Author: Frances Power Cobbe
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 131
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Book Description
This is a collection of essays written at various times and for various objects. In this book, it will be found that the first three essays belong to the class described as Pleas, and the last three more or less to that of Discussions. The author of this book pleads that: The Scientific Spirit of the Age, while it has given us many precious things, is, in its present exorbitant development, depriving us of things more precious still. The Education of the Emotions (to be carried on chiefly through the contagion of good and noble sentiments) is an object of paramount importance, albeit nearly ignored in ordinary systems of education. With the present disintegration of all religious opinion, Judaism may yet become a progressive, and cease to be merely a tribal, faith; and, if it absorbs the moral and spiritual essence of Christianity, it may solve the great problem of combining a theology consonant to modern philosophy with worship hallowed by the sacred associations of the remotest past. In the last three essays, the author discusses: The relation of Knowledge to Happiness The real—as distinguished from the conventional—character of our common processes of Thought The respective claims of Town and Country Life to be esteemed most healthy and felicitous for body and mind.
Author: H. F. Kerfoot
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Natural theology
Languages : en
Pages : 28
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Author: Stephen P. Weldon
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421438585
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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Book Description
The story of how prominent liberal intellectuals reshaped American religious and secular institutions to promote a more democratic, science-centered society. Winner of the Morris D. Forkosch Award for Best Book by the Center for Inquiry Recent polls show that a quarter of Americans claim to have no religious affiliation, identifying instead as atheists, agnostics, or "nothing in particular." A century ago, a small group of American intellectuals who dubbed themselves humanists tread this same path, turning to science as a major source of spiritual sustenance. In The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism, Stephen P. Weldon tells the fascinating story of this group as it developed over the twentieth century, following the fortunes of a few generations of radical ministers, academic philosophers, and prominent scientists who sought to replace traditional religion with a modern, liberal, scientific outlook. Weldon explores humanism through the networks of friendships and institutional relationships that underlay it, from philosophers preaching in synagogues and ministers editing articles of Nobel laureates to magicians invoking the scientific method. Examining the development of an increasingly antagonistic engagement between religious conservatives and the secular culture of the academy, Weldon explains how this conflict has shaped the discussion of science and religion in American culture. He also uncovers a less known—but equally influential—story about the conflict within humanism itself between two very different visions of science: an aspirational, democratic outlook held by the followers of John Dewey on the one hand, and a skeptical, combative view influenced by logical positivism on the other. Putting America's distinctive science talk into historical perspective, Weldon shows how events such as the Pugwash movement for nuclear disarmament, the ongoing evolution controversies, the debunking of pseudo-science, and the selection of scientists and popularizers like Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov as humanist figureheads all fit a distinctly American ethos. Weldon maintains that this secular ethos gained much of its influence by tapping into the idealism found in the American radical religious tradition that includes the deism of Thomas Paine, nineteenth-century rationalism and free thought, Protestant modernism, and most important, Unitarianism. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and a thorough study of the main humanist publications, The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism reveals a new level of detail about the personal and institutional forces that have shaped major trends in American secular culture. Significantly, the book shows why special attention to American liberal religiosity remains critical to a clear understanding of the scientific spirit in American culture.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Medicine
Languages : en
Pages : 1350
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Author: Victor Clifton Alderson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 24
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Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 524
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Book Description
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 516
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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 786
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Author: Andrew Holster
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 1627340769
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
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Book Description
Modern science is in unprecedented crisis. It is a crisis at many levels, continuous with larger crises of modern society. It is a crisis for the vocation of the scientist working within the modern institutionalised structures of science. It is a crisis for our capacity to use science benevolently to help solve larger material, organisational, and ultimately political problems of the modern era. And it is a crisis for philosophy, for the role of natural science to help inform our world-view. The Death of Science is an account of deeper causes of this malaise. It starts by taking up the reins of López Corredoira's (2013) The Twilight of the Scientific Age, a recent critique that concludes with modern science on its death bed. It dissects key themes in detail, illustrated in the same frank style, drawing on personal examples. It starts with deep issues in the philosophy of science, recounting failed modern concepts of scientific progress, method and truth, going on to failures of peer review and gate-keeping as quality control systems, the domination of propaganda and marketing channels as the critical tools for professional success, and the major outcome for creative scientists themselves: the destruction of scientific creativity and exclusion of heterodox thinkers in this degraded environment. It connects the behavioural symptoms with a psycho-social analysis of the bureaucratic mode of organisation under which science, like all other modern vocations, is now subsumed. The account supports López Corredoira's appraisal, which sees a modern science industry driven by greed and ambition, repressing imagination and freedom, destructive of novelty and diversity of ideas, controlled by bureaucratic-academic power hierarchies. While science is irrevocably corrupted by its modern mass-institutionalisation, the true spirit of science can only be sustained by individuals with a real vocation as scientists, or natural philosophers, who seek understanding and meaning and wisdom, rather than technocratic specialisation and careers. But it is increasingly impossible for scientists to withstand forces of professional conformity, and maintain their personal sense of value. A number of current controversies in some core sciences are also discussed, and it is argued that the greatest revelations of real science are yet to come. While Establishment Science has locked itself into dogmatic paradigms, the failures of present theories show that we are really on the cusp of major revolutions, spanning sciences of physics and cosmology, information and intelligence, biology and evolution, and mind and consciousness. If these are realised, they will profoundly change our understanding of the nature of the world and ourselves. But any such revolutions challenge a Science Establishment locked into the self-interest of its power-brokers, and are unlikely to occur except through independent scientists working outside the institutional system. The book concludes with a brief discussion of the place of independent scientists.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literature
Languages : en
Pages : 932
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