Download or read book Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind written by Antoine-Nicholas Condorcet and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps the last great work of the Enlightenment, this landmark in intellectual history is the Marquis de Condorcet's homage to the human future emancipated from its chains and led by the progress of reason and the establishment of liberty. Writing in 1794, while in hiding, under sentence of death from the Jacobins in revolutionary France, Condorcet surveys human history and speculates upon its future. With William Godwin, he is the chief foil of Malthus's Essay on Population. Portrayed by Malthus as an elate and giddy optimist, Condorcet foresees a future of indefinite progress. Freed from ignorance and superstition, he argues that the human race stands on the threshold of epochal progress and limitless improvement. Condorcet defies modernist stereotypes of the right and the left. He is at once precursor of the free market and social democracy. This new edition of the original 1795 English translation, is the only English translation of a work of Condorcet currently in print.

Download or read book Decoding the Stars A Biography of Angelo Secchi Jesuit and Scientist written by Ileana Chinnici and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 Donald E. Osterbrock Book Prize for Historical Astronomy In Decoding the Stars, Ileana Chinnici offers an account of the life of the Jesuit scientist Angelo Secchi (1818-1878). In addition to providing an invaluable account of Secchi’s life and work—something that has been sorely lacking in the English-language scholarship—this biography will be especially stimulating for those interested in the evolution of astrophysics as a discipline from the nineteenth century onward. Despite his eclecticism, reminiscent of the natural philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Secchi was in many ways a very modern scientist: open to innovation and cooperation, and a promoter of popularization and citizen science. Secchi also appears fully inserted in the cultural context of his time: he participated in philosophical and scientific debates, spread new theories and ideas, but also suffered the consequences of political events that marked those years and impacted on his life and activities.

Download or read book Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the Context of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention written by Clive L. N. Ruggles and published by . This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This joint venture between ICOMOS, the advisory body to UNESCO on cultural sites, and the International Astronomical Union is the second volume in an ongoing exploration of themes and issues relating to astronomical heritage in particular and to science and technology heritage in general. It examines a number of key questions relating to astronomical heritage sites and their potential recognition as World Heritage, attempting to identify what might constitute "outstanding universal value" in relation to astronomy. "Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy--Volume 2" represents the culmination of several years' work to address some of the most challenging issues raised in the first ICOMOS-IAU Thematic Study, published in 2010. These include the recognition and preservation of the value of dark skies at both cultural and natural sites and landscapes; balancing archaeoastronomical considerations in the context of broader archaeological and cultural values; the potential for serial nominations; and management issues such as preserving the integrity of astronomical sightlines through the landscape.Its case studies are developed in greater depth than those in volume 1, and generally structured as segments of draft nomination dossiers. They include seven-stone antas (prehistoric dolmens) in Portugal and Spain, the thirteen towers of Chankillo in Peru, the astronomical timing of irrigation in Oman, Pic du Midi de Bigorre Observatory in France, Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and Aoraki-Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve in New Zealand. A case study on Stonehenge, already a World Heritage Site, focuses on preserving the integrity of the solstitial sightlines.As for the first ICOMOS-IAU Thematic Study, a international team of authors including historians, astronomers and heritage professionals is led by Professor Clive Ruggles for the IAU and Professor Michel Cotte for ICOMOS.

Download or read book Searching the Heavens and the Earth written by Agustin UDIAS and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesuits established a large number of astronomical, geophysical and meteorological observatories during the 17th and 18th centuries and again during the 19th and 20th centuries throughout the world. The history of these observatories has never been published in a complete form. Many early European astronomical observatories were established in Jesuit colleges. During the 17th and 18th centuries Jesuits were the first western scientists to enter into contact with China and India. It was through them that western astronomy was first introduced in these countries. They made early astronomical observations in India and China and they directed for 150 years the Imperial Observatory of Beijing. In the 19th and 20th centuries a new set of observatories were established. Besides astronomy these now included meteorology and geophysics. Jesuits established some of the earliest observatories in Africa, South America and the Far East. Jesuit observatories constitute an often forgotten chapter of the history of these sciences.

Download or read book Indigenous knowledge for climate change assessment and adaptation written by Nakashima, Douglas and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique transdisciplinary publication is the result of collaboration between UNESCO's Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) programme, the United Nations University's Traditional Knowledge Initiative, the IPCC, and other organisations

Download or read book Psychoanalysis of Technoscience written by Hub Zwart and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2019 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a psychoanalysis of technoscience. Basic concepts and methods developed by Freud, Jung, Bachelard and Lacan are applied to case histories (palaeoanthropology, classical conditioning, virology). Rather than by disinterested curiosity, technoscience is driven by desire, resistance and the will to control. Moreover, psychoanalysis focusses on primal scenes (Dubois' quest for the missing link, Pavlov's discovery of the conditioned reflex) and opts for triangulation: comparing technoscience to "different scenes" provided by novels, so that Dubois's work is compared to missing link novels by Verne and London and Pavlov's experiments with Skinner's Walden Two, while virology is studied through the lens of viral fiction.

Download or read book Cosmic Society written by Peter Dickens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-11-08 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Space weaponry, satellite surveillance and communications, and private space travel are all means in which outer space is being humanized: incorporated into society’s projects. But what are the political implications of society not only being globalized, but becoming ‘cosmic’? Our ideas about society have long affected, and been affected by, our understanding of the universe: large sections of our economy and society are now organized around humanity’s use of outer space. Our view of the universe, our increasingly ‘cosmic’ society, and even human consciousness are being transformed by new relations with the cosmos. As the first sociological book to tackle humanity’s relationship with the universe, this fascinating volume links social theory to classical and contemporary science, and proposes a new ‘cosmic’ social theory. Written in a punchy, student-friendly style, this timely book engages with a range of topical issues, including cyberspace, terrorism, tourism, surveillance and globalization.

Download or read book Against Method written by Paul Feyerabend and published by Verso. This book was released on 1993 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern philosophy of science has paid great attention to the understanding of scientific 'practice', in contrast to concentration on scientific 'method'. Paul Feyerabend's acclaimed work, which has contributed greatly to this new emphasis, shows the deficiencies of some widespread ideas about the nature of knowledge. He argues that the only feasible explanations of scientific successes are historical explanations, and that anarchism must now replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge. The third edition of this classic text contains a new preface and additional reflections at various points in which the author takes account both of recent debates on science and on the impact of scientific products and practices on the human community. While disavowing populism or relativism, Feyerabend continues to insist that the voice of the inexpert must be heard. Thus many environmental perils were first identified by non-experts against prevailing assumptions in the scientific community. Feyerabend's challenging reassessment of scientific claims and understandings are as pungent and timely as ever.

Download or read book Reading Clocks Alla Turca written by Avner Wishnitzer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Up until the end of the eighteenth century, the way Ottomans used their clocks conformed to the inner logic of their own temporal culture. However, this began to change rather dramatically during the nineteenth century, as the Ottoman Empire was increasingly assimilated into the European-dominated global economy and the project of modern state building began to gather momentum. In Reading Clocks, Alla Turca, Avner Wishnitzer unravels the complexity of Ottoman temporal culture and for the first time tells the story of its transformation. He explains that in their attempt to attain better surveillance capabilities and higher levels of regularity and efficiency, various organs of the reforming Ottoman state developed elaborate temporal constructs in which clocks played an increasingly important role. As the reform movement spread beyond the government apparatus, emerging groups of officers, bureaucrats, and urban professionals incorporated novel time-related ideas, values, and behaviors into their self-consciously “modern” outlook and lifestyle. Acculturated in the highly regimented environment of schools and barracks, they came to identify efficiency and temporal regularity with progress and the former temporal patterns with the old political order. Drawing on a wealth of archival and literary sources, Wishnitzer’s original and highly important work presents the shifting culture of time as an arena in which Ottoman social groups competed for legitimacy and a medium through which the very concept of modernity was defined. Reading Clocks, Alla Turca breaks new ground in the study of the Middle East and presents us with a new understanding of the relationship between time and modernity.

Download or read book The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare written by Bruce R. Smith and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This transhistorical, international and interdisciplinary work will be of interest to students, theater professionals and Shakespeare scholars.

Download or read book Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture written by Edward Payson Evans and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Brief History of Ancient Astrology written by Roger Beck and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brief History of Ancient Astrology explores the theory and practice of astrology from Babylon to Ancient Greece and Rome and its cultural and political impact on ancient societies. Discusses the union between early astrology and astronomy, in contrast to the modern dichotomy between science and superstition. Explains the ancient understanding of the zodiac and its twelve signs, the seven planets, and the fixed circle of 'places' against which the signs and planets revolve. Demonstrates how to construct and interpret a horoscope in the ancient manner, using original ancient horoscopes and handbooks. Considers the relevance of ancient astrology today.

Download or read book Phys21 written by American Physical Society and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-14 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A report by the Joint Task Force on Undergraduate Physics Programs

Download or read book Religio Medici written by Sir Thomas Browne and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book De Sphaera of Johannes de Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period written by Matteo Valleriani and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book explores commentaries on an influential text of pre-Copernican astronomy in Europe. It features essays that take a close look at key intellectuals and how they engaged with the main ideas of this qualitative introduction to geocentric cosmology. Johannes de Sacrobosco compiled his Tractatus de sphaera during the thirteenth century in the frame of his teaching activities at the then recently founded University of Paris. It soon became a mandatory text all over Europe. As a result, a tradition of commentaries to the text was soon established and flourished until the second half of the 17th century. Here, readers will find an informative overview of these commentaries complete with a rich context. The essays explore the educational and social backgrounds of the writers. They also detail how their careers developed after the publication of their commentaries, the institutions and patrons they were affiliated with, what their agenda was, and whether and how they actually accomplished it. The editor of this collection considers these scientific commentaries as genuine scientific works. The contributors investigate them here not only in reference to the work on which it comments but also, and especially, as independent scientific contributions that are socially, institutionally, and intellectually contextualized around their authors.

Download or read book The Sublime in Antiquity written by James I. Porter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Detailed new account of the historical emergence and conceptual reach of the sublime both before and after Longinus.

Download or read book A Realist Theory of Science written by Roy Bhaskar and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Realist Theory of Science is one of the few books that have changed our understanding of the philosophy of science. In this analysis of the natural sciences, with a particular focus on the experimental process itself, Roy Bhaskar provides a definitive critique of the traditional, positivist conception of science and stakes out an alternative, realist position. Since it original publication in 1975, a movement known as 'Critical Realism', which is both intellectually diverse and international in scope, has developed on the basis of key concepts outlined in the text. The book has been hailed in many quarters as a 'Copernican Revolution' in the study of the nature of science, and the implications of its account have been far-reaching for many fields of the humanities and social sciences.