, and scientific perspectives.

Tycho Brahe and the Renewal of Astronomy

Emma Perkins (4 seminars, Michaelmas Term)

• Tycho Brahe, Astronomiæ instauratæ mechanica (1598)

In 1598, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe produced a lavish account of his astronomical instruments. These were the instruments he had designed and used in a systematic programme of observation that he hoped would lay the foundation for a 'restoration' of astronomy. This was an admirable – and urgent – ambition in the second half of the sixteenth century: debates about the nature and structure of the universe raged among astronomers, particularly following the publication of Copernicus' heliocentric world system in 1543. Tycho pursued this project from his observatory on the island of Hven under the patronage of the Danish king, Frederick II. Following the death of the king in 1588, Tycho fell from royal favour and was forced into exile, leaving his island – along with most of the instruments – in search of a new financial sponsor. The instrument book (Mechanica) was produced in response to this patronage crisis and formed a central part of his strategy to attract a new patron.

The Mechanica contains detailed descriptions and illustrations of Tycho's astronomical instruments, including a section on devices yet to be constructed. Appended to the work is a detailed account (with illustrations) of his observatory buildings, as well as a map of Hven. Tycho also includes a summary of his achievements in astronomy, reinforcing his credentials to his potential sponsor. The Mechanica was originally published in small quantity and circulated to a select audience of potential patrons and patronage brokers: beautifully illustrated and often exquisitely bound, the work was a luxurious and exclusive gift. This visually rich work thus offers a multifaceted view of sixteenth-century science: it provides evidence of Tycho's empirical pursuit of science and the cutting-edge technology of the pre-telescopic era, while providing insight into the dynamics of courtly patronage in early modern Europe.

Resources for the primary source seminars on Moodle