June 2, 2009
Week 1: The Question in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Topics covered: Worlds Unseen; Democritus and the Epicureans; Lucretius and Aristotle; Thomas Aquinas, Proposition 34 and the Politics of Change; The Future King’s Tutor and Solar Beings
Synopsis: The first session introduces the extraterrestrial life debate in Greek and Roman contexts, explaining what ancient philosophers meant by world from Epicurean and Aristotelian viewpoints. Additional topics include atomism, the views of Thomas Aquinas, the Christian condemnation of Aristotle’s philosophy in 1277, the politically sensitive writings of Oresme, tutor to the future Charles V of France, and Cusanus, a theologian, philosopher, and mathematician who influenced Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, and Kepler.
Assigned readings: Chapter 1, “The Debate in Antiquity,” and Chapter 2, “From Augustine to the Fifteenth Century” (Crowe 2008:3-34). Crowe’s text includes primary source excerpts from these works: Titus Lucretius Carus, On the Nature of the Universe, trans. and introduced by R.E. Latham (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1975). Aristotle, On the Heavens, trans. by J.L. Stocks, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941). Thomas Aquinas, Part 1, Question 47, Article 3, in Summa Theologica, from Anton C. Pegin, ed., Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (New York, Random House, 1945). Nicole Oresme, Le livre du ciel et du monde, ed. Albert D. Menut and Alexander J. Denomy, trans. Albert Menut (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968). Nicholas of Cusa, Of Learned Ignorance, trans. Germain Heron (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954).
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