SDG Detail

A Philosophical History of Energy

Undergraduate course

Project description

Philosophic and historical approach to conceptions of energy through the 19th century. Relation of long standing scientific and philosophic problems in the field of energy to 21st-century debates. Topics include the development of thermodynamics and kinetic theories, the foundation of the scientific project, the classical view of energy, and the harnessing of nature. Authors include Bacon, Boltzmann, Carnot, Compte, Descartes, Gibbs, Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Peirce, Whitehead, and Maxwell. Key texts and controversies form topics of weekly writing assignments and term papers.