Download or read book The Scientific Imagination written by Arnon Levy and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at the role of the imagination in science, from both philosophical and psychological perspectives. These contributions combine to provide a comprehensive and exciting picture of this under-explored subject.
Download or read book Science and Moral Imagination written by Matthew J. Brown and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that science is or should be value-free, and that values are or should be formed independently of science, has been under fire by philosophers of science for decades. Science and Moral Imagination directly challenges the idea that science and values cannot and should not influence each other. Matthew J. Brown argues that science and values mutually influence and implicate one another, that the influence of values on science is pervasive and must be responsibly managed, and that science can and should have an influence on our values. This interplay, he explains, must be guided by accounts of scientific inquiry and value judgment that are sensitive to the complexities of their interactions. Brown presents scientific inquiry and value judgment as types of problem-solving practices and provides a new framework for thinking about how we might ethically evaluate episodes and decisions in science, while offering guidance for scientific practitioners and institutions about how they can incorporate value judgments into their work. His framework, dubbed “the ideal of moral imagination,” emphasizes the role of imagination in value judgment and the positive role that value judgment plays in science.
Download or read book Imagination written by Jim Davies and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first-ever book on the science of imagination, which sheds light on both the complex inner-workings of our mind and the ways in which we can channel imagination for a better life. We don’t think of imagination the way that we should. The word is often only associated with children, artists and daydreamers, but in reality, imagination is an integral part of almost every action and decision that we make. Simply put, imagination is a person’s ability to create scenarios in his or her head: this can include everything from planning a grocery list, to honing a golf swing, to having religious hallucinations. And while imagination has positive connotations, it can also lead to decreased productivity and cooperation, or worse, the continuous reliving of past trauma.The human brain is remarkable in its ability to imagine—it can imagine complex possible futures, fantasy worlds, or tasty meals. We can use our imaginations to make us relaxed or anxious. We can imagine what the world might be, and construct elaborate plans. People have been fascinated with the machination of the human brain and its ability to imagine for centuries. There are books on creativity, dreams, memory, and the mind in general, but how exactly do we create those scenes in our head? With chapters ranging from hallucination and imaginary friends to how imagination can make you happier and more productive, Jim Davies' Imagination will help us explore the full potential of our own mind.
Download or read book The scientific imagination case studies written by Gerald James Holton and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Imagination and Science in Romanticism written by Richard C. Sha and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sha concludes that both fields benefited from thinking about how imagination could cooperate with reason—but that this partnership was impossible unless imagination's penchant for fantasy could be contained.
Download or read book Imaginative Science Education written by Yannis Hadzigeorgiou and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-26 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about imaginative approaches to teaching and learning school science. Its central premise is that science learning should reflect the nature of science, and therefore be approached as an imaginative/creative activity. As such, the book can be seen as an original contribution of ideas relating to imagination and creativity in science education. The approaches discussed in the book are storytelling, the experience of wonder, the development of ‘romantic understanding’, and creative science, including science through visual art, poetry and dramatization. However, given the perennial problem of how to engage students (of all ages) in science, the notion of ‘aesthetic experience’, and hence the possibility for students to have more holistic and fulfilling learning experiences through the aforementioned imaginative approaches, is also discussed. Each chapter provides an in-depth discussion of the theoretical background of a specific imaginative approach (e.g., storytelling, ‘wonder-full’ science), reviews the existing empirical evidence regarding its role in the learning process, and points out its implications for pedagogy and instructional practices. Examples from physical science illustrating its implementation in the classroom are also discussed. In distinguishing between ‘participation in a science activity’ and ‘engagement with science ideas per se’, the book emphasizes the central role of imaginative engagement with science content knowledge, and thus the potential of the recommended imaginative approaches to attract students to the world of science.
Download or read book Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century written by Amos Funkenstein and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "(This work) promises to raise the level and transform the nature of discourse on the relations of Christianity and science . . . (Funkenstein) leaps fearlessly from one philosophical mountaintop to another, comparing and contrasting doctrines in an amazing display of intellectual dexterity. The result is a bold study of ideas . . . bristling with insight and perceptive reinterpretation of familiar episodes in the history of natural philosophy".--David C. Lindberg, "Journal of the History of Medicine". *Lightning Print On Demand Title
Download or read book Gaston Bachelard written by Cristina Chimisso and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new study, Cristina Chimisso explores the work of the French Philosopher of Science, Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) by situating it within French cultural life of the first half of the century. The book is introduced by a study - based on an analysis of portraits and literary representations - of how Bachelard's admirers transformed him into the mythical image of the Philosopher, the Patriarch and the 'Teacher of Happiness'. Such a projected image is contrasted with Bachelard's own conception of philosophy and his personal pedagogical and moral ideas. This pedagogical orientation is a major feature of Bachelard's texts, and one which deepens our understanding of the main philosophical arguments. The primary thesis of the book is based on the examination of the French educational system of the time and of French philosophy taught in schools and conceived by contemporary philosophers. This approach also helps to explain Bachelard's reception of psychoanalysis and his mastery of modern literature. Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination thus allows for a new reading of Bachelard's body of work, whilst at the same time providing an insight into twentieth century French culture.
Download or read book Star Wars written by Ed Rodley and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents an illustrated examination of the impact of the film "Star Wars" on the culture of technological advancement, providing information on the how the future develop in two key areas, transportation and robotics.
Download or read book Vico s Science of Imagination written by Donald Phillip Verene and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A full interpretation of Giambattista Vico's thought, based primarily on his major work, the New Science, and on his earlier Latin writings.
Download or read book Image and Reality written by Alan J. Rocke and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth-century chemists were faced with a particular problem: how to depict the atoms and molecules that are beyond the direct reach of our bodily senses. In visualizing this microworld, these scientists were the first to move beyond high-level philosophical speculations regarding the unseen. In Image and Reality, Alan Rocke focuses on the community of organic chemists in Germany to provide the basis for a fuller understanding of the nature of scientific creativity. Arguing that visual mental images regularly assisted many of these scientists in thinking through old problems and new possibilities, Rocke uses a variety of sources, including private correspondence, diagrams and illustrations, scientific papers, and public statements, to investigate their ability to not only imagine the invisibly tiny atoms and molecules upon which they operated daily, but to build detailed and empirically based pictures of how all of the atoms in complicated molecules were interconnected. These portrayals of “chemical structures,” both as mental images and as paper tools, gradually became an accepted part of science during these years and are now regarded as one of the central defining features of chemistry. In telling this fascinating story in a manner accessible to the lay reader, Rocke also suggests that imagistic thinking is often at the heart of creative thinking in all fields. Image and Reality is the first book in the Synthesis series, a series in the history of chemistry, broadly construed, edited by Angela N. H. Creager, John E. Lesch, Stuart W. Leslie, Lawrence M. Principe, Alan Rocke, E.C. Spary, and Audra J. Wolfe, in partnership with the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
Download or read book The Aesthetics of Science written by Milena Ivanova and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-01-16 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume builds on two recent developments in philosophy on the relationship between art and science: the notion of representation and the role of values in theory choice and the development of scientific theories. Its aim is to address questions regarding scientific creativity and imagination, the status of scientific performances—such as thought experiments and visual aids—and the role of aesthetic considerations in the context of discovery and justification of scientific theories. Several contributions focus on the concept of beauty as employed by practising scientists, the aesthetic factors at play in science and their role in decision making. Other essays address the question of scientific creativity and how aesthetic judgment resolves the problem of theory choice by employing aesthetic criteria and incorporating insights from both objectivism and subjectivism. The volume also features original perspectives on the role of the sublime in science and sheds light on the empirical work studying the experience of the sublime in science and its relation to the experience of understanding. The Aesthetics of Science tackles these topics from a variety of novel and thought-provoking angles. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of science and aesthetics, as well as other subdisciplines such as epistemology and philosophy of mathematics.
Download or read book Another Reason written by Gyan Prakash and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Another Reason is a bold and innovative study of the intimate relationship between science, colonialism, and the modern nation. Gyan Prakash, one of the most influential historians of India writing today, explores in fresh and unexpected ways the complexities, contradictions, and profound importance of this relationship in the history of the subcontinent. He reveals how science served simultaneously as an instrument of empire and as a symbol of liberty, progress, and universal reason--and how, in playing these dramatically different roles, it was crucial to the emergence of the modern nation. Prakash ranges over two hundred years of Indian history, from the early days of British rule to the dawn of the postcolonial era. He begins by taking us into colonial museums and exhibitions, where Indian arts, crafts, plants, animals, and even people were categorized, labeled, and displayed in the name of science. He shows how science gave the British the means to build railways, canals, and bridges, to transform agriculture and the treatment of disease, to reconstruct India's economy, and to transfigure India's intellectual life--all to create a stable, rationalized, and profitable colony under British domination. But Prakash points out that science also represented freedom of thought and that for the British to use it to practice despotism was a deeply contradictory enterprise. Seizing on this contradiction, many of the colonized elite began to seek parallels and precedents for scientific thought in India's own intellectual history, creating a hybrid form of knowledge that combined western ideas with local cultural and religious understanding. Their work disrupted accepted notions of colonizer versus colonized, civilized versus savage, modern versus traditional, and created a form of modernity that was at once western and indigenous. Throughout, Prakash draws on major and minor figures on both sides of the colonial divide, including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, the nationalist historian and novelist Romesh Chunder Dutt, Prafulla Chandra Ray (author of A History of Hindu Chemistry), Rudyard Kipling, Lord Dalhousie, and John Stuart Mill. With its deft combination of rich historical detail and vigorous new arguments and interpretations, Another Reason will recast how we understand the contradictory and colonial genealogy of the modern nation.
Download or read book Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination written by Russell Blackford and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly original book, Russell Blackford discusses the intersection of science fiction and humanity’s moral imagination. With the rise of science and technology in the 19th century, and our continually improving understanding of the cosmos, writers and thinkers soon began to imagine futures greatly different from the present. Science fiction was born out of the realization that future technoscientific advances could dramatically change the world. Along with the developments described in modern science fiction - space societies, conscious machines, and upgraded human bodies, to name but a few - come a new set of ethical challenges and new forms of ethics. Blackford identifies these issues and their reflection in science fiction. His fascinating book will appeal to anyone with an interest in philosophy or science fiction, or in how they interact. “This is a seasoned, balanced analysis of a major issue in our thinking about the future, seen through the lens of science fiction, a central art of our time. Everyone from humanists to technologists should study these ideas and examples. Blackford’s book is wise and savvy, and a delight to read as well.” Greg Benford, author of Timescape.
Download or read book The Evolution of Imagination written by Stephen T. Asma and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-06-21 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consider Miles Davis, horn held high, sculpting a powerful musical statement full of tonal patterns, inside jokes, and thrilling climactic phrases—all on the fly. Or think of a comedy troupe riffing on a couple of cues from the audience until the whole room is erupting with laughter. Or maybe it’s a team of software engineers brainstorming their way to the next Google, or the Einsteins of the world code-cracking the mysteries of nature. Maybe it’s simply a child playing with her toys. What do all of these activities share? With wisdom, humor, and joy, philosopher Stephen T. Asma answers that question in this book: imagination. And from there he takes us on an extraordinary tour of the human creative spirit. Guided by neuroscience, animal behavior, evolution, philosophy, and psychology, Asma burrows deep into the human psyche to look right at the enigmatic but powerful engine that is our improvisational creativity—the source, he argues, of our remarkable imaginational capacity. How is it, he asks, that a story can evoke a whole world inside of us? How are we able to rehearse a skill, a speech, or even an entire scenario simply by thinking about it? How does creativity go beyond experience and help us make something completely new? And how does our moral imagination help us sculpt a better society? As he shows, we live in a world that is only partly happening in reality. Huge swaths of our cognitive experiences are made up by “what-ifs,” “almosts,” and “maybes,” an imagined terrain that churns out one of the most overlooked but necessary resources for our flourishing: possibilities. Considering everything from how imagination works in our physical bodies to the ways we make images, from the mechanics of language and our ability to tell stories to the creative composition of self-consciousness, Asma expands our personal and day-to-day forms of imagination into a grand scale: as one of the decisive evolutionary forces that has guided human development from the Paleolithic era to today. The result is an inspiring look at the rich relationships among improvisation, imagination, and culture, and a privileged glimpse into the unique nature of our evolved minds.
Download or read book The Scientific Imagination in South Africa written by William Beinart and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-20 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative three hundred year exploration of the social and political contexts of science and the scientific imagination in South Africa.
Download or read book The Poetry and Music of Science written by Tom McLeish and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Poetry and Music of Science examines aspects of science and art that bear close comparison - for example the art of the novel and the art of scientific experimentation. The book eavesdrops on conversations between scientists on how new theories arise, and listens to artists' and composers' witness of their own creative processes.
