Mastery of Nature: Promises and Prospects

Review Addressing a mix of technology, politics, culture, and philosophy of science, the essays in Mastery of Nature connect the intellectual stages of philosophical and scientific development with unusual precision and depth. The collection amounts to a rare exchange between philosophical critics of the modern scientific project and its serious defenders. ? Robert Faulkner, Boston CollegeThis volume is an ambitious undertaking made possible by an impressive group of contributors whose essays, while diverse, work together to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Mastery of Nature is a significant contribution to several fields, including political philosophy, intellectual history, and philosophy of science. ? Ronna Burger, Tulane University Product Description In the early modern period, thinkers began to suggest that philosophy abjure the ideal of dispassionate contemplation of the natural world in favor of a more practically minded project that aimed to make human beings masters and possessors of nature. Humanity would seize control of its own fate and overthrow the rule by hostile natural or imaginary forces. The gradual spread of liberal democratic government, the Enlightenment, and the rise of technological modernity are to a considerable extent the fruits of this early modern shift in intellectual concern and focus. But these long-term trends have also brought unintended consequences in their wake as the dynamic forces of social reason, historical progress, and the continued recalcitrance of the natural world have combined to disillusion humans of the possibility-even the desirability-of their mastery over nature.The essays in Mastery of Nature constitute an extensive analysis of the fundamental aspects of the human grasp of nature. What is the foundation and motive of the modern project in the first place? What kind of a world did its early advocates hope to bring about? Contributors not only examine the foundational theories espoused by early modern thinkers such as Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes but also explore the criticisms and corrections that appeared in the works of Rousseau, Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Ranging from ancient Greek thought to contemporary quantum mechanics, Mastery of Nature investigates to what extent nature can be conquered to further human ends and to what extent such mastery is compatible with human flourishing.Contributors: Robert C. Bartlett, Mark Blitz, Daniel A. Doneson, Michael A. Gillespie, Ralph Lerner, Paul Ludwig, Harvey C. Mansfield, Arthur Melzer, Svetozar Y. Minkov, Christopher Nadon, Diana J. Schaub, Adam Schulman, Devin Stauffer, Bernhardt L. Trout, Lise van Boxel, Richard Velkley, Stuart D. Warner, Jerry Weinberger. Book Description Ranging from ancient Greek thought to contemporary quantum mechanics, Mastery of Nature investigates to what extent nature can be conquered to further human ends and to what extent such mastery is compatible with human flourishing. About the Author Svetozar Y. Minkov is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Roosevelt University. Bernhardt L. Trout is the Raymond F. Baddour, ScD, (1949) Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. PrefaceRalph LernerEven imagining such an outcome as mastering nature already bespeaks a certain stance of a human being toward everything around him. That stance might be a result of some reflection or perhaps, rather, little more than an assertion of radical independence: "Let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name" (Gen. 11:4). Conceiving and promoting a program to master nature goes even further. That suggests the intervention of some projectors with a pronounced philosophic cast of mind. It is to such individuals that the contributors to this volume direct their readers' attention. In this preface, I consider a diffe