The Discovery Of Time

E-Book Overview

"A discussion of the historical development of our ideas of time as they relate to nature, human nature and society. . . . The excellence of The Discovery of Time is unquestionable." Taking the history of science full circle to look at how scientists developed their ideas about history, The Discovery of Time is a delightful and thought-provoking companion to The Architecture of Matter and The Fabric of the Heavens. Authors Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield explore the evolution of our thinking about the past clearly and plainly, showing the interplay and conflict between natural philosophy and religious dogma that continue in classrooms today. Beginning their story in prehistoric traditions of oral history, which functioned to preserve cultural and spiritual truths, they examine the ancients' relationship with their own past as it related to their explanations for the way things had come to be. The Greeks began incorporating what we would recognize as historical elements into their contemporary writings, blending the legends of the past with their philosophical thinking. The exquisitely demonstrated expansion and contraction of the perceived past, from the infamous calculation of the date of the biblical Creation to modern ideas about the Big Bang, shake the modern reader's certainty a little--essential for any new understanding. The drama of Kant, Vico, Darwin, Lyell, and other thinkers competing for the world's attention to create the greatest change in the history of history late in the 19th century is compelling reading and closes the book on a tentative note. Toulmin and Goodfield tame a complex, important subject in The Discovery of Time, and our comprehension of past and present is richer for it. --Rob Lightner

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E-Book Information

• Year: 1,982

• Pages: 292

• Pages In File: 292

• Language: English

• Topic: 178

• Identifier: 226,808,424

• Dpi: 600

• Cleaned: 1

• Paginated: 1

• Org File Size: 35,783,221

• Extension: pdf

• Tags: history of science philosophy of science time

• Toc: Front Cover......Page 1 Title Page......Page 5 Contents......Page 7 Acknowledgements......Page 11 Authors’ Foreword......Page 17 INTRODUCTION The Problem of Historical Inference......Page 19 1. Memories and Myths......Page 25 Chronicles and Genealogies......Page 26 Myths and Legend......Page 31 Historical Cosmology in Miletos......Page 35 The Divorce o f History from Philosophy......Page 40 Plato's Creator-Craftsman......Page 44 Aristotle's Eternal Universe......Page 46 Stoics and Epicureans......Page 48 The Limits of the Classical World-Picture......Page 51 The Beginnings of Natural History......Page 52 Christianity and History......Page 57 Fundamentalism and Allegory......Page 59 The New Chronology......Page 61 The Mediaeval World-Allegory......Page 67 The Dream o f the Millennium......Page 72 4. The Revival of Natural Philosophy......P