Description
Book SynopsisIn the early modern period, thinkers began to suggest that philosophy abjure the ideal of dispassionate contemplation of the natural world in favor of a more practically minded project that aimed to make human beings masters and possessors of nature. Humanity would seize control of its own fate and overthrow the rule by hostile natural or imaginary forces. The gradual spread of liberal democratic government, the Enlightenment, and the rise of technological modernity are to a considerable extent the fruits of this early modern shift in intellectual concern and focus. But these long-term trends have also brought unintended consequences in their wake as the dynamic forces of social reason, historical progress, and the continued recalcitrance of the natural world have combined to disillusion humans of the possibility-even the desirability-of their mastery over nature. The essays in Mastery of Nature constitute an extensive analysis of the fundamental aspects of the human grasp of nature.
Trade Review"Addressing a mix of technology, politics, culture, and philosophy of science, the essays in
Mastery of Nature connect the intellectual stages of philosophical and scientific development with unusual precision and depth. The collection amounts to a rare exchange between philosophical critics of the modern scientific project and its serious defenders." * Robert Faulkner, Boston College *
"This volume is an ambitious undertaking made possible by an impressive group of contributors whose essays, while diverse, work together to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Mastery of Nature is a significant contribution to several fields, including political philosophy, intellectual history, and philosophy of science." * Ronna Burger, Tulane University *
Table of ContentsPreface
—Ralph Lerner
Introduction
—Daniel A. Doneson, Svetozar Y. Minkov, and Bernhardt L. Trout
PART I. THE PROJECT FOR MASTERY
Chapter 1. Machiavelli and the Discovery of Fact
—Harvey C. Mansfield
Chapter 2. The Place of the Treatment of the Conquest of Nature in Francis Bacon's On the Wisdom of the Ancients
—Svetozar Y. Minkov
Chapter 3. Hobbes on Nature and Its Conquest
—Devin Stauffer
Chapter 4. Devising Nature: An Essay on Descartes's Discourse on Method
—Stuart D. Warner
Chapter 5. Montesquieu, Commerce, and Science
—Diana J. Schaub
Chapter 6. Bacon and Franklin on Religion and Mastery of Nature
—Jerry Weinberger
PART II. ANCIENT ALTERNATIVES AND ANTICIPATIONS
Chapter 7. On the Supremacy of Contemplation in Aristotle and Plato
—Robert C. Bartlett
Chapter 8. Xenophon and the Conquest of Nature
—Christopher Nadon
Chapter 9. Lucretius on Rebelling Against the "Laws" of Nature
—Paul Ludwig
PART III. CONSEQUENCES, CRITIQUES, AND CORRECTIONS
Chapter 10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Return to Nature vs. Conquest of Nature
—Arthur Melzer
Chapter 11. Kant on Organism and History: Ambiguous Endings
—Richard Velkley
Chapter 12. Beyond the Island of Truth: Hegel and the Shipwreck of Science
—Michael A. Gillespie
Chapter 13. Separating the Moral and Theological Prejudices and Taking Hold of Human Evolution
—Lise van Boxel
Chapter 14. Mastery of Nature and Its Limits: The Question of Heidegger
—Mark Blitz
Chapter 15. What Is Natural Philosophy? The Perspective of Contemporary Science
—Adam Schulman
Chapter 16. Quantum Mechanics and Political Philosophy
—Bernhardt L. Trout
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
