The Scientific Self: Evaluation

The evaluation will take place during the semester on the basis of three written assignments:

1. A portrait of a scientist

You are required to select a seventeenth century ‘scientist’ (natural philosopher) and assemble a 4 pages presentation of his life and work. You need to read at least:

a. a standard biography of your character (NOT Wikipedia or internet-source)
b. two encyclopedia articles on his work/personality (NOT Wikipedia)
c. one of his works (full)
d. two papers/articles on a certain aspect of his work


After submitting the paper presentation you will be required to give a slide/seminar presentation of your character. Both the paper presentation and the ppt. presentation will be uploaded on the discussion group.

How to write the presentation: try to find out who she/he was and what she/he did; why was his work important for the emergence/advancement of science/philosophy? Whose contemporary he/she was? What kind of scientific contacts/philosophical connections he/she had? Was she a professional scientist? What else? (social class, major profession, connections, source of income….). What else did he/she write? Which of his works survived? Who read them and why?

And, most important of all: what kind of inheritance did we receive from your character? Why should we care today about him or his works?

Note: Some of the characters of our story are not only scientists. However, in your presentation you should concentrate on the scientific aspects of their activities, trying to show in what way these were important and how are they related with other activities/aspects of their personality.

Deadline for the 4 pages presentation of a scientist (to be sent through email and uploaded on the group): 23rd March


2. A scientific/philosophical problem of the seventeenth century: the issue at stake, people involved, sides, works involved, how did it develop, what was the outcome

A four-pages presentation of the emergence of a scientific/philosophical problem and the disputations surrounding it based on:

a. at least one full-account of the problem (book/books on the subject)
b. at least 2 papers/articles/talks discussing different aspects of the problem

Before choosing your topic we need to discuss. We will select the bibliography after/during this discussion.

Deadline for selecting the topic and having the preliminary discussion with me: 23 March
Deadline for handing in the written material: 11th of May

3. A two pages abstract of a paper for the summer seminar at Bran plus a complete application file for the Princeton/Bucharest seminar in early modern philosophy

Deadline: 1st of May