Wu Laoshi’s grand plan for building the department is proceeding smoothly; the formal unveiling is probably not far off, and he has already begun to contemplate questions like course design for the next stage. I myself also have many ideas about teaching, and this is precisely why I hoped to take a university post rather than go to a research institute.
I would be more than happy to teach undergraduate courses, especially at top universities like Peking University and Tsinghua, where the undergraduate student pool is the strongest. Undergraduates are more malleable and more open to new knowledge, and it is more rewarding to teach them. As for graduate students in history of science, philosophy of science, and philosophy of technology, most of them also come to the field from elsewhere, so in terms of disciplinary foundation they are not much stronger than ordinary undergraduates. That is why, in general, the basic courses I design will be aimed at undergraduates. In fact, most of the courses I imagine can in principle combine undergraduates and graduate students in the same class. The same course can have different requirements for undergraduates and graduate students: for example, undergraduates may mainly listen to lectures and only be required to read selected excerpts of the assigned readings, while graduate students are expected to study more proactively, read more material, and write papers to a higher standard. If a course is offered in the model of “large lecture + small-group discussion,” then graduate students can take the course and also serve as teaching assistants, leading the small-group discussions. If there is no small-group component, undergraduates can simply attend the lectures, while graduate students must still take on additional discussion tasks outside class.
The first course I would like to offer is a “General History of Technology,” linked to the writing of *A General History of Technology* (it is also possible that I will offer the course after I finish writing it, or that I will finish writing it after I have taught the course). This course is exploratory in nature; I do not expect it to be a large one, and a dozen or so students taking it as an elective would be perfectly sufficient.
Second comes a “General History of Science.” This is Wu Laoshi’s signature course, and I could never讲 it better than Wu Laoshi; the key point is that I am not as handsome as he is, so this signature course will always have to be led by him. Still, my idea is that in addition to an introductory version of general history of science, one could also offer a series of advanced courses whose content remains within the scope of general history of science, but with extra length and extra substance.
My idea is to split a one-semester “General History of Science” into four semesters and four courses, including:
- Ancient History of Science
- History of the Scientific Revolution
- 20th-Century History of Science
- History of Science in China
The Ancient History of Science would run from the ancient civilizations to the late Middle Ages, with a special focus on Greece and the Middle Ages. In Wu Laoshi’s general history of science course, the Greek period, including Hellenistic science, gets only two class meetings in total; for Wu Laoshi, who cannot say a sentence without invoking Greece, this is utterly disproportionate. In an extended, enriched version of the course, the Greek section could be allotted 6–8 class meetings, which would be much more satisfying. As for content, there would of course be no shortage: pre-Socratic natural philosophy, Plato, and Aristotle can all be developed at length, and *Timaeus* and *Physics* can both be read with real force. As for the tedious arguments of medieval scholastic philosophy and the causes and consequences of the “nominalist” movement, all those crucial turning points that in the past could only be brushed past in a few sentences, they could all be unfolded carefully over the course of a full class period. Just thinking about it already feels wonderfully satisfying. In this part of the course, one could embed basic training in Western philosophy (Plato and Aristotle), along with some elementary knowledge of classics and theology.
The History of the Scientific Revolution would begin with the Renaissance and include multiple faces such as the mathematical tradition, the occult tradition, and the Baconian scientific tradition, finally carrying the story through the electrical revolution and evolution theory of the 18th and 19th centuries. Starting from the issue of “modernity,” the Scientific Revolution is undoubtedly the focal point of attention. On the one hand, there is a great deal of important content here, and many different threads; everything is tangled together. Just Newton alone could easily take two or three class meetings, so there would definitely be no shortage of material. In this stage, one could also embed teaching in historiography, because the “Scientific Revolution” has always been a major point of contention among different historiographical approaches. Cohen’s *A Historiographical Study of the Scientific Revolution* is already a ready-made reference book, and Kuhn’s *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions* could also be given an entire class period on its own.
The 20th-Century History of Science could be given a whole semester by itself. In Wu Laoshi’s course, this part probably gets only one class meeting, but in fact, given the sheer explosion of knowledge in the age of Big Science, there is far too much here to talk about. Relativity, quantum mechanics, computers, genetic technology, ecology, nonlinear science, and so on—new scientific fields keep emerging without end. The reason we do not attach much importance to this part is that its “historical” character is relatively weak; much of it is closer to popular science than to history, because many of these scientific achievements still remain in today’s textbooks. To make contemporary science historical is not easy. In my design, there are two ways to highlight the historicity of contemporary science. One is through ancient-modern comparison, for example relativity and quantum mechanics, emphasizing the conflict between their intellectual content and classical mechanics, and interpreting them in the sense of what McLellan called “neo-Aristotelianism.” The second is to embed an STS (science, technology, and society) dimension, tracing the production process of new knowledge from the perspectives of sociology, anthropology, and so on. In short, this part of history must avoid being treated as the popularization of “ready-made knowledge”; on the contrary, it should deconstruct the very ready-made character of textbook knowledge.
Finally, I would set aside a separate “History of Science in China” course. Although we place greater emphasis on Western history of science, that does not mean we abandon the history of science in China. On the contrary, we should pay even more attention to “the history of science in China” than others do. In particular, we should not be satisfied with telling some muddled “history of Chinese science and technology,” but should talk about “history of science.” To this day, no one has yet written a general history of science in China, because it cannot quite be made to cohere. But it is certainly possible to offer a course, pieced together from multiple loosely connected topics.
In addition to the series on general history of science, I would also be happy to offer courses such as an Introduction to Philosophy of Science and an Introduction to Philosophy of Technology. I also have some of my own ideas about an “Introduction to Philosophy of Science.” First of all, the main line of “philosophy of science” is, after all, the Anglo-American analytic tradition, and this must be respected; even if I am not fond of Popper at all, he would still have to be covered in the course. But I do not want to confine “philosophy of science” within the analytic-philosophy framework. First, I want to begin with Kant (if Plato and Aristotle are not included in the history of science course, then start with Plato), though of course unlike analytic philosophers who reduce Kant’s entire philosophy to the sentence “existence is not a predicate,” I would go deeper into “transcendental philosophy.” I do not plan to bring both Husserl and Heidegger into the category of philosophy of science, but Kant must be reinterpreted: Kantian philosophy contains the basic prejudices of later analytic philosophy, but it also contains different possibilities.
Finally, I also hope to offer courses dedicated to reading groups: the three main members of the weekly reading group I currently lead are all going to Tsinghua, and it would be better to preserve the tradition of this reading group institutionally. I hope to imitate the format of Wu Laoshi’s discussion seminar and open two rolling courses—call them whatever you like; in substance, they are reading groups, and the assessment is by reading reports and papers.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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