PHIL 310/HIST 490: Nature
Wars
|
Dr. Michael Lewis, History Office: Holloway Hall, 389 Telephone: 410-677-5020 (O) Office Hours: W 9-12:50, 2-2:50, or by
apt. |
Dr. James Hatley,
Philosophy Office: Philosophy House, 103 Telephone: 410-677-5072 (O); 410-543-7635
(H) Office Hours: jdhatley@salisbury.edu
(use sparingly!!) |
Nature Wars: Ecology, Science and the
Humanities
With the emergence of the evolutionary-ecology synthesis in the last fifty
years, ecological scientists have proposed a powerful new way of understanding
the natural world. Many ecologists now accept as a given that
scientifically based metaphors such as "the selfish gene" explain not
just the evolution of physical characteristics but of behavior, even human
behavior, as well. While many behavioral
ecologists began by studying birds and social insects, by the 1970s they had
begun to expand their explanations to include human societies and behavior.
Paralleling the emergence of the evolutionary-ecology synthesis was the
development of the modern environmental movement. By the 1960s,
environmentalism was, in many minds, inextricably linked with the relatively
new science of ecology. As an increasing number of Americans began to
devote their time and money to experiencing (and saving) "nature,"
ecologists attempted to define what that nature was. The explanations
that they offered were increasingly mechanistic and reductionist,
at least in part due to their attempt to achieve funding, tenure and scientific
respect in an academy dominated by microbiologists (the other great boom in the
life sciences in the last fifty years, of course, starting perhaps with the
Watson/Crick DNA model).
As scientists have moved increasingly to a mechanistic model for explaining
nature (and life), many thinkers in the humanities and elsewhere have continued
to argue for a world not merely reducable to its
working parts and so for a nature more mysterious than mechanical, more
metaphysical than positivist. In this reaction is found the newest
chapter in a struggle that has been at the core of the western tradition since
at least the Enlightenment, if not its very inception. For even Socrates was
anxious that his questioning of the meaning of the human soul not be confused
with the materialistic theories of scientist-philosophers such as Anixamander and Thales.
At present, then, we have the Nature Wars—debates over the very meaning of
"nature" and the world, not to mention our own all too human
existence within these realms. We are proposing to enter into a course of
study and discussion that would be a mixture of philosophy, intellectual
history, and the history of science. In following out this project, we
will tease out the arguments for and ramifications of the two contrasting world
views arguably forming the basis of our contemporary civilization.
This
discussion will find its historical context in the
emergence, in primarily the second half of the twentieth century, of
"modern ecology" and contemporary environmentalism. The debate
will be introduced in its existential immediacy by Max Frisch's novel Homo
Faber and given historical depth by a selection of background readings.
The class will then turn to a consideration of E.O.
Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of
Knowledge, and Wendell Berry's Life is a Miracle: An Essay against
Modern Superstition.
TEXTS
REQUIRED:
Homo Faber, Max Frisch
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, E.O. Wilson
Life is a Miracle: An Essay against Modern Superstition, Wendell Berry
The Triumph of Sociobiology, John Alcock
The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram
Selections from Essays and Literature on the Web Syllabus Go
to Readings
WEB TEXTS: Go to Readings
Chorus from Antigone, Sophocles
Selections from King Lear, Shakespeare
Bruno Latour, “Introduction,” We have Never been Modern
S.J.
Gould, “The Spandrels of San Marcos,” reprinted in Understanding Scientific
Prose
Stephen Hall, The Merchants of Immortality
Madhav Gadgil,
Excerpt from This Fissured Land
Others to be added in the course of the Semester
GRADING
Participation 10%
Discussion
Questions 25%
Response
Essays 40%
Final
Project 15%
Both Sets of Reading Questions Assigned for Homo Faber (Weeks 2 and 3) are Required.
For Discussion Questions, 8 of 11 Weekly Assignments (Weeks 4-14) are Required.
ASSIGNMENTS
PARTICIPATION—Attendance, Preparation and Thoughtful Participation in Class Discussions and Writing
WEEKLY QUESTIONS—You will be
assigned questions every week to be turned in typewritten for the Tuesday
Class. There will be two types of Weekly
Questions:
READING QUESTIONS—These questions, which treat the novel Homo Faber, are due Tuesday at the beginning of class for the 2nd and 3rd weeks of the course. Please answer these questions to the best of your capability in short paragraphs of at least three or more sentences.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS—These questions will treat the reading assignments due each week in class starting with the 4th week of class. Out of 11 possible sets of weekly discussion questions, you are to turn in 8. Since there are only three to four questions to answer for each week’s assignment, you are to write more reflectively and in longer paragraphs than you did for the reading questions. At least one plus pages of typewritten prose!
RESPONSE ESSAYS—Four times in the semester you will be asked to do a longer paper of at least 3 pages (typewritten!) in length. More information will be given to you about these papers as they are assigned (see below for due dates!).
GROUP PROJECTS—In lieu of a final examination, you will develop in a group with 4 other students (i.e. 5 total) a 15 minute presentation (Power Point, a Video, or Just Plain Talking!) showing how a question we have discussed in class is being posed and answered (or failing to be answered) in the contemporary world. More specific information will be provided later in the class.
ASSIGNMENTS,
WEEK ONE
Web
9/2: Introduction: What is Nature? Case Study/Discussion.
9/4: Lecture and Discussion (Jim): Phusis vs. Techne in Aristotle, Causality and the Status of G-d in Medieval and Modern Philosophy, the Enlightenment, Science and Religion, the Myth of Oedipus, Heideggerian Critique of Technology.
WEEK TWO
9/9: Homo Faber: reading questions for pp. 1-106.
9/11: Homo Faber: continue discussion of
reading questions; Short Lecture (Lewis): the 1950s, technology, science,
cybernetics and development/modernization theory and
ERINYES: Acropolis Marble
WEEK THREE
9/16: Homo Faber: reading questions for pp. 107-214.
9/18: Homo Faber, continue discussion of reading questions. Short Lecture (Lewis): emergence of ecosystem theory
WEEK FOUR
Web
Stephen Hall Video on Merchants of Immortality Go to Readings
9/23: Wendell Berry Life is a Miracle chapters I and II (pp 3-22)
9/25: Wendell Berry Life is a Miracle, continue discussion
WEEK FIVE
9/30: E.O. Wilson, Consilience chapters 1-4 (pp. 1-71)
10/2: Consilience
WEEK SIX
10/7: Consilience chapters 5-8 (pp. 72-196)
10/9: Consilience
WEEK SEVEN
10/14 Consilience chapter 9-10 (pp. 197-259)
10/16: Consilience
10/17 FIELD
TRIP!!!! Meet in the Parking Lot by
MAGGS Gymnasium at
by
WEEK EIGHT
10/21: Consilience chapter 11-12 (pp. 260-326) See: http://dukemednews.duke.edu/news/article.php?id=5056
10/23: Consilience
WEEK NINE
10/28: Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle (pp.1-23)
10/30: Life is a Miracle
First Response Essay on Consilience Due: 10/30 RESPONSE PAPER 1 ASSIGNMENT
WEEK TEN
11/4: Life is a Miracle (pp. 23-92)
11/6: Life is a Miracle
WEEK ELEVEN
11/11: Life is a Miracle (pp. 93-153)
11/13: Life is a Miracle
WEEK TWELVE
11/18: Alcock, The Triumph of Sociobiology
11/20: The Triumph of Sociobiology, and Madhav Gadgil, “The Caste System,” This Fissured Land (on course website)
Second
Response Essay on Life is a Miracle Due: 11/20
ASSIGNMENT: In Chapter Two of Life is a Miracle,
Wendell Berry constructs a critique of Wilson’s Consilience
in terms of a series of seven themes: 1)
Materialism, 2) Mystery, 3) Imperialism, 4) Reductionism, 5) Mechanism, 6)
Originality and 7) Progress. Choosing
one of these themes as your focus, expand upon
The paper is due Thursday, November 20th
at the beginning of class. It
should be typewritten and at least 750 words (at least three full pages) in
length.
WEEK TWELVE AND A HALF
11/25: The Triumph of Sociobiology
WEEK THIRTEEN
12/2: The Triumph of Sociobiology
12/4: David
Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
WEEK FOURTEEN
12/9: The Spell of the Sensuous
12/11: The Spell of the Sensuous http://www.janegoodall.org/jane/index.html
WEEK FIFTEEN
1) Third Response
Essay on either: a) The Triumph of Sociobiology; or b) The Spell of
the Sensuous. Due 12/16 at
2) Group
Presentations (FINAL EXAM) Due: 12/16,