The aim of this course will be to explore how dialogue as a genre and a principal was and still is a critical tool not just for productively communicating scientific knowledge but also for developing and creating it.
In the first part of the class, we will look at a range of ancient, medieval, and early modern scientific dialogues to understand better how and why premodern authors employed the genre to advance and share their opinions even as the nature of science changed dramatically over these periods.
In the second part, we will explore scholarly works on the institutional, intellectual, and technological changes from the seventeenth century onwards that led to the dialogue falling by the wayside as a genre of scientific writing. We will look at the principles and practices that have emerged in its place and to what degree they have succeeded or not in creating authentic dialogue. We will also consider how the dialogue as a genre continued to thrive in other disciplines outside of the sciences. In short, this course will trace the (sometimes bumpy) journey of dialogue from page to principle.
One of the goals of this course will be to show students how “science” as we understand it today emerged from the much broader scientia, which in the premodern world simply meant knowledge. In accordance with this aim, we will look at how authors used dialogues to communicate all kinds of knowledge and opinions, ranging from religion and politics to social convention. In other words, this course will help students understand how scientific communication, both early modern and modern, originated from a much wider set of rhetorical and philosophical practices.
View the syllabus here.