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Alfred North Whitehead's SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD, originally published in 1925, redefines the concept of modern science. Presaging by more than half a century most of today's cutting-edge thought on the cultural ramifications of science and technology, Whitehead demands that readers understand and celebrate the contemporary, historical, and cultural context of scientific discovery. Taking readers through the history of modern science, Whitehead shows how cultural history has affected science over the ages in relation to such major intellectual themes as romanticism, relativity, quantum theory, religion, and movements for social progress.
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ABOUT THIS BOOK The essential features of Alfred North White head's philosophy of organism are already known to ali audience beyond, that of his fellow philoso phers. Ernest Nagel, in an attempt to explain the wide influence 'of Whitehead's system of thought, says: "His philosophical writings express some of the dynamic tensions of the society in which he lived, and they answer needs that are deep-seated and widely felt.': Nagel adds: "He was an extra ordinarily gifted spokesman, perceptive and wise, for everything nascent, venturesome and potentially liberating." Science' qnd the Modern World, perhaps White-' head's most widely read philosophic work, consists in the main of a series of eight Lowell Lectures f its parts through time, there is the same thing-for�its-own-sake standing before you. Thus the event, in its own intrinsic reality, mirrors in itself, as derived from its own parts, aspects of the same patterned value as it realises in its cQmplete self. It thus realises itself under the guise', of an enduring individual entity, with a life history contained within itself. Furthermore, the extrinsic reality of such
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