Lecture notes for Magic, Medicine and Science

Note: These documents are overviews of the lectures. They are brief, and are intended to help students recognize what the most important issues are, and how these issues fit together into the 'big picture.' These notes usually do not explain complex and difficult ideas thoroughly-- thus, the notes are not an adequate substitute for class attendance: relying solely on them to complete the assignments will lead to poor grades.

Lecture 1: What is the scientific revolution? Preparing to read Plato's Timaeus.

Handout from first class (in rich text format)

Lecture 2: Plato's Timaeus.

Lecture 3: Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Lecture 4: Hippocratics and Atomists.

Lecture 5: Renaissance, Hermeticism, Pico.

Lecture 6: Renaissance magic, medicine, & alchemy.

Lecture 7: Copernicus' De Revolutionibus.

Lecture 8: Kepler & Neo-platonism.

Lecture 9: Galileo.

Lecture 10: Descartes.

Lecture 11: Hobbes and Boyle.

Lecture 12: Newton.

Lecture 13: Leibniz.

Lecture 14: Locke. Handout on Locke & Sydenham (in rich text format)