HISTORY 60

Department of History
University of California, Irvine
Instructor:    Dr. Barbara J. Becker
 

Week 1.  Likely Stories

The "Way of Truth" vs. the "Way of Seeming"

 
Supplementary readings for Week 1's lectures include:
  • an excerpt from a provocative essay by Argentinian author, Jorge Luis Borges, on language's role in shaping the boundaries of human thought-space;
  • an essay on the pre-Socratic philosophers, including some fragments and commentaries to give you a sense of what evidence historians have used to draw their conclusions about these early thinkers;
  • an adapted excerpt from Plato's Timaeus; and
  • a schematic depiction of the cycle of paradigm shifts in scientific communities based on Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Late in his life, Plato (428-348 BCE) imagined a conversation among four intellectually curious friends.  The participants included his teacher, Socrates (470-399 BCE); his great-grandfather, Critias; a visiting soldier-statesman, Hermocrates, and a fictional philosopher, Timaeus, who does most of the talking.  The topic of discussion?  Nothing less than the origin, structure, and nature of the world.

Before launching into his lengthy soliloquy, Timaeus cautions his listeners on the limits of human knowledge:

Don't ... be surprised, Socrates, if on many matters concerning the gods and the whole world of change we are unable in every respect and on every occasion to render consistent and accurate account.  You must be satisfied if our account is as likely as any, remembering that both I and you who are sitting in judgment on it are merely human, and should not look for anything more than a likely story on such matters.
The word "science" derives from the Latin word scire, which means "to know."  What do we know about the natural world?  How do we come to know it?  And, when--if ever--can we be confident that our "knowledge" of how the world works is something more than just another "likely story"?
 
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Weekly Readings
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