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Summer Seminar Plan and Schedule
(This page is now of historical interest only.)
The Summer Seminar runs from Monday evening, June 11th,
through Friday afternoon, June 15th. The schedule of lectures,
discussions, events, and related readings are as follows
(electronic copies of readings are linked within the schedule
below).
Start times will be followed closely (please be on time!); end
times are approximate. Sessions of more than 1.5 hours will include
short breaks every hour.
Meals are not listed on the schedule, but will normally be taken together in the cafeteria, allowing
time for further discussion and reflection.
A note on readings links and file formats: Direct links from titles
of books are to the appropriate Amazon page. Direct links from
titles of articles or essays are to web-based documents in HTML format. Links to Adobe PDF format
documents are noted in a parenthetical after the document; a few
documents are referenced both ways. Particularly large PDFs
(those more than 2MB in size) are noted so that users with a
slow Internet connections can act accordingly. Because different browsers
handle PDFs differently, we suggest you right-click on PDF links
(or Ctrl-click on a Mac) and choose the option of
downloading them to your local disk.
Monday
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4:00-6:00pm
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Introduction and overview of the
Summer Seminar; discussion of introductory readings.
Readings: Koyre, Newtonian
Studies, Chapter 1 (PDF format,
4.6MB file size); Hassing, "On Aristotelian,
Classical, and Quantum Physics" (unpublished
article in PDF format); Kass, “The Permanent Limitations of Biology,”
from Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity
(2002).
Optional reading: McKnight, "Francis
Bacon's God," The New Atlantis (2005)
(PDF format).
Tutors: Staff (Mike
Augros, Joe
Audie, James
Barham)
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8:00pm
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Informal gathering for fellowship
and discussion in location TBA. |
Tuesday
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9:30-11:30am
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Lecture 1: The
distinction between science and philosophy; the role
of common experience in the study of nature.
Readings: Bacon,
New Organon
(Preface; Aphorisms X through LXXVII) (PDF
format); Maritain, "Philosophy and Experimental
Science," Chapter II of
The Degrees of Knowledge
(PDF format,
5.6MB file size); Augros, “Reconciling Science with Natural Philosophy,”
The Thomist (2004);
Bloom & Weisberg, "Childhood Origins to Adult
Resistance to Science," Science May 2007 (PDF
format).
Optional reading: Talbott, "The
Language of Nature," The New Atlantis
(2007) (PDF
format).
Instructor: Mike Augros
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1:30-3:30pm
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Lecture 2: "Reductionism," "emergentism,"
and "holism": What comes first, a whole or
its parts?
Readings: Dawkins, "The Gene
Machine," Chapter 4 of
The Selfish
Gene (1976) (short excerpt in PDF format); Harold, "In Pursuit of Wholeness," the
last section of "Morphogenesis: Where Form and
Function Meet," Chapter 7 of The Way of the
Cell; and "An Ingenious Machine?" (PDF
format) and the first two sections of "So What is
Life?," Chapter 10 of the same book (PDF format); "Emergent
Properties" in Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
Optional reading: Fodor, "Headaches
have themselves," May 2007 book review of
Strawson, Consciousness and Its Place in Nature:
Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism?
Instructor: Mike Augros
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4:00-6:00pm |
Lecture 3: Is Nature
mathematically
intelligible?
Reading: DeKoninck, "Random
Reflections on Science and Calculation," Laval
Théologique et Philosophique (1956) (PDF
format, 6.2MB file size).
Instructor: Mike Augros |
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8:00pm
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Informal gathering for fellowship
and discussion in location TBA. |
Wednesday
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9:00-11:30am
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Lecture 4: Protein folding and reductionism: a
view from science.
Readings: Denton et al., "Protein
Folds as Platonic Forms," Journal of
Theoretical Biology (2002); "Physical law
not natural selection as the major determinant of
biological complexity in the subcellular realm,"
BioSystems (2003).
Instructor: Joe Audie
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1:30-3:30pm
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Lecture 5: What is a
living thing?
Readings: Harold, "The Quality of
Life," Chapter 2 of The Way of the
Cell (PDF format); Descartes, Mediation
VI: "Of
the Existence of Material Things, and of the Real
Distinction Between the Mind and Body of Man,"
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641);
Dawkins, "Explaining the Very Improbable," Chapter 1
of
The Blind Watchmaker (1986) (PDF format); DeKoninck, "The Lifeless World of
Biology," Chapter 3 of The Hollow Universe
(1960) (PDF
format).
Instructor: Mike Augros
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4:00-6:00pm |
Lecture 6: What is
nature?; the natural and the artificial; does nature
act for an end?
Readings: Aristotle,
Book II, Sections 1 & 8, Physics;
Book V, Section 4, Metaphysics.
Instructor: Mike Augros
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8:00-10:00pm |
Showing of movie related to theme of
Baconian science, scientism, etc. (possibly
Krzysztof Kieslowski's "The
Decalogue: I," 1989, or "Gattaca,"
1997). |
Thursday
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9:00-10:20am
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Lecture 7: Nature
rediscovered (or, the scientific case against
reductionism) I: Physics.
Readings: Anderson, “More Is
Different,” Science (1972) (PDF
format); Laughlin & Pines, “The Theory of
Everything,” Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences (2000) (PDF
format); Schweber, “The Metaphysics of Science
at the End of an Heroic Age,” in Experimental
Metaphysics (1997) (PDF format;
3.2MB file size).
Optional reading: Georgi, “Effective Quantum Field
Theories,” in The New Physics (1989) (PDF
format, 3.1MB file size).
Instructor: James Barham
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10:40am-12:00pm
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Lecture 8: Nature
rediscovered II: The relationship between physics
and biology.
Readings: Frauenfelder,
“Proteins—Paradigms of Complex Systems,”
Experientia (1995) (PDF format);
Kauffman, "Autonomous Agents," in Science and
Ultimate Reality (2004) (PDF
format); Laughlin, Pines, Schmalian, Stojkovic, and Wolynes
“The Middle Way,” Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences
(2000) (PDF
format); Pollack, “The Cell as a Biomaterial,”
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in
Medicine (2002) (PDF
format).
Optional reading: Ho, “Towards a
Theory of the Organism,” Integrative
Physiological and Behavioral Science (1997) (PDF
format, 3.7MB file size).
Instructors: James Barham
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1:30-3:00pm |
Lecture 9: Nature rediscovered III: Biology
proper.
Readings: Oltvai & Barabasi, "Life's Complexity
Pyramid," Science (2002)
(PDF
format); Shapiro, “A 21st Century View of
Evolution: Genome System Architecture, Repetitive
DNA, and Natural Genetic Engineering,” Gene
(2005) (PDF
format); West-Eberhard, “Phenotypic
Accommodation: Adaptive Innovation Due to
Developmental Plasticity,” Journal of
Experimental Zoology (2005) (PDF
format); Wheatley, “Diffusion, Perfusion and the
Exclusion Principles in the Structural and
Functional Organization of the Living Cell:
Reappraisal of the Properties of the ‘Ground
Substance,’” Journal of Experimental Biology
(2003) (PDF
format).
Optional reading: Soto and Sonnenschein, “Emergentism by
Default: A View from the Bench,” Synthese
(2006) (PDF
format).
Instructor: James Barham |
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4:00-5:30pm |
Lecture 10: Natural
philosophy, Darwinism, and "intelligent design": a
case study.
Readings: Denton, "Note to the
Reader" and "Prologue," Nature's Destiny
(1998) (PDF
format); Barham, “The Emergence of Biological
Value,” from Dembski & Ruse,
Debating Design (2004) (PDF format);
Ryland, "Applying Natural Philosophy to a Modern
Controversy," (unpublished paper) (PDF format
[coming]).
Instructor: Mark Ryland |
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7:30pm |
Dinner at local restaurant. |
Friday
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9:30-11:30am
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Lecture 11:
Philosophy, physics, and the collapse of the
Newtonian world-picture.
Readings: Cartwright,
"Introduction" (PDF file), "Essay 2: The Truth Doesn't Explain
Much" (PDF file), and "Essay 3: Do the Laws of Physics State
the Facts?" (PDF file) from How the Laws of Physics Lie
(1983); Cartwright, "Introduction,"
Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement
(1989) (PDF file).
Instructor: Mark Ryland
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1:00-2:30pm
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Closing remarks and discussion.
Instructors: Staff (Mike, Joe,
James, Mark)
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Summer Conference
The Summer Conference follows the Summer
Seminar at 3:30pm on Friday, June 15th, continuing through Saturday, June 16th.
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