Religion, Science and Modern Knowledge

In this course we will explore how “religion” and “science” have helped define what counts as modern knowledge. We will examine how claims about truth, evidence, method, and objectivity are produced in specific intellectual, political, and institutional contexts, and how they are stabilized through narratives of conflict, separation, and complexity. Topics include the history of the “conflict thesis,” the rise of quantification in early modern European science, the relationship between science and the secular state, the legacy of Christian, Islamic, and Atheistic thought in scientific practice, and entanglements between modern science with colonialism. Thinkers such as Bruno Latour, Thomas Kuhn, and Mary-Jane Rubenstein will guide broader questions about the contingency of scientific practice and its religious, epistemological, and ontological stakes.