This ten week course will examine the development of humanist ideas and the changing
notion of progress from the Scientific Revolution through to the present.
Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Kepler and Newton, who shunned the
authority of the past and established the scientific method will be studied
along with Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke, Voltaire and Condorcet who
elevated humanity and established the notion of progress. Positivism will be
examined, focusing on how the ideas of social and technological progress were
divorced. The work of Darwin and Mendel, which placed humanity firmly in
nature once and for all, will be investigated and its consequences
discussed. The last part of the course will consist of a study of the 20th Century, moving from modernist thought and modern humanism through to Postmodernism, the end of history and the rise of the Greens. Parallels between theories developed across disciplines and reasons for their similarities will be investigated.
