Professor: Andrei Rodin
Semester: Spring 2024 (January 29  – May 21)
Course Level: 300
Subject: PHIL
Number of Bard Credits: 4
Course Title: How Did Math Begin to Rule? Science from Historical and Philosophical Perspectives
Max Enrollment: 22
Schedule: Tue Thu 5:50 – 7:10 PM Berlin (UTC+2)
Distribution Area: Meaning, Being, Value
Core module V (BCB): Early Modern Science
Cross-Listing(s): no
Language of Instruction: English

The course explores the role of Mathematics in Sciences, Engineering and practical life from historical and epistemological perspectives. A special emphasis is made on the emergence of Modern mathematically-laden science and experimental methods in the 16th and 17th centuries. The relevance of these historical conceptual developments in today’s science and technology is stressed and explained. The course aims at showing how the major philosophical controversies about science, mathematics and their roles in the society developed during the Early Modern period remain instrumental in today’s debates about data-driven research, machine learning, mathematical biology and some other hot scientific and technological topics. The course has no prerequisites and can be used as a historical introduction to a core course in Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mathematics and Philosophy of Engineering.