Truth and Faith. Perspectives on Religion and Science XVI

Truth and Faith. Perspectives on
Religion and Science, 16th -20th century.
Research Seminar
Prof. S. Smith and Prof. A. Romano
Monday, 5-7pm.
Sala Europa
The seminar is an open-ended exploration of how people from the early-modern period through to the
twentieth century thought about knowledge. Themes of the seminar include: how knowledge was viewed
and constructed before the invention of modern ‘science’; the beliefs and practices that serve to construct
different domains of knowledge; the ways in which a notion such as ‘superstition’ was used by defenders
of orthodoxy to police the bounds of acceptable knowledge; how the Enlightenment came to valorise
‘reason’; how the modern categories of ‘religion’ and ‘science’ came to be constructed, the shifting
boundaries between the two have been understood (‘science’ and ‘religion’ as in conflict, or in harmony,
or as permanently entangled etc); how superstition shifted from denoting ‘bad religion’ to ‘bad science’;
how major thinkers such as Marx and Weber have conceived the relationships between knowledge and
social change.
Researchers from 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year are welcome. They are expected to introduce and discuss the
following readings.
Monday, October 11th
Introduction
Popular culture in early modern Europe
Readings:
- Michel de Certeau, « La formalité des pratiques : Du système religieux à l’éthique des Lumières (XVIeXVIIIe siècle) », dans L’écriture de l’histoire, ***
(There is an English translation in The Writing of History 147-206.)
- S. Clark, “The rational witchfinder: conscience, demonological naturalism and popular superstition”, in
Science, culture and popular belief in Renaissance Europe, S. Pumfrey, P. Rossi and M. Slawinski ed., Manchester
University Press, 1991, p. 222-248.
- Jacques Revel, « L’envers des Lumières », Enquête, Varia, 1993, [En ligne], mis en ligne le 24 février 2006.
URL : http://enquete.revues.org/document170.html. Consulté le 13 juillet 2010
Monday, October 18th
What is superstition?
Readings:
- S. A. Smith ‘Introduction’ in S. A. Smith and Alan Knight eds., The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and
Present, (Oxford University Press, 2008). 7-55
- Voltaire, ‘Superstition’, Dictionnaire philosophique http://www.voltaireintegral.com/Html/20/superstition.htm (English translation:
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volsuper.html).
Monday, October 25th
‘Science’ and ‘Religion’: constructing the boundaries
- Ludovico Geymonat (1965), Galileo Galilei, A biography and inquiry into his philosophy and science, translation
of the 1957 Italian edition, with notes and appendix by Stillman Drake, McGraw-Hill, chap. 8, p. 136-187.
- Peter Harrison, “The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science”, Science & Christian Belief, Vol 18,
No. 2, p. 115-132.
Monday, November 8th
The rise of comparative religions in the European Enlightenment and its critic
Readings:
- Joseph François Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages amériquains, compares aux moeurs des premiers temps, Paris, 1724.
In google books
Wilfrid Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (orig. 1962), introduction and chapter 1.
- Jonathan Z. Smith, "Religion, Religions, Religious," in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark C.
Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 275-8
- Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, London, 1993, p. p. 27-82.
Monday, November 15th
Belief, faith and the people: the Marxist perspective
Readings:
- Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
- Antonio Gramsci, ‘The Concept of ‘National-Popular’ and ‘Observations on Folklore’ in David Forgacs
and Geoffrey Nowell Smith eds., A. Gramsci, Selections fromCultural Writings, CUP, 1985, p. 188-193-306312.
Monday, November 22nd
Max Weber and the sociology of religions
Readings:
- Max Weber, Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism chs.1, 2, 4 (on Calvinism)
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber_texts.html
- Robert K. Merton, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England, Osiris,
1938
http://www.jstor.org/stable/301533?cookieSet=1, chap. 5 and 6.
- Charles Webster, The great instauration: science, medicine, and reform, 1626-1660, London, Duckworth, 1975,
p. 000
Monday, November 29th
Truth and Proof
Readings:
- D. Bloor, Knowledge and social imagery, The University of Chicago Press, 1976, chap. 2
- S. Shapin, A social history of truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, Chicago University Press,
1994
- C. Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms (1976). English translation, 1980, sections 10-14, 24-28.
Monday, December 6th
The Chinese Rites Controversy
Readings
- 1659 Instructions to Mgr François Pollu and Mgr Lambert de la Motte by the Propaganda Fide, in
Missions étrangères de Paris. 350 ans au service du Christ 2008 Editeurs Malesherbes Publications, Paris
- Pope Clement XI, ‘Ex illa die’, in China in Transition, 1517-1911, Dan. J. Li, trans. (New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1969), pp. 22-24.
David E. Mungello ed., The Chinese Rites Controversy: its History and Meaning (Nettertai: Steyler Verlag, 1994),
chap. By J. Spence and E. Zürcher.
Monday, December, 13th
Anthropological approaches
- Claude Lévy-Strauss, The Savage Mind, chapter 1, ‘The Science of the Concrete’
- Ernesto di Martino, La Terra Del Rimorso:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exFVk8jhSlI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xPQOLZZuss