Description
Book SynopsisA comprehensive account of the methods of knowledge production throughout human history and across the globe. The idea that the world can be understood through patterns and the principles that govern them is one of the most important human insightsit may also be our greatest survival strategy. Our search for patterns and principles began 40,000 years ago, when striped patterns were engraved on mammoths' bones to keep track of the moon's phases. What routes did human knowledge take to grow from these humble beginnings through many detours and dead ends into modern understandings of nature and culture? In this work of unprecedented scope, Rens Bod removes the Western natural sciences from their often-central role to bring us the first global history of human knowledge. Having sketched the history of the humanities in his ground-breaking A New History of the Humanities, Bod now adopts a broader perspective, stepping beyond classical antiquity back to the Stone Age to answer the question
Trade ReviewWorld of Patterns is an impressive work, not only thanks to its truly global grasp but also because it spans huge periods of time, from the Paleolithic to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and furthermore because it covers a wide variety of knowledge fields, from the natural sciences to the human sciences—among them astronomy, mathematics, medicine, history, philology, linguistics, literary sciences, and jurisprudence.
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Isis: A Journal of the History of Science SocietyTable of ContentsPreface: The Wonder of Knowledge
Introduction. Understanding the World through Patterns and Principles
Chapter 1. The Awareness of Patterns: Prehistory
Chapter 2. The Explosion of Patterns and the Awareness of Principles: Early Antiquity
Chapter 3. The Explosion of Principles and the Awareness of Deduction: Classical Antiquity
Chapter 4. The Reduction of Principles: Postclassical Period
Chapter 5. The Discovery of Patterns in Deductions: The Modern Era
Conclusion. The Origin, Growth, and Future of Knowledge
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
