Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Science

                     

This course attempts to trace the central philosophical and conceptual issues in the study of The European Enlightenment and the birth of modern science. Emphasis is on reconstructing the main ideas of the period and examining the literature of that age in relation to these ideas. As the second in a four-part paper, this is an attempt to acquaint students with the cultural and intellectual ideas that have shaped the modern western culture. Alongside the literary appreciation of texts, it is expected that students will also learn to appreciate the political and social contexts which the shape the ideas represented in these texts. Selections include literary and non-literary texts from the period and critical and scholarly works from recent times which attempt to throw new light on the period. A selection of texts for self study has been suggested which will help students gain more in depth knowledge about the issue treated in the in the course.

• Unit I: Introduction to Themes and Issues
• Kant, What is Enlightenment?
• Foucault, What is Enlightenment?
• Unit II: Key Ideas
• Paine, The Rights of Man
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
• Descartes, Meditations I and II
• Unit III: Texts
• Bacon, The New Science
• Vico, The New Science Book I
• Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Paras 125-149)
• Pope, An Essay on Man
• Addison, On Wit
• Unit IV: Revisiting the Enlightenment
• Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
• Chapter 1: Preliminary Demarcation of a Type of Bourgeois Public Sphere
• Chapter 2: Social Structure of the Public Sphere
• Texts for Self Study
• Bentham, The Principles of Utility
• Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
• Reynolds, Discourse on Art
• Rousseau, The Social Contract
• Condorcet, The Perfectability of Man
• Foucault, Omnes Et Singulatim