TEACHING THE HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF CAUSE

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TEACHING THE HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF CAUSE

• George MacDonald Ross
• Director, PRS Subject Centre
• BSHP conference, York, 27th March 2008

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Programme

• Presentation on the problems (me)
• Discussion of solutions (all of us)

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Primary texts

• Strong tradition in the UK of teaching through
  primary texts
• Students learn through interpreting texts
  themselves, not by being told philosophers views
  second-hand
• Not true of A-level which adds to problems at
  university

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Two problems

• Texts in foreign languages
• Texts in period English (i.e. from when
  philosophy began to be written in English, in
  C16)

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Texts in foreign languages

• We do not expect undergraduates to read foreign
  languages
• Therefore texts must be in translation
• Interestingly, Kemp Smith translates Kants
  German, but not his Latin into English

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Texts in foreign languages

• Standard problem of untranslatability
• Modern English obscures conceptual change
• E.g. narrowed scope of cause leave it as it
  is, even if it reads oddly?
• Michael Scarpitti use period English

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Period English

• Unfair contrast between e.g. Hobbes in period
  English and Descartes in modern English
• Students have little experience of period
  English, and cant be expected to make sense of
  it without help

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Period English

• the light of humane minds is perspicuous words,
  but by exact definitions first snuffed (Hobbes,
  Leviathan 5)
• Achilles and the snaple (Short Tract - even the
  OED doesnt know that one)

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Period English

• Students might simply not understand at all
• Or they might misunderstand because they dont
  know language has changed
• E.g. intuition used to mean the same as Kants
  Anschauung, but not in modern English

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Period English

• One solution translate into modern English
  (Bennett and myself)
• Another solution a copious commentary
• Or a mixture of both

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Period English

• Both have problems
• Academics and publishers hate translations from
  period to modern English
• Translating is laborious
• Commentaries have to be written
• Difficult to give enough help for students to
  understand, without doing the interpretative work
  for them

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Thank you for participating

• George MacDonald Ross
• Department of Philosophy, University of
  Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
• g.m.ross_at_leeds.ac.uk
• http//prs.heacademy.ac.uk