COURSE DESCRIPTION
Guided by the epistemological questions of what we know, how we know it, and how we judge. Students will investigate and test competing theories of knowledge.
Most history courses teach what happened. Historians deduce the factors—usually economic, sociological, political, and technological—that caused some consequence and the outcome is sometimes viewed from the perfection of hindsight as an inevitable process. Often missing from scholarly studies is the importance of individual actions and decisions. This course presumes that individuals play a significant role in history; it asserts that broader economic and social forces place constraints on what individuals may do, but that those forces do not determine human events. People do.
”Reacting” seeks to replicate the historical context of a particular past, with all its causal forces: economic, sociological, political, and otherwise. But it also provides students with the opportunity to explore counterfactual issues of individual agency: Would a different constellation of leaders in ancient Athens have effectively resisted the rise of Athenian democracy? Would a different set of arguments have prevented the execution of King Louis XVI in revolutionary France? Throughout the course, the vital significance of individual intervention is made apparent and all participants should be prepared to make significant contributions to the causes to which they are attached. This is not a course for the faint-hearted. Application, vigor, intellectual curiosity and flexibility are all vital attributes for those concerned.