The John J. Reilly Center

Program in History and Philosophy of Science

HISTORY OF SCIENCE

MA Level Reading List

The History of Science MA Comprehensive Examination is designed to test the competency of all HPS students in the general field of history of science. It is related to the course work in these areas but will not be limited to the content of the specific courses.

A short list of general works will be sent to entering students as presumptions upon them when they arrive.

The examination is designed to test a student's general knowledge of four areas in the history of science:

1. Science Before 1700

2. Physical Sciences, 1700-1910

3. Life and Earth Sciences after 1700

4. Science, Technology and Society

The following reading list serves as a guide to the basic literature in these four fields. The examination will presuppose in the student a knowledge of these works, but will not limit itself exclusively to material contained in these works. In addition to studying the works on this list, then, students are strongly advised to prepare for the examination by taking those graduate courses in the history of science that are relevant to these four areas.

The reading list begins with a selection of readings in historiography. In themselves, these works do not constitute material upon the student may be examined. They do, however, point the student in the direction of current historiographical issues that inform much of the history of science as it is practiced today. It is expected that a student's answers should display at least some awareness of these historiographical issues and should reveal some methodological sophistication in the way the questions are tackled.

REQUIRED LIST

Historiographical Readings:

Guédon, J. C. "MichelFoucault: The Knowledge of Power and the Power of Knowledge,"Bulletin of the History of Medicine 51 (1977): 245-77.

Kragh, Helge. Introduction to the Historiography of Science (Cambridge: CUP,1987)

Kuhn, T. S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rded. (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1970)

Lakatos, I. "History ofScience and Its Rational Reconstructions," in: C. Howson,Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences (Cambridge: CUP,1976), pp. 1-39.

Latour, Bruno. Sciencein Action (Cambridge MA: Harvard U Press, 1987) "Introduction" and ch. 1.

McMullin, Ernan. "The Development of Philosophy of Science: 1600-1900," in Companion to the History of Modern Science, ed. J. Christie et al. (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 816-837 (=CHMS).

Rouse, Joseph. " What Are Cultural Studies of Scientific Knowledge?" Configurations 1 (1992): 1-22.

Shapin, S. "History of Science and Its Sociological Reconstructions," History of Science 20 (1982):157-211.

Science Before 1700:

Cohen, H. Floris. The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (Chicago: UChicago Press, 1994), Introduction and discussions of "The Great Tradition" (Duhem, Koyré, Whewell, Burtt).

Crowe, M. J. Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution (New York: Dover, 1990).

Grant, Edward. Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: CUP,1996).

Hall, A. R. The Revolution in Science, 1500-1750 3rd. ed. (London: Longmans, 1983)

Lloyd, G. E. R. Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of His Thought (Cambridge: CUP,1968).

Lloyd, G. E. R. Greek Science After Aristotle (New York: Norton, l973).

Lloyd, G. E. R. Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle (New York: Norton, 1970).

Siraisi, N., Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice(Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 1990).

Physical Sciences, 1700-1910:

Crowe, M. Modern Theories of the Universe from Herschel to Hubble (New York: Dover, 1994).

Hankins, T. L. Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge: CUP, 1985).

Harman, P. M. Energy, Force and Matter (Cambridge: CUP, 1982).

Kuhn, T. "Energy Conservation as an Example of Simultaneous Discovery" in M. Clagget (ed.) Critical Problems in the History of Science(Madison: U. Wisc. Press, 1959), 321-56.

Perrin, C. E. "The Chemical Revolution," CHMS, pp. 264-277(=CHMS).

Purrington, Robert D., Physics in the Nineteenth Century (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997).

Segré, E. From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves: Classical Physicists and Their Discoveries(New York: Freeman,1984).

Segré, E. From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries (San Francisco: Freeman, 1980).

Stachel, John. "The Theory of Relativity," CHMS, pp. 442-457.

Life and Earth Sciences After 1700:

Jardine, N., E. Spary and J. Secord (eds), Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge: CUP,1996, chs. by Ashworth, Jardine, Rudwick, Dettelbach, Nyhart.

Laudan, Rachael. "The History of Geology, 1780-1840," in CHMS,pp. 314-325.

Lenoir, T. The Strategy of Life: Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth-Century German Biology (Chicago: UC Press, 1990; reprint of 1982).

Maienschein, Jane. "Cell Theory and Development," in CHMS, pp. 357-373.

Olby, Robert. The Path to the Double Helix (New York: Dover, 1995; reprint of 1974).

Porter, Roy (ed.) The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine (Cambridge: CUP, 1996).

Sloan, P. R. "Natural History, 1670-1802," in CHMS, pp.295-313.

Wear, A. (ed.) Medicine in Society: Historical Essays (Cambridge: CUP, 1992).

Weber, B. and D. Depew, Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy ofNatural Selection (Boston: MIT Press, 1996).

Science, Technology Society:

Collins, H. M., and T. Pinch, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science (Cambridge, 1993).

Jasanoff, Sheila et al. (eds), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Sage, 1995), chs. 1,2, 4, 5, 7-9, 11, 15, 17-20, 22-24, 26.

Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, 1963).