2023
History of Sciences
Name: History of Sciences
Code: FIS15035D
3 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/78 hours
Scientific Area:
Physics, History
Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese
Regime de Frequência: B-learning
Sustainable Development Goals
Learning Goals
To understand the historical and social dimension of science, studying the way to the current technical scientific domain, valuing its integration in secondary education and an integrated perspective of human culture.
To develop the spirit of a seminar, through critical analysis and discussion of texts and authors, attentive to the variety of approaches of historians belonging to different research cultures.
Think about the method and nature of scientific practice (and interaction with technique), about its creativity and epochal specificities, understanding how philosophical reflection has been fundamental in the evolution of scientific ideas.
Know and analyze some crucial moments in scientific development, starting from the analysis of key authors, namely: the passage from the Aristotelian vision to that of the great scientific revolution, the mechanistic paradigm, Lavoisier and the biological transformism, the quantum revolution and relativity, the current techno-scientific complex
To develop the spirit of a seminar, through critical analysis and discussion of texts and authors, attentive to the variety of approaches of historians belonging to different research cultures.
Think about the method and nature of scientific practice (and interaction with technique), about its creativity and epochal specificities, understanding how philosophical reflection has been fundamental in the evolution of scientific ideas.
Know and analyze some crucial moments in scientific development, starting from the analysis of key authors, namely: the passage from the Aristotelian vision to that of the great scientific revolution, the mechanistic paradigm, Lavoisier and the biological transformism, the quantum revolution and relativity, the current techno-scientific complex
Contents
Plurality of approaches in the history and philosophy of science and their interest in pedagogy and integral and humanistic training.
Aristotelian worldview.
Navigations and the preconditions of the Scientific Revolution.
Scientific Revolution: from Copernicus to Newton.
Kant and the theory of knowledge.
Lavoisier: Chemistry and the respiration of animals.
Laplacian Cosmovision and the development of Thermodynamics.
The consilience of inductions.
The Biological transformism and the anthropological model.
Overcoming mechanism, history and epistemology.
Quanta, relativity: overcoming the classical paradigm.
The history of science place.
Homo faber and the educational value of the history of science.
Institutionalization of HFC: creation of magazines and organization of conferences.
The modular structure of scientific theory.
Contemporary technoscience.
Material culture (laboratories, instruments, collections, etc).
The circulation of knowledge.
Science and values. Science and gender
Aristotelian worldview.
Navigations and the preconditions of the Scientific Revolution.
Scientific Revolution: from Copernicus to Newton.
Kant and the theory of knowledge.
Lavoisier: Chemistry and the respiration of animals.
Laplacian Cosmovision and the development of Thermodynamics.
The consilience of inductions.
The Biological transformism and the anthropological model.
Overcoming mechanism, history and epistemology.
Quanta, relativity: overcoming the classical paradigm.
The history of science place.
Homo faber and the educational value of the history of science.
Institutionalization of HFC: creation of magazines and organization of conferences.
The modular structure of scientific theory.
Contemporary technoscience.
Material culture (laboratories, instruments, collections, etc).
The circulation of knowledge.
Science and values. Science and gender
Teaching Methods
The approach is that of a seminar, studying an author, his work and his texts. In 2/3 of the sessions, it is up to the students to make this critical presentation (author/text). These sessions will have two mandatory figures the one who is responsible for presenting the author and the text (implying prior preparation) and the discussant, the person who prepares the topic in order to be able to discuss it properly. Pertinent bibliography will be available for each topic. The sessions will be partly face-to-face (1/3) and partly via the internet (2/3). There will also be room for sessions with guest historians, , from different generations, and for their personal testimony of the characteristics of their intellectual path.
Assessment
Each student must give a presentation submit two essays on program topics (one with 1000 words, the other 2500 words); the long essay will demonstrate deep reflection on one of the topics/authors, chosen by agreement with the teacher; the short essay will be a comment on a text, and may correspond to an written test. Grading will be a weighted average of essays and oral presentation.
Teaching Staff
- João Paulo Príncipe Silva [responsible]
- Sara Manuela de Albuquerque
