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The Enlightenment And The Fate Of Knowledge
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Book Synopsis The Enlightenment and the Fate of Knowledge by : Martin Davies
Download or read book The Enlightenment and the Fate of Knowledge written by Martin Davies and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Enlightenment is generally painted as a movement of ideas and society lasting from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, but this book argues that the Enlightenment is an essential component of modernity itself. In the course of the study, Martin Davies offers an original world-view and a critique of some recent interpretations of the Enlightenment.
Book Synopsis Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800-2010 by : Sebastian Normandin
Download or read book Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800-2010 written by Sebastian Normandin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-15 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vitalism is understood as impacting the history of the life sciences, medicine and philosophy, representing an epistemological challenge to the dominance of mechanism over the last 200 years, and partly revived with organicism in early theoretical biology. The contributions in this volume portray the history of vitalism from the end of the Enlightenment to the modern day, suggesting some reassessment of what it means both historically and conceptually. As such it includes a wide range of material, employing both historical and philosophical methodologies, and it is divided fairly evenly between 19th and 20th century historical treatments and more contemporary analysis. This volume presents a significant contribution to the current literature in the history and philosophy of science and the history of medicine.
Book Synopsis Enlightenment Now by : Steven Pinker
Download or read book Enlightenment Now written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.
Book Synopsis Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment by : Nicholas Maxwell
Download or read book Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment written by Nicholas Maxwell and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an idea that just might save the world. It is that science, properly understood, provides us with the methodological key to the salvation of humanity. A version of this idea can be found in the works of Karl Popper. Famously, Popper argued that science cannot verify theories but can only refute them, and this is how science makes progress. Scientists are forced to think up something better, and it is this, according to Popper, that drives science forward.But Nicholas Maxwell finds a flaw in this line of argument. Physicists only ever accept theories that are unified – theories that depict the same laws applying to the range of phenomena to which the theory applies – even though many other empirically more successful disunified theories are always available. This means that science makes a questionable assumption about the universe, namely that all disunified theories are false. Without some such presupposition as this, the whole empirical method of science breaks down.By proposing a new conception of scientific methodology, which can be applied to all worthwhile human endeavours with problematic aims, Maxwell argues for a revolution in academic inquiry to help humanity make progress towards a better, more civilized and enlightened world.
Book Synopsis Measuring the New World by : Neil Safier
Download or read book Measuring the New World written by Neil Safier and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior to 1735, South America was terra incognita to many Europeans. But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the earth at the Equator. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the mission’s participants referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a “sacred fire” passing mysteriously through European astronomical instruments to observers in South America.By taking an innovative interdisciplinary look at the traces of this expedition, Measuring the New World examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge from West to East. Through ephemeral monuments and geographical maps, this book explores how the social and cultural worlds of South America contributed to the production of European scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment. Neil Safier uses the notebooks of traveling philosophers, as well as specimens from the expedition, to place this particular scientific endeavor in the larger context of early modern print culture and the emerging intellectual category of scientist as author.
Book Synopsis The Philosophy of the Enlightenment by : Ernst Cassirer
Download or read book The Philosophy of the Enlightenment written by Ernst Cassirer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1951 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present book aims to be both more and less than a monograph on the philosophy of the Enlightenment. It is much less, for the primary task of such monograph would be to offer the reader a wealth of detail and to trace the genesis and development of all the special problems of this philosophy.
Book Synopsis The Enlightenment by : John Robertson
Download or read book The Enlightenment written by John Robertson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introduction explores the history of the 18th-century Enlightenment movement. Considering its intellectual commitments, Robertson then turns to their impact on society, and the ways in which Enlightenment thinkers sought to further the goal of human betterment, by promoting economic improvement and civil and political justice.
Book Synopsis The Science of Enlightenment by : Shinzen Young
Download or read book The Science of Enlightenment written by Shinzen Young and published by Sounds True. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enlightenment—is it a myth or is it real? Across time and culture, inner explorers have discovered that the liberated state is a natural experience, as real as the sensations you are having right now. Few teachers achieve clarity with the application of scientific inquiry to these states of consciousness like Shinzen Young. Now in paperback, The Science of Enlightenment makes Young’s essential insights available to readers everywhere. The Science of Enlightenment merges scientific precision, Young’s grasp of the source-language teachings of many spiritual traditions, and his rare gift for sparking insight upon insight through original analogies and illustrations. The result: an uncommonly lucid "Aha, now I get it!" guide to mindfulness meditation—how it works and how to use it to enhance our cognitive capacities, compassion, and experience of happiness independent of conditions. For meditators of all levels and lineages, this multifaceted wisdom gem will be sure to surprise, provoke, illuminate, and inspire.
Book Synopsis The Varieties of Scientific Experience by : Carl Sagan
Download or read book The Varieties of Scientific Experience written by Carl Sagan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-11-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ann Druyan has unearthed a treasure. It is a treasure of reason, compassion, and scientific awe. It should be the next book you read.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith “A stunningly valuable legacy left to all of us by a great human being. I miss him so.” —Kurt Vonnegut Carl Sagan's prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design, and a new concept of science as "informed worship." Originally presented at the centennial celebration of the famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985 but never published, this book offers a unique encounter with one of the most remarkable minds of the twentieth century.
Book Synopsis The Society for Useful Knowledge by : Jonathan Lyons
Download or read book The Society for Useful Knowledge written by Jonathan Lyons and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spellbinding, rich history of the American Enlightenment-think 1776 meets The Metaphysical Club.
Book Synopsis The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy by : Anthony Gottlieb
Download or read book The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy written by Anthony Gottlieb and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Slate’s 10 Best Books of the Year Anthony Gottlieb’s landmark The Dream of Reason and its sequel challenge Bertrand Russell’s classic as the definitive history of Western philosophy. Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason, Anthony Gottlieb documented the first burst, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now, in his sequel, The Dream of Enlightenment, Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period—from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution—Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. As Gottlieb explains, all these men were amateurs: none had much to do with any university. They tried to fathom the implications of the new science and of religious upheaval, which led them to question traditional teachings and attitudes. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity—and what, actually, is government for? Such questions remain our questions, which is why Descartes, Hobbes, and the others are still pondered today. Yet it is because we still want to hear them that we can easily get these philosophers wrong. It is tempting to think they speak our language and live in our world; but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times and the development of scientific ideas while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy in lively prose. With chapters focusing on Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Pierre Bayle, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire—and many walk-on parts—The Dream of Enlightenment creates a sweeping account of what the Enlightenment amounted to, and why we are still in its debt.
Book Synopsis The Enlightenment by : Anthony Pagden
Download or read book The Enlightenment written by Anthony Pagden and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters tells nothing less than the story of how the modern, Western view of the world was born. Cultural and intellectual historian Anthony Pagden explains how, and why, the ideal of a universal, global, and cosmopolitan society became such a central part of the Western imagination in the ferment of the Enlightenment - and how these ideas have done battle with an inward-looking, tradition-oriented view of the world ever since. Cosmopolitanism is an ancient creed; but in its modern form it was a creature of the Enlightenment attempt to create a new 'science of man', based upon a vision of humanity made up of autonomous individuals, free from all the constraints imposed by custom, prejudice, and religion. As Pagden shows, this 'new science' was based not simply on 'cold, calculating reason', as its critics claimed, but on the argument that all humans are linked by what in the Enlightenment were called 'sympathetic' attachments. The conclusion was that despite the many tribes and nations into which humanity was divided there was only one 'human nature', and that the final destiny of the species could only be the creation of one universal, cosmopolitan society. This new 'human science' provided the philosophical grounding of the modern world. It has been the inspiration behind the League of Nations, the United Nations and the European Union. Without it, international law, global justice, and human rights legislation would be unthinkable. As Anthony Pagden argues passionately and persuasively in this book, it is a legacy well worth preserving - and one that might yet come to inherit the earth.
Book Synopsis Ends of Enlightenment by : John Bender
Download or read book Ends of Enlightenment written by John Bender and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-08 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ends of Enlightenment explores three realms of eighteenth-century European innovation that remain active in the twenty-first century: the realist novel, philosophical thought, and the physical sciences, especially human anatomy. The European Enlightenment was a state of being, a personal stance, and an orientation to the world. Ways of probing experience and knowledge in the novel and in the visual arts were interleaved with methods of experimentation in science and philosophy. This book's fresh perspective considers the novel as an art but also as a force in thinking. The critical distance afforded by a view back across the centuries allows Bender to redefine such novelists as Defoe, Fielding, Goldsmith, Godwin, and Laclos by placing them along philosophers and scientists like Newton, Locke, and Hume but also alongside engravings by Hogarth and by anatomist William Hunter. His book probes the kinship among realism, hypothesis, and scientific fact, defining in the process the rhetorical basis of public communication during the Enlightenment.
Book Synopsis Seeking Nature's Logic by : David B. Wilson
Download or read book Seeking Nature's Logic written by David B. Wilson and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Studies the path of natural philosophy (i.e., physics) from Isaac Newton through Scotland into the nineteenth-century background to the modern revolution in physics. Examines how the history of science has been influenced by John Robison and other notable intellectuals of the Scottish Enlightenment"--Provided by publisher.
Book Synopsis The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Routledge Revivals) by : Lucien Goldmann
Download or read book The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Routledge Revivals) written by Lucien Goldmann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-11-02 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this reissue, originally published in English in 1973, French philosopher Lucien Goldmann turns his attention to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, the great age of liberalism and individualism and analyses the ‘mental structures’ of the outlook of the philosophes, who showed that the ancien regime and the privileges of the Church were irrational anachronisms. In assessing the strengths and limitations of individualism, Goldmann considers the achievements and limitations of the Enlightenment. He discusses the views of Hegel and Marx and examines the relation between liberal scepticism and traditional Christianity to point the way to the possible reconciliation of the two seemingly incompatible ‘world visions’ of East and West today.
Book Synopsis Science and Enlightenment by : Nicholas Maxwell
Download or read book Science and Enlightenment written by Nicholas Maxwell and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and about ourselves and other living things as a part of it; and learning how to become civilized. The author proposes that with the creation of modern science in the 17th century, the first problem was essentially solved. But the second problem has still not been solved today, and that combination of solving the first problem, but failing to solve the second one, puts us in a situation of unprecedented danger. All our current global problems are the result. The 18th century Enlightenment tried to solve the second great problem of achieving world enlightenment by learning from the solution to the first problem, but in implementing this idea, they made three serious blunders. These ancient blunders are still built into academia today. Correct the three blunders we have inherited from the Enlightenment, and we would have what we so urgently need: institutions of learning, universities and schools, rationally designed and devoted to helping us resolve our conflicts and global problems, and thus make progress towards a good, genuinely civilized world. Science and Enlightenment: Two Great Problems of Learning will interest a broad audience, ranging from academics, university students and teachers; journalists, politicians and general readers concerned about global problems and the fate of the world.
Book Synopsis Eating the Enlightenment by : E.C. Spary
Download or read book Eating the Enlightenment written by E.C. Spary and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-04-08 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eating the Enlightenment offers a new perspective on the history of food, looking at writings about cuisine, diet, and food chemistry as a key to larger debates over the state of the nation in Old Regime France. Embracing a wide range of authors and scientific or medical practitioners—from physicians and poets to philosophes and playwrights—E. C. Spary demonstrates how public discussions of eating and drinking were used to articulate concerns about the state of civilization versus that of nature, about the effects of consumption upon the identities of individuals and nations, and about the proper form and practice of scholarship. En route, Spary devotes extensive attention to the manufacture, trade, and eating of foods, focusing upon coffee and liqueurs in particular, and also considers controversies over specific issues such as the chemistry of digestion and the nature of alcohol. Familiar figures such as Fontenelle, Diderot, and Rousseau appear alongside little-known individuals from the margins of the world of letters: the draughts-playing café owner Charles Manoury, the “Turkish envoy” Soliman Aga, and the natural philosopher Jacques Gautier d’Agoty. Equally entertaining and enlightening, Eating the Enlightenment will be an original contribution to discussions of the dissemination of knowledge and the nature of scientific authority.
