Full Title: Is the Present the Key to the Past or the Past the Key to the Present? James Hutton and Adam Smith Versus Abraham Gottlob Werner and Karl Marx in Interpreting History
Author: A.M.C. Sengör
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Is history the key to the present? Or is the present the key to understanding history? These questions have troubled the ablest minds in both the natural and social sciences. This book analyzes the answers given to these questions by four well-known researchers, two natural scientists and two social scientists. All four have had great impact in their chosen fields to this day. The answers they gave continue to influence the way we live our lives. The main lessons we learn from the opposing ideas of Werner and Marx on one side and Hutton and Smith on the other are: 1.) How empiricism leads to intolerant dogmatism and undermines science, and 2.) How bold conjecturing and its merciless refutation by observation serve to advance human knowledge. The neptunist-volcanist, catastrophist-uniformitarian, episodicist-continuist controversies are all parts of one great debate: Can history be our guide in understanding the processes that have governed natural and human evolution?
Published: 10/11/2001
ISBN Number: 0813723558
Pages: 62
Product Category: Special Papers