Leo Max e Bruce Mazlish - Progresso: Realidade ou Ilusão?
O progresso, crença secular e principio fundamental da moderna sociedade ocidental, está desde há pouco tempo debaixo de fogo cruzado devido ao facto de, e ao fim de três séculos, os avanços da ciência e da tecnologia terem trazido,........
O progresso, crença secular e principio fundamental da moderna sociedade ocidental, está desde há pouco tempo debaixo de fogo cruzado devido ao facto de, e ao fim de três séculos, os avanços da ciência e da tecnologia terem trazido,........
Progress, perhaps the fundamental secular belief of modern Western
society, has come under heavy fire recently because, after three
centuries, advances in science and technology seem increasingly to bring
problems in their wake: alienation, environmental degradation, the
threat of nuclear destruction. The idea of progress is brought into
question by postmodern critique, attacking the notion of science as
truth. Yet no other meaningful organization of humankind's sense of time
looms on the horizon. This volume seeks to reassess the meaning and
prospects of the idea of progress.
Looking toward the
millennium, the volume seeks to evaluate the idea's worth both in
theory--is it intellectually viable and defensible today?--and
practice--even if theoretically defensible, is the idea undermined in
actual life? Approaching these questions from the perspectives of
science, anthropology, economics, religion, political philosophy,
feminism, medicine, environmental studies, and the Third World, the
contributors, all distinguished scholars, provide a unique and critical
balance.
Ultimately, the contributors find that progress
is both a fact and an illusion: it does occur in certain areas, but it
does not sweep all before it as its Enlightenment votaries thought it
would. This foundational idea permeates discourse in the natural and
social sciences as well as the humanities and will engage historians,
students of the history of science and technology, sociologists,
political scientists, philosophers, literary scholars, and art critics,
as well as those interested in civilization in general.
Contributors
include: Jill Ker Conway, Zhiyuan Cui, Leon Eisenberg, Robert
Heilbroner, Gerald Holton, Leo Marx, Bruce Mazlish, Ali A. Mazrui, Alan
Ryan, John M. Staudenmaier, George W. Stocking, Jr., and Richard White.
"A
discerning reconsideration of the idea of 'progress' in a variety of
carefully defined theoretical and empirical-historical contexts."
--David Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley
Leo
Marx is Professor of American Cultural History, Emeritus, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Bruce Mazlish is Professor of History,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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