History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Courses For Distribution Requirement purposes, some HPS courses are cross-listed; check individual course descriptions. |
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HPS100H1 An investigation of some pivotal periods in the history of science with an emphasis on the influences of philosophy on the scientists of the period, and the philosophical and social implications of the scientific knowledge, theory and methodology that emerged. HPS201H1 Technology and its place in our culture from Antiquity to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. Relations between technology and science, religion, the arts, social institutions, and political beliefs. HPS202H1 A survey of technical change and its social implications from the Industrial Revolution to the present. HPS210H1 Case studies in the history of science from antiquity to 1800, including the revolutionary work of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Linnaeus, Lavoisier, and Herschel. The course is designed to be accessible to science students and non-scientists alike. HPS211H1 Case studies in the history of science from 1800 to 2000, including Volta, Lyell, Darwin, Mendel, Einstein, Schrödinger, Watson, and Crick. The course is designed to be accessible to science students and non-scientists alike. HPS250H1 This course introduces and explores central issues in the philosophy of science, including scientific inference, method, and explanation. Topics may include underdetermination, realism and empiricism, and laws of nature. HPS299Y1 Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. See page 47 for details. HPS300H1 Topics vary year to year. HPS306H1 An examination of the tools of war in the Western world from the Middle Ages to World War II, including not only weapons but the means of transportation, communication, and organization used in violent conflict. The effects of war on the development of science and technology. HPS307H1 The history of human control of various sources of energy, including technical developments, scientific theories, and impact on culture and society. Recent debates on fossil fuel and nuclear power examined in historical context. HPS311H1 Topics in the history of physics from antiquity to the 20th century, including Aristotelian physics, Galileo, Descartes, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, relativity, quantum physics, and particle physics. The development of theories in their intellectual and cultural contexts. HPS312H1 The emergence of the modern discipline of chemistry from 1785 to 1939. Seminar discussions focus on key papers of important Historical analysis of the interplay between theory and practice, and of the dynamics of scientific communities HPS313H1 A history of the science and technology of electricity in the 19th and 20th centuries in its social, economic, and cultural context. HPS318H1 A survey of medical theory and practice from Antiquity to the Renaissance, with emphasis on medicine’s social, cultural and political setting. HPS319H1 A survey of medical theory and practice from the 17th century to the modern welfare state, with emphasis on medicine’s social, cultural and political setting. HPS322H1 A survey of the history of and recent developments in the scientific study of complex systems and emergent order. There will be particular emphasis on the biologicaland cognitive sciences. Topics covered my include: mechanism and teleology in the history of science, 19th and 20th century emergentism, complex systems dynamics, order and adaptiveness, self-organisation in biology and congitive development. HPS324H1 Historical examination of the interactions of science (both as body of knowledge and as enterprise) with ideological, political and social issues. The impact of science; attacks on and critiques of scientific expertise as background to contemporary conflicts. Subjects may vary according to students’ interests. HPS326H1 From its origins in the Renaissance, modern science has developed in the context of European religious beliefs and institutions. Although cases of conflict like Galileo or the “Monkey Trial” are famous, more common are cases of scientists like Newton or Faraday whose religious convictions were crucial to their scientific success. HPS343H1 Computing technology from Chaldean astronomy to the advent of British and U.S. mass production of electronic mainframes in 1953. Emphasis will be on uses and users, especially on great figures from Babbage through von Neumann, but hardware descriptions will also be featured. HPS344H1 Covers the period from mass production in 1953 to the emergence of minicomputers around 1969. Beginnings of software and services industries, networking, university computer science. Emphasis on international developments. HPS350H1 An investigation into the nature and development of scientific knowledge, inspired by Kuhn’s notion of revolutions. Topics may include incommensurability, the rationality of theory choice, and social constructivism. HPS352H1 This course explores central developments, ongoing controversies, and major figures in the social sciences: sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, and the behavioral sciences. It concentrates on such prominent individuals as: Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Franz Boas, Sigmund Freud, and Gunnar Myrdal. HPS353H1 An examination of major ideas about biological evolution from the 18th century to the 1930’s and of their impact on scientific and social thought. Topics include the diversity of life and its classification, the adaptation of organisms to their environment, Wallace’s and Darwin’s views on evolution by natural selection, sexual selection, inheritance from Mendel to T.H. Morgan, eugenics, and the implications of evolution for religion, gender roles, and the organization of society. HPS355H1 An examination of ideas about biological evolution from the 1930’s to the present. Topics include the Modern Synthesis, population genetics, the concept of biological species, ecology, sociobiology, and creationism. PHL355H1 See “Philosophy” HPS360H1 Conceptions of the universe since 1800 with attention to observational sources of changing ideas. History of large telescopes, stellar spectroscopy and radio astronomy. Relativistic conceptions of space and time, models of stellar evolution, discovery of extra-galactic nebulae, Hubble red-shift and microwave background radiation. Philosophical and religious implications are examined. HPS375H1 First part of a series on the history of science and technology in the Islamic world. History of the exact sciences, including mathematics, astronomy, optics, and cartography. HPS376H1 Second part of a series on the history of science and technology in the Islamic world. History of biological and life sciences, including history of medicine, botany, agriculture, and alchemy. HPS390H1 A survey of ancient, medieval, and early modern mathematics with emphasis on historical issues. (Offered in alternate years) HPS391H1 A survey of the development of mathematics from 1700 to the present with emphasis on historical issues. (Offered in alternate years) HPS410H1 An historical survey from pre-Greek to the present. Various themes are emphasized year to year, to show mathematics as changing and evolving. A student could expect to gain an historical overview as well as a sense of the unity of the mathematical sciences. HPS412H1 Advanced level survey of biological science from ancient Greece to the 20th century emphasizing primary sources analyses. HPS427H1 The development of chemistry from the Chemical Revolution of Lavoisier to the periodic table of Mendeleev: electro-chemistry, the rise of organic chemistry, classification, valency, structural chemistry. HPS430H1 An advanced survey of the history of technology from Antiquity to the Industrial Revolution. HIS431H1 An advanced survey of the history of technology from the Industrial Revolution to modern times. HPS495Y1 A reading and research project in some aspect of history of science and technology, supervised by a faculty member. Projects must be approved by the Institute and are subject to availability of a faculty supervisor. HPS496H1/497H1 A reading and research project in some aspect of the social, cultural or intellectual history of science and technology, supervised by a faculty member. Projects must be approved by the Institute by the previous June for a Fall course or by November for a Spring course, and are subject to availability of a faculty supervisor. HPS498H1/499H1 A reading and research project in some aspect of the development of scientific theory or practice, supervised by a faculty member. Projects must be approved by the Institute by the previous June for a Fall course or by November for a Spring course, and are subject to availability of a faculty supervisor. |
Prerequisite: At least one CSC/PHY or Electrical Engineering (ECE) course.