Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Science and the Modern World by Alfred North Whitehead, Talcott Parsons ISBN: 0-684-83639-4 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: August, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Ahem
Comment: Whitehead is widely regarded as a humane philosopher in the best sense of that word--a philosopher able to get across very difficult ideas with a wink and a smile. Also, he has always been commended for his prose style in his more intimate writings, at least in his books based on lectures (the best of which are Science in the Modern World and Adventures of Ideas). Process and Reality is difficult but worth the effort; one does need a glossary at times, but this isn't a review of that book.
It is hard to imagine a philosophy book written with more clarity than this one. I think that the quotes given by reviewers witness that fact. The only review here, it turns out, which dilikes the book because of its "unreadability" is the one riddled with spelling and grammatical errors itself. Hard reading, it turns out, is even harder if one cannot spell. With that, I heartily concur.
Rating: 2
Summary: unreadable
Comment: The ideas and philosophical concepts in this book are generally sensible, rational, and correct, but the writing style and execution leaves much to be desired. In other words, this book is extremely difficult. The impenetrable density of this prose is intolerable, especially considering it was written IN ENGLISH, in the TWENTIETH CENTURY! If someone had handed me this book with a blank cover, I would have been convinced that it was originally written in old German during the time of Kant, and verbosely translated by some frustrated acedemic. It is beyond me how any book writeen in English so recently could be so unreadable.
I might recommend this book to someone with a highly scientific, mathematical and empiricist mind-set. After all, Whitehead is an accomplished mathematician, and his book has an aire of unbiased, empirical objectivity. For a mathematician with a desire to cross over into the philosophy genre, this might be a good choice. But for normal philosophy readers who come from a liberal arts/literary background, this book will probably come across as obfiscated and tortuous.
Rating: 4
Summary: Dense and sometimes difficult, but fascinating
Comment: In short: A serious and thoughtful book about the meaning and impact of science. This is not light, popular science reading. (If you're looking for that, I highly recommend the works of folks like Freeman Dyson or Stephen Jay Gould.)
_Science and the Modern World_ has some stunning, timeless insights, and many things I'm fond of quoting. Here's a favorite, from the last chapter:
"Modern science has imposed upon humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive
technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure.
The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect, therefore, that the future
will disclose dangers."
(Here it comes:)
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties."
(*P*O*W*!*)
"The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon the placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge."
(Same as it ever was!)
"The middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a confusion between civilization and security. In the immediate future there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages."
Whew.
 |
Title: PROCESS AND REALITY by Alfred North Whitehead ISBN: 0029345707 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1979 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: ADVENTURES OF IDEAS by Alfred North Whitehead ISBN: 0029351707 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1967 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Modes of Thought by Alfred North Whitehead ISBN: 002935210X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: April, 1985 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead, Donald W. Sherburne ISBN: 0226752933 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: September, 1981 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
 |
Title: Religion in the Making: Lowell Lectures 1926 by Alfred North Whitehead, Judith Jones ISBN: 0823216462 Publisher: Fordham University Press Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
