The Marriage of Sense and Thought: Imaginative Participation in Science (Renewal in Science) - Softcover

Edelglass, Stephen; Maier, Georg; Gebert, Hans; Davy, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1584201061 ISBN 13: 9781584201069

Publisher: Lindisfarne Books, 2011

Synopsis

“In this brilliant book, the authors build a fascinating bridge between science and the world of the senses, a bridge that holds great promise for overcoming the fragmentation and alienation that is so characteristic of our time.” ―Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics and The Web of Life

“Likely to change many readers' comprehension of science.” ―Arthur Zajonc, author of Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love


Having imagined a machine-like world, scientists now haunt this machine uneasily. Their plight is paradoxical: they have realized their world only through intense mental effort, yet this effort finds no legitimate place in the world it so painstakingly comprehends. It seems “objectivity” only comes at a cost. Why, for example, is science unable to describe a smile? Why is the moral life of a physicist regarded as his or her own private affair?

This exclusion of human qualities from science has practical as well as theoretical consequences. If we systematically imagine a world in which human beings don’t exist, we will eventually create a world in which they cannot exist.

Reclaiming the human sources of scientific insight, the authors of this book restore the scientist to the world given by science and celebrate the joyous marriage of sense and thought.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen Edelglass was a founding member of SENSRI and its co-director until his death in November 2000. He was a graduate of MIT (BS and MS in mechanical engineering) and the Stevens Institute of Technology (MS, physics, and Ph.D. in metallurgy). Dr. Edelglass was a Professor of mechanical engineering at Cooper Union in New York, Director of Science at the Threefold Educational Foundation in Chestnut Ridge, New York, and a member of the graduate faculty at Sunbridge College in Spring Valley. He was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Fellowship. He was the author of several books on materials science and philosophy of science and wrote a number of research papers in the areas of materials science, epistemology, and pedagogy. Dr. Edelglass was coauthor of Being on Earth (2006) and The Marriage of Sense and Thought (1997). His later writings and lectures have been recently published as The Physics of Human Experience (2006).

Review:

'In this brilliant book, the authors build a fascinating bridge between science and the world of the senses, a bridge that holds great promise for overcoming the fragmentation and alienation that is so characteristic of our time.' -- Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics and The Web of Life 'Rethinking the foundations of a subject as fundamental to our culture as physics is a bold and challenging initiative... The alternative proposed by the authors could help to heal our alienation from nature -- which we are destroying -- without losing anything of value from science itself.' -- Brian Goodwin, author of How the Leopard Changed Its Spots and Nature's Due 'This little book opens many important avenues for further research and development. It stands as an invitation to join the project of reimagining science.' -- Arthur Zajonc, author of Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love

About this edition

• Publisher: Lindisfarne Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1584201061
• ISBN 13: 9781584201069
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Illustrator: Edelglass Stephen