"A gem of enlightenment. . . . One rejoices in Bronowski's dedication to the identity of acts of creativity and of imagination, whether in Blake or Yeats or Einstein or Heisenberg."-Kirkus Reviews "A delightful look at the inquiring mind."-Library Journal In this eloquent volume Jacob Bronowski, mathematician and scientist, presents a succinct introduction to the state of modern thinking about the role of science in man's intellectual and moral life. Weaving together themes from ethnology, linguistics, philosophy, and physics, he confronts the questions of who we are, what we are, and how we relate to the universe around us.

This volume, the Frank Gerstein Lectures for 1963, is the second series of Invitation Lectures to be delivered at York University. The theme "Imagination and the University" was appropriate for, as President Murray Ross states in this Foreword, it is in its early years that a university is sufficiently flexible to utilize imagination in its structure and in its curriculum. York University was in its third year when the Lectures were given. Four distinguished scholars present their views on the importance of an imaginative approach to the different academic disciplines, and to the conduct of life in contemporary society as a whole. Jacob Bronowski, speaking on Imagination in Art and Science, draws a clear and striking analogy between the role of imagination in mathematics and in poetry, drawing on his own experiences and contributions in both areas. He stresses that all creative works in art or science, must conform to the universal experience of mankind and to the private experiences of each man: the work of science, as of art, moves us profoundly, in mind and in emotion, when it matches our experience and at the same time points beyond it. Henry Steele Commager shows how important is the contribution to be made by an imaginative approach to politics, where, as in other fields of human experience, it must not be separated from reality, if it is to find expression in something more than words. He points to examples from the past and the present and asks for more imagination in public thinking, it fit our actions to the reality of change, citing the urgency of such twentieth-century phenomena as the status of Communist China, the predicted population explosion, and the threat of nuclear war. Professor Commager believes that the universities provide the key to this kind of approach, being a supreme example of the creative capacity of mankind, whose function it is to serve the commonwealth of learning. A different kind of insight is offered by Gordon W. Allport, whose subject is Imagination in Psychology. He believes that the present "impertinence" of psychology can best be cured by endowing it with more imagination. He demands a pluralistic approach to psychological investigation, which would not deny the insights yielded by traditional methods, with their characteristic minute analyses, but whose goal would be to fashion a conception of the human person that would exclude nothing that is valid, and at the same time preserve an ideal of rational consistency. This could lead, in turn, to a clear definition of the root motives of mankind, even to discovering new formulas for international peace by offsetting particularistic political demands. Finally, Paul H. Buck describes the Harvard House Plan as an example of Imagination and the Curriculum. This plan, modelled on the Oxford-Cambridge College system which is also followed in some Canadian universities, is an attempt to make all aspects of undergraduate life a process of education. And a truly liberal education for today and tomorrow, Professor Buck is confident, will combine a programme of general education, a programme of specialism, and a collegiate way of living.

Science has called into question many traditional assumptions about human nature. In the age of the human genome project, this truism is even more obvious than it was in 1965, when scientist and historian of ideas Jacob Bronowski first delivered the lectures upon which this book is based. Has science revealed that we are essentially just complex machines? Or is human identity more than the sum of its parts?
With his gift for conveying the excitement of ideas, Bronowski discusses the impact of science on our sense of self and the need to re-evaluate ethics in light of the scientific perspective. As both a practicing scientist and an author of books on poetry, he makes interesting connections between the uses of the imagination in science and in literature. Whereas science creates experiments to test hypotheses about the outside world, literature provides "experiments" in poetry and prose, allowing readers to experience what it means to be fully human and relating the individualAEs inner life to that of every human being. In the quest for understanding, science discovers the facts about reality while art depicts the truth of human experience. Bronowski argues that a true humanistic philosophy must give equal place to the inner, subjective vision of the arts and the outer, objective perspective of science since they are both products of one self-conscious creative imagination. In the final analysis, he emphasizes that these perspectives converge in revealing a more enlightened, universal ethics, one that fosters tolerance, mutual understanding, an appreciation of differences, and a sense that we all share a common destiny as human participants in natureAEs cosmic drama.

Jacob Bronowski truly educated an enormous number of members of that diffuse population usually referred to, with a hint of condescension, as "educated laymen" through his widely shared television series on the concepts of science and through such highly regarded books as The Identity of Man and The Ascent of Man. This volume extends the process to a further level of insight, and it may be more than suggestive that its final essay is entitled "The Fulfillment of Man." Bronowski was an extraordinary teacher precisely because he did not condescend to his audience. He did not talk down to them; he knew how to talk them up to something near his own level, however briefly. He felt that if human beings are taken seriously, they can be led to respond to serious and difficult subjects that relate to the deepest aspects of nature, both beyond and within themselves. A Sense of the Future succeeds brilliantly in this respect, in part because it is a collection of essays that can be read independently as self-contained, delimited presentations; and in part because the book is more than the sum of these individual essays--it is a unified whole in which Bronowski's most abiding concerns are interrelated, juxtaposed, and tested for consistency in various intellectual contexts. The major unifying theme of the work is the intensely creative and human nature of the scientific enterprise--its kinship, at the highest levels of individual achievement, with comparable manifestations of the artistic imagination, and its ethical imperatives, evolved within the community of scientists over the centuries, which both embody and forge the values of civilized life at large. Still, the book's diversity of topics is as striking as the unity of its aim. Among the subjects within the realm of Bronowski's mind that are presented here are the limitations of formal logic and experimental methods, the epistemology of science, the distinctive nature of human language and the human mind, and the bases of biological and cultural evolution. Bronowski also contrasts the findings of science as the "here and now" of man's understanding with the ongoing activity of science as the open-ended search for truth, and he undertakes to demonstrate that the factual, individual is and the ethical, societal ought can be derived each from the other. A mathematician by training, Bronowski published poetry as well as books on literature and intellectual history. In addition to those mentioned above, The Common Sense of Science and Science and Human Values are among the most widely read of his books. Before his death in 1974, he was for many years a Senior Fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where his formal area of research was concerned with the questions of human specificity and uniqueness. Clearly, his interests ranged far beyond this area, and in many directions.

A new paperback edition of Dr. Bronowski's classic history of humankind, with a foreword by Richard Dawkins

Dr. Jacob Bronowksi's classic traces the development of human society through our understanding of science. First published in 1973 to accompany the groundbreaking BBC television series, it is considered one of the first works of "popular science," illuminating the historical and social context of scientific development for a generation of readers. In his highly accessible style, Dr. Bronowski discusses human invention from the flint tool to geometry, agriculture to genetics, and from alchemy to the theory of relativity, showing how they all are expressions of our ability to understand and control nature. In this new paperback edition, "The Ascent of Man" inspires, influences, and informs as profoundly as ever.

The Ascent of Man is regarded as one of television's greatest acheivements. Dr Jacob Bronowski traces the steps of scientific imagination through history as they happened, where they happened.
This lavish and thought-provoking series tells the story of the ideas that have transformed our lives.
More than three years in the making, with location filming in over 20 countries, this award-winning series remains compelling viewing.

Includes a specially written 48 page illustrated booklet of viewing notes to accompany this DVD.

The late Dr. J. Bronowski was both a distinguished mathematician and a poet, a philosopher of science and a literary critic who wrote a well-known study of William Blake. Dr. Bronowski's very career was founded on the premise of an intimate connection between science and the humanities, disciplines which are still generally thought to be worlds apart.

"The Common Sense of Science," a book which remains as topical today as it was when it first appeared twenty-five years ago, articulates and develops Bronowski's provocative idea that the sciences and the arts fundamentally share the same imaginative vision.