The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox
The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox
Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
Summary
In this volume, Stephen Jay Gould uses the centries-old confict between science and the humanities - between the notion of relying solely on experiment and that of reason and imagination - to delve into burning scientific issues of the past and present.
The feel-good place to buy books
- Free US shipping over $15
- Buying preloved emits 41% less CO2 than new
- Millions of affordable books
- Give your books a new home - sell them back to us!
The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox by Stephen Jay Gould
In characteristic form, Gould weaves the ideas of some of Western society's greatest thinkers, from Bacon to Galileo to E.O. Wilson, with the uncelebrated ideas of lesser-known yet pivotal intellectuals. He uses the ideas of these men to undo an assumption born in the 17th century and continuing to this day, that science and the humanities stand in opposition. In the title and throughout the book he uses a metaphor drawn from Erasmus and a more obscure 16th century scholar named Konrad Gesner (an illustrator of the animal kingdom) of the hedgehog - who goes after one thing at a measured pace, systematically investigating all; the Fox - skilled at many things, intuitive and fast; and the magister's pox - a censure from the Catholic Church involved in Galileo's downfall: a metaphor which illustrates the different ways of responding to knowledge - from a scientific, humanistic and fearful way. He argues that in fact each of them should borrow from each other and thereby improve their own given disciplines. Gould then delves into a fiery discussion of the notion of consilience first put forward by E.O. Wilson, which argues that scientific method (specifically reductionism) is supreme, uniting all the disciplines. Wilson holds that everything in nature is possible to predict - mathematically. Gould holds that in fact events in nature - including evolution - were and are random, each event contingent on the next.
Stephen Jay Gould was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and professor of geology at Harvard and the curator for invertebrate palaeontology in the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology. He died in May 2002.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780224063098 |
| ISBN 10 | 022406309X |
| Title | The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox |
| Author | Stephen Jay Gould |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2003-05-29 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |