A Brief History of Philosophy and Science: Imagining our World
This book explores the relationship between science and philosophy and begins with the extraordinary mathematical explanations of Earth’s solar system by the Ancient Greeks. Throughout the Middle Ages, human thinking suffered the strictures imposed by the Roman Catholic Church but emerged during the 17th and 18th centuries in the Age of the Enlightenment. During this era, ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview and instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. In The Age of Technology, which followed in the 19th and 20th centuries, humans became alienated from the natural environment and abandoned philosophical thought. Belief in the machine was supreme and it is only in the 21st century that humans have come to understand the downside of unfettered science; the threat of nuclear annihilation is still with us, and we now face the new threat of human-induced global warming.
Can philosophy open a door to thinking that helps one to understand one’s own time, and our place in it?
Professor Emeritus S Don Bradshaw, PhD FAIBiol, held the Foundation Chair of Zoology at the University of Western Australia until his retirement in 2005. He is an ecophysiologist and comparative endocrinologist, studying the physiological responses of free-living animals to the environmental challenges of high temperatures and lack of free water. His primary interest has focused on vertebrates in deserts of Australia, North Africa and the United States. This has led to ongoing studies on stress physiology in many vertebrate species, in an attempt to identify and measure the intensity of stress responses in wild populations of animals. He has published monographs with Academic Press, Springer and Cambridge University Press, 35 invited chapters and over 250 scientific articles in international journals. As a university teacher his lectures are remembered by many former students as exploring the philosophical dimension of the current topic, designed to open their minds to the ways in which we acquire knowledge.
"This really comprehensive, albeit necessarily brief history of Western philosophy and the beginnings and history of science as a discipline, bringing these two ways of seeing the world together, is fascinating. Often provocative in the best possible way, it challenges received (and lazy) ways of thinking and pushes any reader into different imaginings, both of the world around them and their ways of understanding it. It’s also properly informative with regard to both philosophy and science and wide ranging in its references, drawing on art and literary examples for instance to widen its cultural scope. My complete lack of a background in scientific thought was not a barrier to my understanding of Bradshaw’s argument and examples throughout and I gained from my reading."
Delys Bird AM Former Editor, Westerly literary journal, University of Western Australia
"this text will appeal to both the informed and the novice reader. Hence Bradshaw’s hope at the beginning that the ‘book may appeal to every person who is inquisitive about the world and our place in it’ is more than supported by its richness and clarity of thought. It allows for expansion, with every reference encouraging further reading and thinking."
Delys Bird AM Former Editor, Westerly literary journal, University of Western Australia
"Imagining Our World is a miracle of concision. It offers the reader a fascinating intellectual feast, based on a scholar’s lifetime’s quest for an understanding of the human condition."
Emeritus Professor John Scott, MA Dante Scholar and former Head, School of Italian, University of Western Australia
"This is a breathtaking and refreshing work by Emeritus Professor Don Bradshaw. It offers a profound exploration, as a metaphorical Möbius strip, of the dynamic interchange of ideas and practices between science and philosophy—two disciplines generally considered separate realms of human thought and inquiry. In this book, Professor Bradshaw artfully intertwines a scholarly and erudite examination of the historical relationship between these fields, presenting it in a remarkably creative and insightful manner."
Michael Goldschlager Former Principal Cello, WA Symphony Orchestra and Australian World Orchestra
"There is much to learn here, and Professor Bradshaw provides readers with ample references to further avenues of literary and scientific exploration for those who wish to delve deeper."
Michael Goldschlager Former Principal Cello, WA Symphony Orchestra and Australian World Orchestra
"a concise and beautifully written account providing an invaluable explanation of the way in which knowledge is generated, tested and ultimately incorporated in our personal and collective world view. Past students of Professor Bradshaw have had the pleasure and privilege of hearing him expound on the subjects covered in this book; publication of this series of lectures now makes that pleasure and privilege available to more than we lucky few."
Bradley J. Pusey Adjunct Professor, The University of Western Australia
"This book is unique in being written by a practising scientist who understands the fundamentals and implications of the scientific method. And unique in being written by a scientist with decades of teaching experience who can explain science in a clear and understandable way."
Dr David R Horton PhD DLitt General Editor of The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia
"Many readers will be inspired to investigate issues they thought were settled and in doing so learn even more about the business of science."
Dr David R Horton PhD DLitt General Editor of The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia
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