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Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a logician, a philosopher, and one
of the twentieth century's most visible public intellectuals.
Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell: A Cultural Sociology
brings those three aspects together to trace Russell's changing
views on the role of science and technology in society throughout
his long intellectual career. Drawing from cultural sociology,
history of science, and philosophy, Javier Perez-Jara and Lino
Camprubi provide a fresh multidimensional analysis of the general
themes of science, technology, utopia, and apocalypse. The book
critically examines Russell's influential interpretations of the
turn-of-the-century mathematical logic, World War I, the
metaphysics and epistemology of mind and matter, World War II,
nuclear holocaust, and the Vietnam War. In Russell's compelling
narratives, humanity was a powder keg and the match was represented
by different meta-adversaries, such as religion, communism, and
American imperialism. And the only way to avoid a coming global
Holocaust was to follow his own salvific recipes. In working around
Russell's role in the cultural perception of the final destiny of
humanity, Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell invites the
reader to think about the place of the techno-scientific sphere in
human progress and decadence in both our current epoch and the
distant future.
This book provides an up-to-date revision of materialism's central
tenets, its main varieties, and the place of materialistic
philosophy vis a vis scientific knowledge. Materialism has been the
subject of extensive and rich controversies since Robert Boyle
introduced the term for the first time in the 17th century. But
what is materialism and what can it offer today? The term is
usually defined as the worldview according to which everything real
is material. Nevertheless, there is no philosophical consensus
about whether the meaning of matter can be enlarged beyond the
physical. As a consequence, materialism is often defined in stark
exclusive and reductionist terms: whatever exists is either
physical or ontologically reducible to it. This conception, if
consistent, mutilates reality, excluding the ontological
significance of political, economic, sociocultural, anthropological
and psychological realities. Starting from a new history of
materialism, the present book focuses on the central ontological
and epistemological debates aroused by today's leading materialist
approaches, including some little known to an anglophone
readership. The key concepts of matter, system, emergence, space
and time, life, mind, and software are checked over and updated.
Controversial issues such as the nature of mathematics and the
place of reductionism are also discussed from different materialist
approaches. As a result, materialism emerges as a powerful,
indispensable scientifically-supported worldview with a surprising
wealth of nuances and possibilities.
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