The Social Origins of Modern Science [Hardcover]

Here, for the first time, is a single volume in English that contains all the important historical essays Edgar Zilsel (1891-1944) published during WWII on the emergence of modern science. It also contains one previously unpublished essay and an extended version of an essay published earlier. This volume is unique in its well-articulated social perspective on the origins of modern science and is of major interest to students in early modern social history/history of science, professional philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science.

Edgar Zilsel (1891-1944) lived through the best of times and worst of times, through the renewal of scientific optimism and humane politics, and through the massive social collapse into idolatrous barbarism. With it all, and with his per? sonal and family crises in Vienna and later in America, Zilsel was, I believe, a th heroic, indeed a model, scholar of the first half of the 20 century. He was widely admired as a teacher, at high schools, in workers education, in research tutoring and seminars. He was an original investigator on matters of the methodology of science, and of the history of the sciences. He was a social and political analyst, as a critical Marxist, of the turmoil of Vienna in the 20s. Above all, he achieved so much as a sociological historian who undertook re? search on two central facts of the early modern world: recognition of the cre? ative individual, and the ideal of genius; and the conditions and realities of the coming of science to European civilization.Preface; R.S. Cohen. Foreword; J. Needham. Origin of the Essays. A Note of the Use of Archive Material. Acknowledgements. Editorial Policy. Introduction: Edgar Zilsel: His Life and Work (1891-1944); D. Raven, W. Krohn. Photo of Edgar Zilsel. Part I: The Social Origins of Modern Science. 1. The Social Roots of Science. 2. The Sociological Roots of Science. 3. The Methods of Humanism. 4. Remarks on Zilsel's `The Methods of Humanism'; P.O. lóš