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The
Culture and History of Science Page
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The
Culture and History of Science Page
"... a blind man may tread surer
by a guide
than a seeing man can by a light
..."
Francis Bacon (1605).
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Francis Bacon (1561-1621): Of the Proficience
and Advancement of Learning (1605).
Francis Bacon's work is unique in its influence upon the development of the natural sciences, the human or cultural sciences, and philosophy in modern times. Written at the outset of British colonialism, it has shaped the course of thinking of generations of scholars throughout the world up to this very day. Conceived as a praise and reformation of unrestrained scientific investigation, it started off the European enlightenment as well as the empirical studies of nature made possible by new scientific instruments invented at about the same time. With his distinction between poetry and history and a modern classification of the different branches of human knowledge, Bacon gave a new definition to what was to be considered as true in Europe and the rest of the world that came under its influence. The graceful beauty of his words led many readers to believe that the later Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon and the author of William Shakespeare's poetry were one and the same person.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): On the Nature of Nature (1786).
In the Introduction to his Metaphysical Foundations of the Science of Nature of 1786, Immanuel Kant clearly continues the tradition set out by Francis Bacon to map the conceptual domains of research into nature. The weight laid upon mathematical formalization as well as Kant's distinction between nature in a formal sense (as the first internal principle of the possibility for any thing) and nature in a material sense (as the notion of any thing as the object of man's senses) have had their unmistakable influence upon 19th and 20th century European science. It is well worth reading today.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): On Comprehension and Transcendental Consciousness (1788-1791).
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant must be regarded as the founding father of modern cognitive science. Applying subtle distinctions to the raw material of his encyclopedic mind, he hardly ever tired to advance the frontiers of his knowledge. Although the rumour has never died that occasionally he did not quite understand himself (and it is difficult indeed to follow his thoughts at times), Kant's distinctions have retained their provocative impact well into our own days. In this short text, he distinguishes between perception (Wahrnehmung), thinking (Denken), experience (Erfahrung) and its demonstation (exhibitio), and the peculiar nature of philosophic knowledge to transcend mere thinking and experience (transzendentales Bewußtsein).
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): On Pedagogics (1803).
Following Rousseau's romantic thoughts about educating civilized humanity, there was a new upsurge of theorizing upon alternatives in education throughout Europe, paralleled only by the memorable initiatives of Comenius and others at the beginning of the 17th century. Kant was not the first to lecture upon pedagogics or the art of teaching, but he was one of the first to call it by that name. Most of all, his approach was unique in generalizing education to encompass what he called moralization, cultivation, and civilization as the self-development of human societies. His realization that "man can become man only by education" was the guiding principle of the neo-humanistic education as taught at the newly founded Berlin university that became the model for most universities that were established all over the world during the 19th century.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Über Pädagogik (1803). PDF (Google Books).
Auguste Comte (1798-1857): On the History and Culture of Science (1824).
In this early letter of Auguste Comte's to his friend Valat, the founder of the histoire des mentalités and of 19th century positivism demonstrates a rather matter-of-factual understanding of the relationship between mind and matter as exhibited in the pseudoscience of phrenology that was popular in his days. The strict and implacable opposition between a history of science and a culture of science that he draws in this letter has been challenged with differing intentions only in this century.
Auguste Comte (1798-1857): On the History and Culture of Science (1824). HTML (64 KB).
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