Some more titles to add to our list:
The Division and Methods of the Sciences a commentary by St. Thomas Aquinas on De Trinitate by Boethius. This is the book which contains the answer to the famous "talking doll" thing about "Math is Hard".
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory by Pierre Duhem, original title: La Théorie Physique: Son Objet, Sa Structure, translated by Philip P. Weiner from the second edition, 1914. This contains (as an appendix) the very important essay "The Physics of a Believer" which is Duhem's explanation of the right relation between science and religion.
Both of these may end up being required textbooks.
A handful of texts from Dover which we may wish to have on hand:
A Short History of Technology http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486274721.html
Engineering in History http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486264122.html
De Re Metallica http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486600068.html
Pirotechnia http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486446433.html
Elements of Chemistry http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486646246.html
Maxwell's papers http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486495612.html
Faraday on a candle http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486425428.html
They have many others which we will no doubt have in the library - they are a great, wonderful resource.
You know I have resisted adding any Chesterton... but I think we need to make a selection of essays... this will be a very valuable tool, and not just for our school. That will take some thought.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Rough notes on curriculum
This is my attempt at writing a two-year arrangement which will yield an Associate of Science degree.
The design of our school is to aim at the Catholic presentation of Science according to the precepts of Newman who saw its proper place among the Liberal Arts, and to further the work of Chesterton, Duhem and Jaki in the enlargement of the correct awareness of science as it touches and is touched by human culture...
The student will receive an introduction to the major branches of science - Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics - with supporting tools in mathematics, philosophy and history, will have a systemic view of the various scientific disciplines and their points of contact among themselves, their supporting tools, and to their practical extensions in engineering; the introduction provided will permit the advance into the more rigorous study of any of the branches of science, or (if not a scientific major) will give stable footing to the philosopher, historian, theologian or literary scholar.
The work will include the major developments of science, the names of the great scientists, and a sufficient variety of hands-on laboratory work in each of the branches.
Summary: Four semesters, 15-18 hours per semester. 60-72 credit hours or 20-24 classes.
I was going to make an attempt at listing classes, but it is too early. I will try to list things that we need to include.
There are a number of "dependence" issues to be considered. The cell part of bio requires having had enough chem first. Astronomy also requires mech, optics, relativity, atom stuff (spectra!) Geo needs chem. I will have to work up how the branches need to be ordered....
Gosh this is a lot for just two years. The sad thing is that some of this ought to be happening in HIGH SCHOOL.... but who has the foresight and the "Chestertonian" (meaning wide, or "catholic") vision to see the whole in that way?
"Perhaps the weapon was too big to be noticed," said the priest, with an odd little giggle.
[GKC "The Three Tools of Death" in The Innocence of Father Brown]
The design of our school is to aim at the Catholic presentation of Science according to the precepts of Newman who saw its proper place among the Liberal Arts, and to further the work of Chesterton, Duhem and Jaki in the enlargement of the correct awareness of science as it touches and is touched by human culture...
The student will receive an introduction to the major branches of science - Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics - with supporting tools in mathematics, philosophy and history, will have a systemic view of the various scientific disciplines and their points of contact among themselves, their supporting tools, and to their practical extensions in engineering; the introduction provided will permit the advance into the more rigorous study of any of the branches of science, or (if not a scientific major) will give stable footing to the philosopher, historian, theologian or literary scholar.
The work will include the major developments of science, the names of the great scientists, and a sufficient variety of hands-on laboratory work in each of the branches.
Summary: Four semesters, 15-18 hours per semester. 60-72 credit hours or 20-24 classes.
I was going to make an attempt at listing classes, but it is too early. I will try to list things that we need to include.
- Mathematics: calculus (limits, differentiation & integration, discrete math including automata, combinatorics and boolean algebra; probability & statistics)
- Philosophy of Science (the links to scholasticism; the heresies and other such messes)
- History of Science (ancient; medieval; Galileo, Newton; 19th century;Einstein & Planck; modern)
- Astronomy (earth, sun, moon, planets, stars, galaxies, cosmology)
- Chemistry (atom; elements; reactions; inorganic/organic/biological)
- Biology (taxonomy; plants;animals;cells;molbio; human)
- Geology (minerals, rocks, morphology; hydrology, possibly meteorology & related)
- Physics (mechanics, sound, optics, EM; relativity;quantum)
- Extension stuff: "Engineering writ large".
There are a number of "dependence" issues to be considered. The cell part of bio requires having had enough chem first. Astronomy also requires mech, optics, relativity, atom stuff (spectra!) Geo needs chem. I will have to work up how the branches need to be ordered....
Gosh this is a lot for just two years. The sad thing is that some of this ought to be happening in HIGH SCHOOL.... but who has the foresight and the "Chestertonian" (meaning wide, or "catholic") vision to see the whole in that way?
"Perhaps the weapon was too big to be noticed," said the priest, with an odd little giggle.
[GKC "The Three Tools of Death" in The Innocence of Father Brown]
Some summary quotes
"you [God] ordered all things by measure, number, weight.”
Wisdom 11:21
That their hearts may be comforted, being instructed in charity and unto all riches of fulness of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ Jesus: In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
[Col 2:3, cf. Litany of the Sacred Heart]
"Eternities"
I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in His own strange book.
I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.
In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
Chesterton, Collected Poems
"Liberal Education, viewed in itself, is simply the cultivation of the intellect, as such, and its object is nothing more or less than intellectual excellence."
Newman, Idea of a University
"The rebuilding of this bridge between science and human nature is one of the greatest needs of mankind."
Chesterton, The Defendant
...if you drop any science out of the circle of knowledge, you cannot keep its place vacant for it; that science is forgotten; the other sciences close up, or, in other words, they exceed their proper bounds, and intrude where they have no right. For instance, I suppose, if ethics were sent into banishment, its territory would soon disappear, under a treaty of partition, as it may be called, between law, political economy, and physiology; what, again, would become of the province of experimental science, if made over to the Antiquarian Society; or of history, if surrendered out and out to Metaphysicians? The case is the same with the subject-matter of Theology; it would be the prey of a dozen various sciences, if Theology were put out of possession; and not only so, but those sciences would be plainly exceeding their rights and their capacities in seizing upon it. They would be sure to teach wrongly, where they had no mission to teach at all. The enemies of Catholicism ought to be the last to deny this: - for they have never been blind to a like usurpation, as they have called it, on the part of theologians; those who accuse us of wishing, in accordance with Scripture language, to make the sun go round the earth, are not the men to deny that a science which exceeds its limits falls into error.
Newman, Idea of a University
"One of the severest tests of the scientific mind is to know the limits of the legitimate application of the scientific method."
J. C. Maxwell, The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell
"Those who devote their lives to the purpose of proving that there is no purpose, constitute an interesting subject for study."
A. N. Whitehead The Function of Reason
"Science cannot do a very large number of things, and to assume that science may find a technical solution to all problems is the road to disaster."
Polykarp Kusch, a Nobel-laureate physicist, Address to the Pulitzer Prize jurors, Columbia University, 1961, in New York Herald Tribune, April 2, 1961, sec. 2, p. 3. col. 5.
"History is philosophy teaching by examples." A phrase of Thucydides, recalled by Dionysus of Halicarnassus in his Ars rhetorica, XI, 2.
Wisdom 11:21
That their hearts may be comforted, being instructed in charity and unto all riches of fulness of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ Jesus: In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
[Col 2:3, cf. Litany of the Sacred Heart]
"Eternities"
I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in His own strange book.
I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.
In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
Chesterton, Collected Poems
"Liberal Education, viewed in itself, is simply the cultivation of the intellect, as such, and its object is nothing more or less than intellectual excellence."
Newman, Idea of a University
"The rebuilding of this bridge between science and human nature is one of the greatest needs of mankind."
Chesterton, The Defendant
...if you drop any science out of the circle of knowledge, you cannot keep its place vacant for it; that science is forgotten; the other sciences close up, or, in other words, they exceed their proper bounds, and intrude where they have no right. For instance, I suppose, if ethics were sent into banishment, its territory would soon disappear, under a treaty of partition, as it may be called, between law, political economy, and physiology; what, again, would become of the province of experimental science, if made over to the Antiquarian Society; or of history, if surrendered out and out to Metaphysicians? The case is the same with the subject-matter of Theology; it would be the prey of a dozen various sciences, if Theology were put out of possession; and not only so, but those sciences would be plainly exceeding their rights and their capacities in seizing upon it. They would be sure to teach wrongly, where they had no mission to teach at all. The enemies of Catholicism ought to be the last to deny this: - for they have never been blind to a like usurpation, as they have called it, on the part of theologians; those who accuse us of wishing, in accordance with Scripture language, to make the sun go round the earth, are not the men to deny that a science which exceeds its limits falls into error.
Newman, Idea of a University
"One of the severest tests of the scientific mind is to know the limits of the legitimate application of the scientific method."
J. C. Maxwell, The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell
"Those who devote their lives to the purpose of proving that there is no purpose, constitute an interesting subject for study."
A. N. Whitehead The Function of Reason
"Science cannot do a very large number of things, and to assume that science may find a technical solution to all problems is the road to disaster."
Polykarp Kusch, a Nobel-laureate physicist, Address to the Pulitzer Prize jurors, Columbia University, 1961, in New York Herald Tribune, April 2, 1961, sec. 2, p. 3. col. 5.
"History is philosophy teaching by examples." A phrase of Thucydides, recalled by Dionysus of Halicarnassus in his Ars rhetorica, XI, 2.
Some reference texts
For our own direction and tutelage, and as guide to our faculty and students:
1. John Henry Cardinal Newman.
The Idea of a University
University Sketches
See here for on-line versions.
2. Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B.
Chesterton a Seer of Science (in print)
This relatively small book examines the work of GKC as it deals with Science. It is an introduction and just four "Interpreter of Science", "Antagonist of Scientism", "Critic of Evolutionism", "Champion of the Universe". Its power is that it is the work of a theologian and historian of science, studying the writing of a prolific English man of letters - a bridge if there ever was one.
Science and Creation (rare; we may expect it to be reprinted in "near future")
This is SLJ's study of the history of science: the first six chapters examine the great ancient cultures (India, China, Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Aztec/Inca) and shows how each failed to establish viable science. The seventh is on the Jews, and is most remarkable; the eighth on early Christianity and the ninth on medieval Islam lead to the great tenth on the foundation of Science in the Sorbonne in the 1300s by Buridan and Oresme, as brought to light by Pierre Duhem.
SLJ has many other works of use to us; these two are good starting points until we have time to write a suitable "intro to Jaki" book.
(SLJ works available from Real View Books; the GKC book also from ACS.
2. Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth is a "children's book" but well suited to our work... once you read it (or re-read it) you will grasp why.
Contrary to expectations I don't include a GKC title since I have mentioned SLJ's book on him; there are references to most of his works, which is sufficient for our purposes here.
There was another title Sean mentioned, which I have forgotten.
Here are a few others we will not want to lose sight of:
Kneller: Christianity and the Makers of Modern Science (SLJ wrote an intro to the Real View Books reprint of this) It reviews many Christian scientists of the 1800s.
Walsh: The Popes and Science He was a physician, and focusses on the medical aspects, but includes other details; he also has some other titles which may be worthwhile.
1. John Henry Cardinal Newman.
The Idea of a University
University Sketches
See here for on-line versions.
2. Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B.
Chesterton a Seer of Science (in print)
This relatively small book examines the work of GKC as it deals with Science. It is an introduction and just four "Interpreter of Science", "Antagonist of Scientism", "Critic of Evolutionism", "Champion of the Universe". Its power is that it is the work of a theologian and historian of science, studying the writing of a prolific English man of letters - a bridge if there ever was one.
Science and Creation (rare; we may expect it to be reprinted in "near future")
This is SLJ's study of the history of science: the first six chapters examine the great ancient cultures (India, China, Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Aztec/Inca) and shows how each failed to establish viable science. The seventh is on the Jews, and is most remarkable; the eighth on early Christianity and the ninth on medieval Islam lead to the great tenth on the foundation of Science in the Sorbonne in the 1300s by Buridan and Oresme, as brought to light by Pierre Duhem.
SLJ has many other works of use to us; these two are good starting points until we have time to write a suitable "intro to Jaki" book.
(SLJ works available from Real View Books; the GKC book also from ACS.
2. Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth is a "children's book" but well suited to our work... once you read it (or re-read it) you will grasp why.
Contrary to expectations I don't include a GKC title since I have mentioned SLJ's book on him; there are references to most of his works, which is sufficient for our purposes here.
There was another title Sean mentioned, which I have forgotten.
Here are a few others we will not want to lose sight of:
Kneller: Christianity and the Makers of Modern Science (SLJ wrote an intro to the Real View Books reprint of this) It reviews many Christian scientists of the 1800s.
Walsh: The Popes and Science He was a physician, and focusses on the medical aspects, but includes other details; he also has some other titles which may be worthwhile.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Mission Statement (Prototype)
A school for the liberal study of the sciences, by which we mean, a study of the sciences with regards to philosophy, history, culture, and of these things in regards to the sciences and of the sciences as regards themselves, for the cultivation of the intellect and the pursuit of truth.
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