Syllabus
After a general introduction and presentation of some of the key background philosophical and theological motives of the contemporary astronautics and astronoetics, including the basic summary of the historical development of the „belief“ in E.T.I., the course will introduce and summarize main arguments and authors that helped to implement and elaborate the idea of E.T.I. into and within the modern physics: Kepler, Descartes, More, Newton, Boyle, Bentley, Derham, Wright, Kant or Herschel. Then we will see how the initially secular argument of (possibly) inhabited worlds merged with the natural theology and how such a special perspective of space still influences and motivates the contemporary astronautics and astronoetics, including N.A.S.A., E.S.A. or Elon Musk‘s initiative.
The course will also rely on the wide range of images (whether classical, literary or cinematic), showing how the idea utilised the incubator of art and visual culture.
Annotation
The course will focus on the conceptualizations of extraterrestrial life in science, philosophy, art and theology since Isaac Newton, showing that the idea of the alien inhabitants did not hide in the shadow of „serious“ science and culture, but presented in fact a crucial factor in establishing the modern vision of an infinite and last but not least physical universe. In other words, the idea of extraterrestrial life did not contradict science; on the contrary, as an integral part of Galilean, Keplerian and Newtonian revolution, it helped science and philosophy to think and to imagine the universe.