18th Century Natural Philosophy and 20th Century America

Six lecture - demonstration - discussion presentations on 18th century natural philosophy, its role in the liberal arts education of the time, and the need for a similar mutual understanding between the sciences and the humanities today.
Each session featured a lecture and slide presentation by an historian, followed by demonstrations conducted by a physicist who recreated electrical experiments of the 18th century designed to illustrate the laws of the Newtonian universe and to awaken curiosity among students. The program stressed the humanistic and interdisciplinary nature of natural philosophy, emphasizing its connections
with the classics, rhetoric, philosophy, and logic. At the conclusion of each lecture-demonstration, the team of scholars led discussions with the audience
on the question of whether or not there is a place for natural philosophy in American higher education today. An informative brochure was distributed to members of each audience and a videotape of the program will be filmed for
broadcast over a local public television station. Although some of the sessions suffered from limited publicity or poor scheduling, the project stimulated sufficient interest to be given several times in addition to the six presentations committed under the grant.