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This book is the first English translation of a German classic in the social-historical historiography of science in the early modern period. It presents a reconstruction of the Scientific Revolution based on a critical historical materialism. It argues that the dominant ideas, images, and philosophies of nature of that time were conditioned by humans practical and technological relationship with nature, and that they changed in accordance with the historical development of early capitalist society. Against economic reductionism, Lefèvre stresses the interdependence of material conditions of life and theories of nature on the basis of a critical study of sources and historical contexts. The book makes available an important study with related texts and contributes to the current debates on the intersection of historical and political epistemology.
The series editors provide a conceptual and contextual introduction, including information on the political-epistemological background of the book first published in 1978.
List of contents
Editorial Preface.- Preface to the English Edition.- Preface to the 1978 German Edition.- Chapter 1. The Development of Material Production and the Genesis of Modern Natural Science.- Chapter 2. The Development of the Bourgeois Social Formation and the Genesis of Modern Natural Science.- Chapter 3. The Significance of Practice for the Theoretical Form of Modern Natural Science.- Chapter 4. Contradictions between the New Science and the Bourgeois Worldview as Reflected in Philosophical Treatments of Natural Science in the 17th Century.- Appendices: Between Two Natures.- Second Nature and the Natural Sciences: Reflections on the Tasks of Philosophy in the Discussion about the Foundations of the Natural Sciences.- (with Peter Damerow) Knowledge Systems in Historical Change.
About the author
Wolfgang Lefévre, Promotion (1971) and Habilitation (1977) at the Freie Universität Berlin and 1972 to 2006 professor (apl.) for history of science and philosophy ibidem. Since 1994 Senior Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.
Summary
This book is the first English translation of a German classic in the social-historical historiography of science in the early modern period. It presents a reconstruction of the ‘Scientific Revolution’ based on a critical historical materialism. It argues that the dominant ideas, images, and philosophies of nature of that time were conditioned by humans’ practical and technological relationship with nature, and that they changed in accordance with the historical development of early capitalist society. Against economic reductionism, Lefèvre stresses the interdependence of material conditions of life and theories of nature on the basis of a critical study of sources and historical contexts. The book makes available an important study with related texts and contributes to the current debates on the intersection of historical and political epistemology.
The series editors provide a conceptual and contextual introduction, including information on the political-epistemological background of the book first published in 1978.
