The rise of modern science has evoked responses from both Muslim and Western thinkers. Since science is a central feature of modernity, their responses to science can also be read as their responses to modernity. These intellectual responses can best be gauged through discourses in the history and philosophy of science since the 1970s.Although the history and philosophy of science are commonly understood as academic disciplines that study science in its historical and (...) philosophical aspects, discourse in the history and philosophy of science can nevertheless be seen as part of the wider discourse on modernity. Scholars have attempted to define the meaning and content of modernity and what... (shrink)

Wondrous Truths answers two questions about the steep rise of theoretical discoveries around 1600: Why in the European West? And why so quickly? The history of science's awkward assortment of accident and luck, geography and personal idiosyncrasy, explains scientific progress alongside experimental method. J.D. Trout's blend of scientific realism and epistemic naturalism carries us through neuroscience, psychology, history, and policy, and explains how the corpuscular hunch of Boyle and Newton caught on.

While scientists sometimes make light of philosophy, science relies on a variety of philosophical assumptions, such as the idea that there are laws of nature. Many of these arose during the Scientific Revolution with the rejection of Aristotelianism. Here we consider the theological motivations behind several key examples. While science is now officially naturalistic, its rise depended in part on theology.

Using data on the ‘career’ paths of one thousand ‘leading scientists’ from 1450 to 1900, what is conventionally called the ‘rise of modern science’ is mapped as a changing geography of scientific practice in urban networks. Four distinctive networks of scientific practice are identified. A primate network centred on Padua and central and northern Italy in the sixteenth century expands across the Alps to become a polycentric network in the seventeenth century, which in turn dissipates into a (...) weak polycentric network in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century marks a huge change of scale as a primate network centred on Berlin and dominated by German-speaking universities. These geographies are interpreted as core-producing processes in Wallerstein’s modern world-system; the rise of modern scientific practice is central to the development of structures of knowledge that relate to, but do not mirror, material changes in the system. (shrink)

A comprehensive introduction to the theory of knowledge, this work explores what it is to be a rational, sentient human being.

ABSTRACTIn response to the rising popularity of empirical models of scholarship and an increasingly sharp sceptic criticism against historiography, early modern historiographers strived to place their reconstruction of the past on a more ‘scientific’ basis through a new approach to historical writing. Their strategies included the mobilization of various other scholarly disciplines, such as geography, chronology, linguistics, ethnography, philology, etc. that came to function as ‘auxiliary sciences’ of early modern historiography. These came to fulfil three main roles in (...) historical writing. Firstly, they supplied knowledge on cultural-historical topics that were newly introduced into the subject range of historiography. Secondly, they offered new solutions to the problem of reliable historical evidence by opening up new sources of historical information. And thirdly, they proved helpful in deciding scholarly discussions among historical writers. Through a detailed study of the use of ‘auxiliary sciences’ in seminal texts from the new current in historical writing, I will shed light on the range of scholarly disciplines that were enlisted in early modern historiography and how they contributed to the development of a new, more ‘scientific’ approach to the reconstruction of the past. (shrink)

This volume offers one of the first systematic analyses of the rise of modern social science. Contrary to the standard accounts of various social science disciplines, the essays in this volume demonstrate that modern social science actually emerged during the critical period between 1750 and 1850. It is shown that the social sciences were a crucial element in the conceptual and epistemic revolution, which parallelled and partly underpinned the political and economic transformations of the (...) modern world. From a consistently comparative perspective, a group of internationally leading scholars takes up fundamental issues such as the role of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in the shaping of the social sciences, the changing relationships between political theory and moral discourse, the profound transformation of philosophy, and the constitution of political economy and statistics. (shrink)

With a never-before published paper by Lord Henry Cavendish, as well as a biography on him, this book offers a fascinating discourse on the rise of scientific attitudes and ways of knowing. A pioneering British physicist in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Cavendish was widely considered to be the first full-time scientist in the modern sense. Through the lens of this unique thinker and writer, this book is about the birth of modern science.

How did we come to have a scientific culture -- one in which cognitive values are shaped around scientific ones? Stephen Gaukroger presents a rich and fascinating investigation of the development of intellectual culture in early modern Europe, a period in which understandings of the natural realm began to fragment.

[1] The rise of modern paganism.--v. 2. The science of freedom.

`Modern' philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or `modern' philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this book is that the new (...) and traditional philosophies have more in common than the orthodox account suggests. In two survey articles and thirteen essays on individual philosophers, the contributors show that the rise of modern philosophy was much more complicated and much more interesting than is usually thought. They consider not only metaphysics and the sciences but also claims of Machievelli, Hobbes and Spinoza to have invented `modern' ethics and politics. These two aspects of `modernity' in philosophy are connected for the first time. The book offers a broad view of the early modern philosophers, covering not only the much-studied major figures but also relatively neglected writers: Mersenne, Gassendi, White, and Sergeant. (shrink)

Science has tended in numerous ways to undermine religion — and supernaturalism more generally. This chapter discusses aspects of the relationship between theistic religion and science, noting, in particular, how the success of science contributed to a disenchantment of the cosmos. The chapter provides some historical background about atheism. It explains why traditional demonstrations of God's existence tend to be so unconvincing, especially in the light of modern science. The chapter discusses how science has (...) undermined religion. There are unavoidable tensions between the emerging scientific picture of the world, the universe, and ourselves and traditional religious, and especially Christian, understandings. Deep skepticism about the existence of God seems reasonable to us, and no truly persuasive argument has ever been advanced for the existence of such a strange being. (shrink)

This chapter examines a key focal characteristic of the Scottish Enlightenment, namely, its delineation of how a ‘science of man’ can inform and structure an account of ‘society’. The key contribution of the Scots to the rise of the human sciences lies in a conception of society as a set of interlocked institutions and behaviours. The Scots provided an analysis of both social statics and social dynamics, which shifted the focus away from the individualism that characterized early (...) class='Hi'>modern jurisprudence. Humans as social beings are best understood in society and not as monadic individuals. The Scottish analysis also sidelined the centrality traditionally allotted to the political. Humans are social as well as political animals. Political institutions are simply one kind of institution among several, to be given no greater priority than the rest. (shrink)

review essay on Gaukroger, Collapse of Mechanism and Rise of Sensibility (OUP).

For the Glory of God provides an illuminating history of the role of Christian ideas in the physical and biological sciences from the Middle Ages to today. Jones shows that a “control” model explains the complex history of religion and science, while the popular “war” and “harmony” models do not.

This book illustrates the unnaturalness of modern science and technology by tracing their cognitive, evolutionary, and religious origins. It elaborates that all premodern knowers faced inherent limits, and the West was able to develop modern science and technology because of its inherent contradictions forcing the transcendence of limitations.

Review of: Stephen Gaukroger: The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680-1760. Oxford: Clarendon, 2010, pp. ix+505. £47.00 (hb). ISBN 9780199594931. This volume is the second of a projected six-volume work on the shaping of modern cognitive values through the emergence of a scientific culture, a phenomenon that Gaukroger takes to be specific to the West. The volume ranges from Newton’s initial publications on optics to the French Enlightenment and (...) the publication of the <i>Encyclopédie</i> of Diderot and d’Alembert. During this period, the unity within natural philosophy, secured by the view that matter theory should underlie all natural philosophy, is challenged, as is the unity between natural philosophy and physico-theology, the latter unity being the primary source of the cultural legitimacy that had allowed natural philosophy to flourish. The first type of unity was sundered as Newtonian natural philosophy disavowed the requirement that mechanics be united with a microscopic corpuscularian basis. Further, during this period, scientific (or natural philosophical) values first came to dominate the cognitive values of an entire culture, largely through the <i>persona</i> of the <i>philosophe</i> as the embodiment of reason, albeit a sensibilized reason arising from the new non-mechanistic natural philosophy of the mid-eighteenth century and no longer tied to physico-theology. The book does a better job charting the trend toward disunity than it does charting the rise of sensibility. (shrink)

Summary To understand the present situation we must know something about its history. The ‘Rise of the West’, which grew out of the ‘European Miracle’, is a special case of cultural evolution. The development of science is an important element in this process. Cultural evolution went hand in hand with biological evolution. Evolutionary epistemology illuminates the achievements and the evolution of cognitive sensory apparatus of various species. Man's cognitive sensory apparatus is adapted to the ‘mesocosmos’, the world of (...) medium-sized dimensions. The biological structures constitute the hardware of the cognitive sensory apparatus, while certain expectations and theories, which are ontogenetically apriori, constitute the corresponding system software. A distinction is introduced between ‘primary theories’ (linked to the sensory apparatus) and ‘secondary theories’. The latter are the result of attempts to meet the demand for an explanation of phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of ‘primary theories’. Two subsets of ‘secondary theories’ are compared: spiritualistic-personalized theories and scientific theories. From the historical point of view the scientific secondary theories are but a special subset of the class of secondary theories. From the systematic point of view it is instructive to focus on a comparison of the two subsets: what do they have in common? in what respects do they differ? The rise of scientific thinking is closely linked to the ‘European Miracle’. How (and when and why) did the West grow rich? To answer this question we must first produce an explanation of the principle: theories about the consequences of institutional arrangements. Then we can give a historical explanation of why this development took place in Europe and only there. It is claimed that the secret of success, economic wealth and the first approximations to relatively free societies, was the taming of the state, the taming of cleptocracy (independent of the nature of the agency having cleptocratic appetites, be it princes or parliaments). The taming of the state is a pre-democratic achievement. Finally, the consequences of institutional arrangements for scientific progress and innovation are examined. Only if the system is market-like, will it link individual effort with reward and, through the competitive process, encourage the wide dissemination and use of new ideas. There is no tradeoff between freedom on the one hand and economic success and the growth of scientific knowledge on the other. Freedom and the ensuing flexibility is the key to the past and to the future. (shrink)

`Modern' philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or `modern' philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this book is that the new (...) and traditional philosophies have more in common than the orthodox account suggests. In two survey articles and thirteen essays on individual philosophers, the contributors show that the rise of modern philosophy was much more complicated and much more interesting than is usually thought. They consider not only metaphysics and the sciences but also claims of Machievelli, Hobbes and Spinoza to have invented `modern' ethics and politics. These two aspects of `modernity' in philosophy are connected for the first time. The book offers a broad view of the early modern philosophers, covering not only the much-studied major figures but also relatively neglected writers: Mersenne, Gassendi, White, and Sergeant. (shrink)

_Religion and the Rise of Modern Culture_ describes and analyzes changing attitudes toward religion during three stages of modern European culture: the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Romantic period. Louis Dupré is an expert guide to the complex historical and intellectual relation between religion and modern culture. Dupré begins by tracing the weakening of the Christian synthesis. At the end of the Middle Ages intellectual attitudes toward religion began to change. Theology, once the dominant science (...) that had integrated all others, lost its commanding position. After the French Revolution, religion once again played a role in intellectual life, but not as the dominant force. Religion became transformed by intellectual and moral principles conceived independently of faith. Dupré explores this new situation in three areas: the literature of Romanticism ; idealist philosophy ; and theology itself. Dupré argues that contemporary religion has not yet met the challenge presented by Romantic thought. “This beautifully crafted essay by Louis Dupré makes an original contribution to our understanding of the emergence and development of modernity, which dispensing with religion as a governing discourse and form of life, nonetheless attempts to find a place for it in a world sufficiently depleted of meaning and value as to require reenchantment. It supplements Dupré’s two magisterial texts on the topic of the modernity covering the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, and whets the appetite for the forthcoming volume on Romanticism. Deep learning is worn lightly in this marvelously readable book.” —_Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame_ “A stunning synthesis of Dupré's magisterial intellectual history of modernity and his distinctive and important philosophy of religion.” —_David Tracy, emeritus, The University of Chicago Divinity School_ “Louis Dupre's literate and sweeping review of the fate of religious faith in modern culture will help contemporary readers, who share his closing yearning for ways in which ‘transcendence can be recognized again,’ to appreciate why many of us find a postmodern climate—for better or worse—more conducive to fulfilling that desire. For his dramatic depictions of modernity teach us how different is the culture in which we now live.” —_David Burrell, CSC, Hesburgh Professor Emeritus in Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame_. (shrink)

This paper finds its origin in a debate between Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Octavio Paz (1914-1998) on what is central to the idea of eroticism. Bataille posits that violence and transgression are fundamental to eroticism, and without prohibition, eroticism would cease to exist. Paz, however, views violence and transgression as merely intersecting with, rather than being intrinsic to, eroticism. Paz places focus on imagination, and transforms eroticism from a transgressive, to a ritualistic act. Eroticism thus functions as an intermediary, turning (...) animal sexuality into ceremony and rite. In this paper, I argue that Paz and Bataille are not fundamentally at odds in their conceptualisation of eroticism. Instead, Paz redefines the locus of eroticism by subverting its unsettling aspects. His conception of eroticism gives precedence to the imagination, which in itself is an act of violation. Imagination transgresses normal life, but this transgression – the violation of the habitual world – also introduces a glimpse of the numinous that Paz associates with belongingness. The paper further explores eroticism, as this is perceived today, and argues that it ultimately eliminates the threshold marked by transgression. The rise of the contemporary pornographic society is marked by a loss of imagination and transcendence, which ultimately reduces the subject into a mere automaton that demands instant gratification. (shrink)

This chapter examines a key focal characteristic of the Scottish Enlightenment, namely, its delineation of how a ‘science of man’ can inform and structure an account of ‘society’. The key contribution of the Scots to the rise of the human sciences lies in a conception of society as a set of interlocked institutions and behaviours. The Scots provided an analysis of both social statics and social dynamics, which shifted the focus away from the individualism that characterized early (...) class='Hi'>modern jurisprudence. Humans as social beings are best understood in society and not as monadic individuals. The Scottish analysis also sidelined the centrality traditionally allotted to the political. Humans are social as well as political animals. Political institutions are simply one kind of institution among several, to be given no greater priority than the rest. (shrink)

Over the last few decades there have been several calls for a “big picture” of the history of science. There is a general need for a concise overview of the rise of modern science, with a clear structure allowing for a rough division into periods. This essay proposes such a scheme, one that is both elementary and comprehensive. It focuses on four machines, which can be seen to have mediated between science and society during successive (...) periods of time: the clock, the balance, the steam engine, and the computer. Following an extended developmental phase, each of these machines came to play a highly visible role in Western societies, both socially and economically. Each of these machines, moreover, was used as a powerful resource for the understanding of both inorganic and organic nature. More specifically, their metaphorical use helped to construe and refine some key concepts that would play a prominent role in such understanding. In each case the key concept would at some point be considered to represent the ultimate building block of reality. Finally, in a refined form, each of these machines would eventually make its entry in scientific research, thereby strengthening the ties between these machines and nature. (shrink)

According to Peter Harrison's book The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science modern science came into existence as a result of the emphasis of Protestants on the literal sense of the Scripture, their refusal of the earlier symbolic or allegorical interpretation, and their efforts at fixing the meaning of the biblical text in which each passage was to be ascribed a single and unique meaning. This article tries to summarize the most significant critiques of (...) Harrison's hypothesis and to acknowledge their legitimacy. However, the alternative explanation of the emergence of modern science as a result of disputes over the biblical interpretation and the subsequent discovery of the ambiguous character of the ordinary verbal language is not fully satisfactory either. (shrink)