Screen LibraryThe crisis of progress : science, society, and values /
This book is about the concept of progress, its separate varieties, its current rejection, and how it may be reconsidered from a philosophical and scientific basis. John C. Caiazza's main emphasis is on how science is understood by prominent philosophers to have a direct impact on social values...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Transaction Publishers,
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| Publisher Address: | New Brunswick : |
| Publication Dates: | [2016] |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
This book is about the concept of progress, its separate varieties, its current rejection, and how it may be reconsidered from a philosophical and scientific basis. John C. Caiazza's main emphasis is on how science is understood by prominent philosophers to have a direct impact on social values. He argues that progress is at a standstill, which presents a crisis for Western civilization. Caiazza presents histroical examples, both of scientific inquiry and social and cultural themes, to examine the subject of progress. Beginning with the Whig model and progressive political values exemplified by Bacon and Dewey, he then examines variations, Enlightenment, cosmopolitanism, and totalitarianism. Technology, argues Caiazza, currently has a stultifying effect on Western culture and that to understand the idea of progress, we must take a philosophic rather than a scientific point of view. Modern cosmology has inevitable humanistic and theological implications, while major contemporary philosophers reject social science in favor of ancient concepts of virtue and ethics. In conclusion, Caiazza writes that time is an agent, not a neutral plain on which scientific and historical events occur. We can expect technology to either keep us in stasis or become aware of the possibility of transcendence. This book will be of interest for students of scientific history, philosophy, contemporary culture, and ethics. -- from back cover. |
| Carrier Form: | 163 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9781412862530 (hardback : alkaline paper) : 1412862531 (hardback : alkaline paper) 9781412862073 1412862078 |
| Index Number: | HM891 |
| CLC: |
N05 G301 |
| Call Number: | G301/C133 |
| Contents: | Introduction: History and impact of the idea of progress -- Whig history and the progressive society -- Enlightenment progress and the cosmopolitan society -- Progress by reduction and the totalitarian temptation -- Historicism, relativism, and the open society -- Where we are now: Technology and culture -- Philosophy, progress, and cosmology -- Cosmology and human existence -- Conclusion: Crisis, time, and the choice. |