Courses:

Course Info

• Course Number / Code:
• 21L.017 (Spring 2008) 
• Course Title:
• The Art of the Probable: Literature and Probability 
• Course Level:
• Undergraduate 
• Offered by :
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  Massachusetts, United States  
• Department:
• Literature 
• Course Instructor(s):
• Prof. Noel Jackson
  Prof. Alvin Kibel
  Prof. Shankar Raman 
• Course Introduction:
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  21L.017 The Art of the Probable: Literature and Probability
  
  
  
  

  Spring 2008

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Course Highlights

  
  
  

  
  
  21L.017 The Art of the Probable: Literature and Probability
  
  
  
  

  Spring 2008

  
  
  

  

  This class considers works from ancient Greece to contemporary authors, including (clockwise from top left) Leibniz, Voltaire, Darwin and Dostoevsky. (Images courtesy of Wikipedia.)

  
  
  

  Course Description

  
  
  

  "The Art of the Probable" addresses the history of scientific ideas, in particular the emergence and development of mathematical probability. But it is neither meant to be a history of the exact sciences per se nor an annex to, say, the Course 6 curriculum in probability and statistics. Rather, our objective is to focus on the formal, thematic, and rhetorical features that imaginative literature shares with texts in the history of probability. These shared issues include (but are not limited to): the attempt to quantify or otherwise explain the presence of chance, risk, and contingency in everyday life; the deduction of causes for phenomena that are knowable only in their effects; and, above all, the question of what it means to think and act rationally in an uncertain world.

  Our course therefore aims to broaden students' appreciation for and understanding of how literature interacts with – both reflecting upon and contributing to – the scientific understanding of the world. We are just as centrally committed to encouraging students to regard imaginative literature as a unique contribution to knowledge in its own right, and to see literary works of art as objects that demand and richly repay close critical analysis. It is our hope that the course will serve students well if they elect to pursue further work in Literature or other discipline in SHASS, and also enrich or complement their understanding of probability and statistics in other scientific and engineering subjects they elect to take.