Understanding Nature: Case Studies in Comparative Epistemology (The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics)
Language: English
Pages: 286
ISBN: 1402064918
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Science is not the only route to understanding nature. This volume presents a series of case studies in comparative epistemology, critically comparing the works of prominent representatives of the life sciences, such as Aristotle, Darwin, and Mendel, with the writings of literary masters, such as Andersen, Melville, Verne, and Ibsen. It constitutes a major contribution to the growing field of science and literature studies.
biography as well as in Ibsen’s play, but while it works out extremely well in the case of Koch, it completely miscarries in the case of Stockmann. The second script concerns a dramatic public event during which a scientific proof of great import is presented by a scientific hero to a mixed audience. Once again, this scenario is present 11 Koch’s life was not always a success story, however. His claim that he had discovered a remedy for tuberculosis proved a disapppointment and his decision to
that animals are different rather than deficient, and perhaps even epistemologically privileged in the sense that they are open to worlds of experience denied to humans, is brought forward in a number of literary documents that will be briefly discussed in Section 3.5. 3.5 Animals as Epistemologically Privileged Beings Tacitus (1958) tells us that ancient Germanic tribes kept bands of horses in sacred forests. Priests on special occasions visited these mysterious sites, these sacred natural
marine sciences, Margaret Deacon (1971) elaborately reflects on the epistemological tension between 11 Jules Verne wrote a novel that shares some similarities with Melville’s (Les histoires de JeanMarie Cabidoulin, published in 1901) – although in Verne’s case the narrator sides with the scientific view, rather than with the stories and anecdotes of whalers. Nonetheless, the same types of discussion on sea-animals of monstrous proportions are addressed, against the backdrop of the same
physiology and chemistry. H. Zwart, Understanding Nature © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008 99 100 5 What is a Dog? Animal Experiments and Animal Novels Bazarov spends most of his time dissecting frogs. He despises everything that has to do with sentimentalism, romanticism and aestheticism. He visits the Kirsanov estate during the summer holidays, not because he wants to expose himself to the mysterious charms of provincial sunsets, but in order to look for, and experiment on,
had a method of accepting things, without questioning the why and wherefore.… Logic and physics were no part of his mental makeup. (p. 150) After successfully catching his first prey, London once again described the wolfish nature of his mental processes: In his own dim way he learned the law. Eat or be eaten. He did not formulate the law in clear, set terms and moralize about it. He did not even think the law; he merely lived the law without thinking about it at all. Had the cub thought in