The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution
Title | The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution PDF eBook |
Author | Matthew L. Jones |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | 809 |
Release | 2008-09-15 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0226409562 |
Amid the unrest, dislocation, and uncertainty of seventeenth-century Europe, readers seeking consolation and assurance turned to philosophical and scientific books that offered ways of conquering fears and training the mind—guidance for living a good life. The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution presents a triptych showing how three key early modern scientists, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Leibniz, envisioned their new work as useful for cultivating virtue and for pursuing a good life. Their scientific and philosophical innovations stemmed in part from their understanding of mathematics and science as cognitive and spiritual exercises that could create a truer mental and spiritual nobility. In portraying the rich contexts surrounding Descartes’ geometry, Pascal’s arithmetical triangle, and Leibniz’s calculus, Matthew L. Jones argues that this drive for moral therapeutics guided important developments of early modern philosophy and the Scientific Revolution.
The Scientific Revolution
Title | The Scientific Revolution PDF eBook |
Author | Steven Shapin |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | 255 |
Release | 2018-11-05 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 022639848X |
This scholarly and accessible study presents “a provocative new reading” of the late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century advances in scientific inquiry (Kirkus Reviews). In The Scientific Revolution, historian Steven Shapin challenges the very idea that any such a “revolution” ever took place. Rejecting the narrative that a new and unifying paradigm suddenly took hold, he demonstrates how the conduct of science emerged from a wide array of early modern philosophical agendas, political commitments, and religious beliefs. In this analysis, early modern science is shown not as a set of disembodied ideas, but as historically situated ways of knowing and doing. Shapin shows that every principle identified as the modernizing essence of science—whether it’s experimentalism, mathematical methodology, or a mechanical conception of nature—was in fact contested by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century practitioners with equal claims to modernity. Shapin argues that this contested legacy is nevertheless rightly understood as the origin of modern science, its problems as well as its acknowledged achievements. This updated edition includes a new bibliographic essay featuring the latest scholarship. “An excellent book.” —Anthony Gottlieb, New York Times Book Review
Copernicus' Secret
Title | Copernicus' Secret PDF eBook |
Author | Jack Repcheck |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Total Pages | 273 |
Release | 2007-12-04 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 074328951X |
Nicolaus Copernicus gave the world perhaps the most important scientific insight of the modern age, the theory that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. He was also the first to proclaim that the earth rotates on its axis once every twenty-four hours. His theory was truly radical: during his lifetime nearly everyone believed that a perfectly still earth rested in the middle of the cosmos, where all the heavenly bodies revolved around it. One of the transcendent geniuses of the early Renaissance, Copernicus was also a flawed and conflicted person. A cleric who lived during the tumultuous years of the early Reformation, he may have been sympathetic to the teachings of the Lutherans. Although he had taken a vow of celibacy, he kept at least one mistress. Supremely confident intellectually, he hesitated to disseminate his work among other scholars. It fact, he kept his astronomical work a secret, revealing it to only a few intimates, and the manuscript containing his revolutionary theory, which he refined for at least twenty years, remained "hidden among my things." It is unlikely that Copernicus' masterwork would ever have been published if not for a young mathematics professor named Georg Joachim Rheticus. He had heard of Copernicus' ideas, and with his imagination on fire he journeyed hundreds of miles to a land where, as a Lutheran, he was forbidden to travel. Rheticus' meeting with Copernicus in a small cathedral town in northern Poland proved to be one of the most important encounters in history. Copernicus' Secretrecreates the life and world of the scientific genius whose work revolutionized astronomy and altered our understanding of our place in the world. It tells the surprising, little-known story behind the dawn of the scientific age.
Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life
Title | Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life PDF eBook |
Author | Laurence D. Cooper |
Publisher | Penn State Press |
Total Pages | 241 |
Release | 2021-12 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0271029889 |
The rise of modern science created a crisis for Western moral and political philosophy, which had theretofore relied either on Christian theology or Aristotelian natural teleology as guarantors of an objective standard for &"the good life.&" This book examines Rousseau's effort to show how and why, despite this challenge from science (which he himself intensified by equating our subhuman origins with our natural state), nature can remain a standard for human behavior. While recognizing an original goodness in human being in the state of nature, Rousseau knew this to be too low a standard and promoted the idea of &"the natural man living in the state of society,&" notably in Emile. Laurence Cooper shows how, for Rousseau, conscience&—understood as the &"love of order&"&—functions as the agent whereby simple savage sentiment is sublimated into a more refined &"civilized naturalness&" to which all people can aspire.
The Charles Colson Collection: The Good Life / How Now Shall We Live?
Title | The Charles Colson Collection: The Good Life / How Now Shall We Live? PDF eBook |
Author | Charles Colson |
Publisher | Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. |
Total Pages | 919 |
Release | 2017-01-10 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 1496425057 |
This collection bundles two of popular author Chuck Colson’s classics into one volume for a great value! The Good Life What constitutes “the good life?” Chuck Colson explores the ways in which people define and live “the pursuit of happiness.” Colson uses fascinating real-life stories to illustrate the philosophies and worldviews by which individuals seek the good life. Colson speaks directly and revealingly about his Watergate years, and he examines the beliefs and assumptions that make up the fabric of our lives. The Good Life searches for answers to the questions we all ask: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I make my life count? How Now Shall We Live? True Christianity goes far beyond John 3:16—beyond private faith and personal salvation. It is nothing less than a framework for understanding all of reality. It is a worldview. In How Now Shall We Live?, the 2000 Gold Medallion winner for best book about Christianity and society, Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey show that the great spiritual battle today is a cosmic struggle between competing worldviews. Through inspiring true stories and compelling teaching, they demonstrate how to Expose the false views and values of modern culture Live a more fulfilling life the way God created us to live Contend for the faith by understanding how nonbelievers think Build a society that reflects biblical principles In short, How Now Shall We Live? will give you the confidence you need to make a difference in the world today and most of all in the lives of people around you.
The Two Cultures
Title | The Two Cultures PDF eBook |
Author | C. P. Snow |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 193 |
Release | 2012-03-26 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1107606144 |
The importance of science and technology and future of education and research are just some of the subjects discussed here.
Baroque Science
Title | Baroque Science PDF eBook |
Author | Ofer Gal |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | 348 |
Release | 2014-07-21 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 022621298X |
Presents a perspective on the study of early modern science. This title examines science in the context of the baroque, analyzes the tensions, paradoxes, and compromises that shaped the New Science of the seventeenth century and enabled its spectacular success.