Homo Faber and Homo Economicus in the Scientific Revolution

Homo Faber and Homo Economicus in the Scientific Revolution PDF

Author: Ahmet Selami Çalışkan

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-04-24

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 1000614956

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This book tells the story of how the "servile arts" turned into the "mechanical arts," which in turn developed into a kind of philosophical apparatus that made modern science possible. Why did the scientific revolution take place in the West and not in China or the Islamic world? How did humanity’s progress in science and technology, which had been moving along at a relatively steady pace for tens of thousands of years, end up taking such an unprecedented leap? Subjecting the history of thought and technology to a novel interpretation based on the relationship between theory and practice, Ahmet Selami Çalışkan argues that the industrial revolution and modern science—and the scientific revolution that preceded both—did not alone suffice to sort out the philosophical problems of their day or to produce the institutions of the modern age. Both required a new sort of human: Homo economicus faber. Tracing the historical emergence of this figure and its persistence in our own age, this book offers an innovative and holistic assessment of the economic, cultural and political effects of centuries of interaction between East and West and their repercussions in our world today.

Homo Faber

Homo Faber PDF

Author: G. N. M. Tyrrell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-07

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1000063763

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Originally published in 1951, Homo Faber is an examination of the scientific outlook on human mental evolution through the lens of parapsychology. The book aims to undermine what its terms, the ‘scientific outlook’ examining the human interpretation of the world, and the preconceived scientific concepts that reality does not extend beyond the realm that our senses reveal. The book expands upon this and moves to examine the broader human understanding of the entire cosmos, challenging the scientific conception that this can be grasped in principal by human intellect, arising from the chance combination of material particles. The book argues that the scientific outlook prevents humans from discovering in the Universe the meaning and purpose which are everywhere to be found if sought in the appropriate contemplative states of mind. This book provides a unique take on the examination of human psychology and the evolution of the brain from an alternative scientific stance. It will be of interest to anthropologists, historians and psychologists alike.

The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution

The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution PDF

Author: Gideon Freudenthal

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-05-20

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1402096046

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The texts of Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossmann assembled in this volume are important contributions to the historiography of the Scienti?c Revolution and to the methodology of the historiography of science. They are of course also historical documents, not only testifying to Marxist discourse of the time but also illustrating typical European fates in the ?rst half of the twentieth century. Hessen was born a Jewish subject of the Russian Czar in the Ukraine, participated in the October Revolution and was executed in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the purges. Grossmann was born a Jewish subject of the Austro-Hungarian Kaiser in Poland and served as an Austrian of?cer in the First World War; afterwards he was forced to return to Poland and then because of his revolutionary political activities to emigrate to Germany; with the rise to power of the Nazis he had to ?ee to France and then Americawhilehisfamily,whichremainedinEurope,perishedinNaziconcentration camps. Our own acquaintance with the work of these two authors is also indebted to historical context (under incomparably more fortunate circumstances): the revival of Marxist scholarship in Europe in the wake of the student movement and the p- fessionalization of history of science on the Continent. We hope that under the again very different conditions of the early twenty-?rst century these texts will contribute to the further development of a philosophically informed socio-historical approach to the study of science.

From Oikonomia to Political Economy

From Oikonomia to Political Economy PDF

Author: Germano Maifreda

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1317131975

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Renaissance Europe witnessed a surge of interest in new scientific ideas and theories. Whilst the study of this 'Scientific Revolution' has dramatically shifted our appreciation of many facets of the early-modern world, remarkably little attention has been paid to its influence upon one key area; that of economics. Through an interrogation of the relationship between economic and scientific developments in early-modern Western Europe, this book demonstrates how a new economic epistemology appeared that was to have profound consequences both at the time, and for subsequent generations. Dr Maifreda argues that the new attention shown by astronomers, physicians, aristocrats, men of letters, travellers and merchants for the functioning of economic life and markets, laid the ground for a radically new discourse that envisioned 'economics' as an independent field of scientific knowledge. By researching the historical context surrounding this new field of knowledge, he identifies three key factors that contributed to the cultural construction of economics. Firstly, Italian Humanism and Renaissance, which promoted new subjects, methods and quantitative analysis. Secondly, European overseas expansion, which revealed the existence of economic cultures previously unknown to Europeans. Thirdly factor identified is the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century crisis of traditional epistemologies, which increasingly valued empirical scientific knowledge over long-held beliefs. Based on a wide range of published and archival sources, the book illuminates new economic sensibilities within a range of established and more novel scientific disciplines (including astronomy, physics, ethnography, geology, and chemistry/alchemy). By tracing these developments within the wider social and cultural fields of everyday commercial life, the study offers a fascinating insight into the relationship between economic knowledge and science during the early-modern period.

The Tragedy of Political Science

The Tragedy of Political Science PDF

Author: David M. Ricci

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1984-01-01

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9780300037609

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"This book is both a comprehensive review and a thoughtful critique of the development of political science as an academic discipline in this century. David Ricci eloquently describes the tragic dilemma of political science in America: when political scholars deal with politics in a scientific fashion, they reveal facts that contradict democratic expectations; when the same scholars seek to justify those expectations, their moral arguments carry little professional weight."--Jacket.

Homo Economicus

Homo Economicus PDF

Author: Daniel Cohen

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-06-13

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 0745685323

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The West has long defined the pursuit of happiness in economic terms but now, in the wake of the 2007-8 financial crisis, it is time to think again about what constitutes our happiness. In this wide-ranging new book, the leading economist Daniel Cohen traces our current malaise back to the rise of homo economicus: for the last 200 years, the modern world has defined happiness in terms of material gain. Homo economicus has cast aside its rivals, homo ethicus and homo empathicus, and spread its neo-Darwinian logic far and wide. Yet, instead of bringing happiness, homo economicus traps human beings in a world devoid of any ideals. We are left feeling empty and dissatisfied. Today more and more people are beginning to recognize that competition and material gain are not the only things that matter in life. The central paradox of our era is that we look to the economy to give direction to our world at the very time when social needs are migrating toward sectors that are hard to place within the scope of market logic. Health, education, scientific research, and the world of the Internet form the heart of our post-industrial societies, but none of these belong to the traditional economic mould. While human creativity is higher than ever, homo economicus imposes himself like a sad prophet, a killjoy of the new age. Drawing on a rich array of examples, Cohen explores the new digital and genetic revolutions and examines the limitations of homo economicus in our rapidly transforming world. As human beings have an extraordinary ability to adapt, he argues that we need to rebalance the relation between competition and cooperation in favour of the latter. This thought-provoking analysis of our contemporary predicament will be of great value to anyone interested in the relationship between what happens in our economies and our personal happiness.

Pope Pius XII on the Economic Order

Pope Pius XII on the Economic Order PDF

Author: Rupert J. Ederer

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2011-06-06

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1461670578

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In Pope Pius XII on the Economic Order, economist Rupert J. Ederer explores the views of Eugenio Pacelli, who served as pope during the tumultuous period of 1939 to 1958. Prodigious in his output, Pius XII produced 40 encyclicals, 19 highly regarded Christmas messages, and series of addresses to groups and organizations, laying the groundwork for the economic views of his successors. According to Ederer, it "is safe to say that no Roman pontiff has addressed the problems confronting the social order as frequently and as widely outside the formal structure of encyclicals as Pius XII. This applies in a special way to his masterful and prophetic Christmas Messages." Through the study of Pius XII's encyclicals and Christmas messages, Ederer examines this important pontiff's views on economics and the social order, the world of work, agriculture and farmers, food and population, the middle class, and the world of money and finance. Students and scholars interested in the history of Pius XII's papacy will find in Ederer's analysis an insightful study of Catholic economic thought during an era when nations representing the forces of capitalism, fascism, and Communism were joined in a fierce battle for dominance.

Technology and Christianity

Technology and Christianity PDF

Author: Egbert Schuurman

Publisher: WordBridge Publishing

Published: 2024-08-27

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13:

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The Enlightenment of the 18th century ushered in a new order of the ages, one in which man displaced God as the central focus of both thought and practice. This has had consequences. For one thing, man has taken up the supposedly vacated role of Providence. How has he done it? Not least by gaining an increasing mastery over nature, a mastery enabled by technology. The tools provided by technology have undeniably brought great blessing, but they have also brought new and unprecedented problems. Such powerful tools have given mankind opportunities for good but also for evil, and he has taken advantage of both. In this series of articles written and published over a period of 50 years, Egbert Schuurman elucidates this complex and difficult relationship. Technology has generated a material culture capable of providing undreamed-of wealth and welfare but likewise has brought labor displacement, environmental damage, weaponry of devastating destructive capacity, and possibilities of societal control only dreamed of by history's tyrants. Schuurman expands on all of these consequences, and he does so from a unique perspective, that of the once-dominant but since-displaced perspective of Christianity. In doing so, he demonstrates not only that there are opportunities as well as difficulties involved in the ever-expanding dominance of technology, but also that Christianity can provide the framework for properly assessing and implementing the responsible application of technology. But for this to happen, the sorcerer's apprentice needs to recognize his utter dependence on his Creator and Redeemer.

The Ends of Knowledge

The Ends of Knowledge PDF

Author: Rachael Scarborough King

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-06-01

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1350242306

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Bringing together an exciting group of knowledge workers, scholars and activists from across fields, this book revisits a foundational question of the Enlightenment: what is “the last or furthest end of knowledge”? It is a book about why we do what we do, and how we might know when we are done. In the reorganization of knowledge that characterized the Enlightenment, disciplines were conceived as having particular “ends,” both in terms of purposes and end-points. As we experience an ongoing shift to the knowledge economy of the Information Age, this collection asks whether we still conceptualize knowledge in this way. Does an individual discipline have both an inherent purpose and a natural endpoint? What do an experiment on a fruit fly, a reading of a poem, and the writing of a line of code have in common? Focusing on areas as diverse as AI; biology; Black studies; literary studies; physics; political activism; and the concept of disciplinarity itself, contributors uncover a life after disciplinarity for subjects that face immediate threats to the structure if not the substance of their contributions. These essays – whether reflective, historical, eulogistic, or polemical – chart a vital and necessary course towards the reorganization of knowledge production as a whole.

Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries

Philosophy of Technology in Spanish Speaking Countries PDF

Author: Carl Mitcham

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 9401118922

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This volume grew out of the experience of the First Inter-American Congress on Philosophy of Technology, October 1988, organized by the Center for the Philosophy and History of Science and Technology of the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagiiez. The Spanish-language proceedings of that conference have been published in Carl Mitcham and Margarita M. Peiia Borrero, with Elena Lugo and James Ward, eds., El nuevo mundo de la filosofta y la tecnolog(a (University Park, PA: STS Press, 1990). This volume contains thirty-two papers, twenty-two summaries, an introduction and biographical notes, to provide a full record of that seminal gathering. Discussions with Paul T. Durbin and others - including many who participated in the Second Inter-American Congress on Philosophy of Technology, University of Puerto Rico in Mayagiiez, March 199- raised the prospect of an English-language proceedings in the Philosophy and Technology series. But after due consideration it was agreed that a more general volume was needed to introduce English-speaking readers to a growing body of literature on the philosophy of technology in the Spanish-speaking world. As such, the present volume includes Spanish as well as Latin American authors, historical and contemporary figures, some who did and many who did not participate in the first and second inter-American congresses.