zoom session. the empires

31 Março 2020, 12:00 • Adelaide Victória Pereira Grandela Meira Serras

The empires and the building of imperial ideology.

1.       The British Empire:
a) The American colonies: their foundation due to varied political and/or religious differendoes with the then current powers. 

The first colonies. The voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers to Plymouth.  The chartered colonies and their adopted political systems: from Virginia Puritanical rule to democratic Pennsylvania. 

2.       Adam Smith’s position agaisnt the dominant enthusiasm on the building of the modern empires. Approach of chapter “of the Motives for establishing new Colonies”, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776. Anthology, pp. 177-183.

zoom session: main philosophical schools

26 Março 2020, 12:00 • Adelaide Victória Pereira Grandela Meira Serras

Kant’s contribution to the debate on knowledge, Critique of Pure Reason (1781). 

Kant's idealistic theory: the relationship between the transcendental world of ideas as the sphere of true knowledge and the imanent, material world of phenomena. The role of sensations, understanding and reason in order to reach. the importance of true, a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. 

            

Kant's moral theory in Critique of Practical Reason (1788). Endogeneous ethics: the categorical imperative.

             Approach to his essay “What is Enlightenment”, Anthology, pp. 40-42.

 Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/.

zoom session: Main philosophical schools

24 Março 2020, 12:00 • Adelaide Victória Pereira Grandela Meira Serras

Rationalism

Descartes’s theory of knowledge.t Descartes’ notion of the human ability to reach true knowledge. 

The origin of knowledge, both divine and human. The essential role and power of human reason: "Cogito ergo sum" [I think, therefore I am]. The classification of ideas: innate ideas, adventitious ideas, and  factitious ideas.

The importance of innate or a priori ideas and the relationship between the agent of knowledge and the object of knowledge.

Discourse on Method: the phases of knowledge and the mental operations.

Empiricism.

John Locke’s theory of tabula rasa. The denial of innate ideas. The role of sensations as the first contact between the human agent of knowledge and the object. The role of reason in the organisation and classification of the received data.

Read Anthology, pp.157- 159;

Reference to David Hume’s empiricist approach. his denial of the cause and effect scientific basis. Read Anthology, pp. 159- 161.

Recommended study source:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/.

 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/.

 

zoom session The  Dissemination of knowledge

19 Março 2020, 12:00 • Adelaide Victória Pereira Grandela Meira Serras

The scientific societies as a means of developing and disseminating knowledge.Comparative analysis between the Royal Society of London and the Académie des Sciences in France. The relationship between political power and the advancement of knowledge. Reference to Francis Bacon's optimistic view in his New Atlantis in contrast with Jonathan Swift's satirical and thus critical perspective in "Voyage to Laputa", Gulliver's Travels. Reference to other European scientific societies.

     

Please, search data on the rise of scientific societies, for instance,

Porter, Roy, ed. 2003. The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/17th-century-society-transformed-science

Knowledge as a main cultural factor. Zoom session.

17 Março 2020, 12:00 • Adelaide Victória Pereira Grandela Meira Serras

The rising of scientific knowledge

The Scientific Revolution.

The impact of Galileo Galilei 's astronomical descoveries. The gradual acceptance of heliocentrism. 

The new method based on observation and experiments, and mathematical calculation.

Newton's contribution to the new scientific paradigm. The laws of physics.

Francis Bacon's role on the dissemination of the experimental method. Approach to his utopia, New Atlantis.

The relevance of Diderot and D’ Alembert, Encyclopedia in the  collection of all the available information in every field of knowledge.

1.       Please, read on Newton (Anthology, pp. 155-156); Diderot and D’ Alembert, Encyclopedia (pp.154-155, 161);