Pennsylvania College of  Technology Dr. Ed Vavra
Assoc. Prof. of Rhetoric

Bibliographies Section

The History of Ideas and Science


     This is, of course, not my field, but the following are things that either I found interesting or that look interesting.
 

Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition
(Audio tapes)



Ackermann, Robert. The Philosophy of Science. NY: Pegasus, 1970. (S=Rhetoric Review, Sept 85, 14.)

Barrett, William. IRRATIONAL MAN. Doubleday & Co., 1958; 1962. (S=Baumer,  MET, 522: on 20th cent)

Barzun, Jacques. ROMANTICISM AND THE MODERN EGO, Little Brown, 1943; [HR reprinted as CLASSIC, ROMANTIC AND MODERN. Doubleday, 1961.]

Bateson, William. Mendel's Principles of Heredity. Cambridge UP, 1913. [S=Eiseley, 355]

Baumer, Franklin L. MODERN EUROPEAN THOUGHT: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN  IDEAS, 1600-1950. NY: Macmillan, 1977. [HR]

_____  RELIGION AND THE RISE OF SCEPTICISM. Harcourt, Brace, 1960; 1969. 

Brinton, Crane. ENGLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. E.  Benn, 1933; Harvard UP, 1949. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Bronowski, J. & Bruce Mazlish. The Western Intellectual Tradition: from Leonardo to Hegel. NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1960. [R, N7 - a very solid book]

Burtt, E.A. THE METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN PHYSICAL SCIENCE.  Harcourt, Brace, 1927; Doubleday & Co., 1955. (S=Baumer, MET, 521: on  17th century)

Bury, J.B., THE IDEA OF PROGRESS. Macmillan, 1920; Dover Publications,  1960. (S=BAUMER, MET, 520.)

Butterfield, Herbert. THE ORIGINS OF MODERN SCIENCE. G. Bell, 1949; Free  Press, 1968. (S=Baumer, MET, 521: on 17th cent)

Capek, Milic. THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPACT OF CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS. D. Van  Nostrand, 1961. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Cassirer, Ernst. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT. Princeton UP, 1951;  Beacon Press, 1960. (S=Baumer, MET, 521: on 18th cent)

_____  THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND HISTORY SINCE  HEGEL. Yale UP, 1950; 1974. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Clark, G. N. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1929; Oxford  UP, 1961. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Clark, Kenneth.  LANDSCAPE INTO ART. J. Murray, 1949; Beacon Press, 1963;  1976. (S=Baumer, MET, 520.)

Cole, F.J. Early Theories of Sexual Generation. Oxford UP, 1930. [S=Eiseley, 355]

Collingwood, R.G. THE IDEA OF NATURE. Oxford UP, 1945;1960. 

Collins, James. GOD IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. Henry Regnery Company, 1959;1967. (S=Baumer, MET, 520)

Cragg, Gerald. REASON AND AUTHORITY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Cambridge  UP, 1964. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Dampier, Sir William Cecil. A HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND ITS RELATIONS WITH  PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. Cambridge UP, 1929; 1958. (S=Baumer, MET,  520)

Darwin, Charles. (1874) The Descent of Man. 2nd ed. NY. 

_____. The Descent of Man. [abridged]  in Darwin. Norton Critical Edition. ed. Philip Appleman. Trawick, Buckner. The Bible as Literature: The New Testament. NY: Barnes & Noble, 1968. [R, N7]

_____. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. [1859] NY: Heritage, 1963.  [H, R, N7]


    Darwin

    Pantin. C.F.A. "Darwin's Theory and the Causes of Its Acceptance," School Science Review, 3-part paper, October, 1950, March and June 1951. [S=Eiseley, 355]


DICTIONARY OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS. 4 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.  (S=Baumer, MET, 520)

Dunham, Barrows. Heroes and Heretics: A Social History of Dissent. NY: Knopf, 1967. [B72.D7]

     ..... a veracious history of philosophy would be a political history of philosophy. It would set forth strife as well as doctrines, and it would be frank to say that every revolution in thought relates in some manner to a revolution in society. It would publicly divulge what every inquisitor has known, that theory tends to alter practice, and that, consequently, theorists are, when not carefully disciplined, God's curse upon administrators. (14)

It is doubtful how far we would have advanced, if we had possessed only the philosophical analysis of the Greeks, unmixed with the prophetic passion of the Jews. (46)

     In every social organization of large size, the members have varying degrees of culture and enlightenment. The "lowliest" have perhaps little of either, and the leadership is on the whole content that this should be so. By contrast, organizational myth always asserts that the bureaucratic hierarchy is occupied by men of superior knowledge and talent. This has sometimes chanced to be the case; but if one were to define the single talent which distingusihes the members of a bureaucratic hierarchyy, one would have to say that it is adhesiveness. They get there and they stick. (249)

     By itself, Copernicus's theory was a rectification on behalf of mathematical elegance: it explained the facts with far fewer assumptions. Galileo, having invented the telescope, was able to show that the theory corresponded with the data. Next, Kepler showed that the planetary orbits were elliptical rather than circular, and that a simple arithmetical rule relates the size of the orbit to the time a planet takes to go round it. (314)

Eiseley, Loren. DARWIN'S CENTURY. Doubleday, 1958; 1961. [HR, N7 -- a fabulous book]

_____ . The Firmament of Time. NY: Atheneum, 1962.  [R. interesting,but not as good as Darwin's Century]

_____ . Francis Bacon and the Modern Dilemma. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska, 1962. (S=J.Miles, 177)

_____ . The Immense Journey, 1957.

Ellenberger, Henri. THE DISCOVERY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS. Basic Books, 1970.  (S=Baumer, MET, 523)

Frankel, Charles. THE FAITH OF REASON. King's Crown Press, 1948. (S=Baumer,  MET, 521: on 18th cent.)

Friedrich, Carl J. THE AGE OF THE BAROQUE, 1610-1660. Harper & Row, 1952.  (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Gardner, Martin. ed. Great Essays in Science. NY: Washington Square Press, 1963. [H,R, N7 -- a very nice collection]

Gay, Peter. THE ENLIGHTENMENT. 2 vols. Alfred A. Knopf, 1966;1969. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Gould, Stephen Jay. (1989) Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. NY: W.W> Norton. [H,R]

_____. (1996) Dinosaur in a Haystack. NY: Harmony Books.

_____. (1996)  Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin. NY: Harmony Books. [R, N7]

_____. Ontogeny and Phylogeny

_____. Ever Since Darwin.

_____ The Panda's Thumb.

_____. The Mismeasure of Man.

_____ Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes.

_____. The Flamingo's Smile.

_____. An Urchin in the Storm.

_____. Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle.

_____. Illuminations. (with R.W. Purcell)

_____. Bully for Brontosaurus.

_____ Finders, Keepers.  (with R.W. Purcell)

_____. Eight Little Piggies.

Hall, A. R. The Scientific Revolution 1500-1800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude. Boston: Beacon Press, 1954. [H, R, N7]

Harrold, C.F. Carlyle and German Thought. New Haven: Yale UP, 1934. [S= Miles, J. Style, 182.]

Hazard, Paul. THE EUROPEAN MIND, 1680-1715. Yale UP, 1953; World Publishing  Co., 1967. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

_____  EUROPEAN THOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Yale UP, 1954.  (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Heinemann, R.H. EXISTENTIALISM AND THE MODERN PREDICAMENT. Harper & Row,  1952; 1958. (S=Baumer, MET, 523)

Henle. Paul. Language, Thought, and Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P., 1958. [S= Miles, J. Style, 182.]

Honour, Hugh. NEO-CLASSICISM. Penguin Books, 1968. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Hook, Sidney. FROM HEGEL TO MARX. Reynal & Hitchcock, 1936; U of Mich  Press, 1962. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Houghton, Walter. THE VICTORIAN FRAME OF MIND. Yale UP, 1957. (S=Baumer,  MET, 522)

Hughes, H. Stuart. CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOCIETY: THE REORIENTATION OF EUROPEAN  SOCIAL THOUGHT, 1890-1930. Alfred A. Knopf, 1958; 1961. (S=Baumer,  MET, 523)

Hummel, Charles E. The Galileo Connection: Resolving Conflicts between Science and the Bible. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986.

To the assertion that the Bible is scientifically accurate, one should ask, Whose science? That of Aristotle or Copernicus? Newton or Einstein? Or a future genius whose theories may replace even our "modern" views? Since scientific theories are provisional and not permanent, subject to change or even replacement, the Bible's supposed "scientific accuracy" in any generation could be a ticket to obsolescence in the next and a loss of confidence in its trustworthiness. (177)
Huxley, Julian. Evolution in Action. [R, N7]

Huzinga, Johan. Men & Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance. trans. James S. Holmes and Hans van Marle. NY: Meridian Books, 1959. 

Iggers, Georg. THE GERMAN CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. Wesleyan UP, 1968.  (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Jaffe, Bernard. Crucible: The Story of Chemistry. NY: Fawcett, 1957. [R, N7]

Jones, R.F. ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. Washington UP, 1936; U of Cal Press,  1965. (S=Baumer, MET, 521: on 17th cent)

Kuhn, Thomas. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1957. [R, N7]

_____ . The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd rev. ed.  Chicago:Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970. [H, R - a great book that is often cited and rarely understood; Original pub daste = 1962?]

Levi, Albert W. PHILOSOPHY AND THE MODERN WORLD. Indiana UP, 1959.  (S=Baumer, MET, 523)

Lichtheim, George. EUROPE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. Praeger Publishers, 1972. (S=Baumer, MET, 523)

_____ MARXISM: AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY. Praeger,  1961; 1965. (S=Baumer, MET, 522.)

Lovejoy, Arthur O. ESSAYS IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS. Johns Hopkins UP, 1948;  G.P. Putnam's, 1960. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

_____ THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING. Harvard UP, 1936; Harper & R Row, 1965. [R;N7 One of the best books I have ever read.]

Macquarrie, John. THE SCOPE OF DEMYTHOLOGIZING: BULTMANN AND HIS CRITICS.  Harper & Row, 1960; 1961. (S=Baumer, MET, 523)

Malthus, Thomas Robert. (1798) An Essay on the Principles of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet and Other Writers, London, facsimile of the first edition, Macmillan, 1926. [S=Eiseley, 355]

Mandelbaum, Maurice. HISTORY, MAN, & REASON: A STUDY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY  THOUGHT. Johns Hopkins UP, 1971. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Manuel, Frank. THE PROPHETS OF PARIS. Harvard UP, 1962; Harper & Row, 1965.  (S=Baumer, MET, 522: on 19th cent)

Mazlish, Bruce. THE RIDDLE OF HISTORY; THE GREAT SPECULATORS FROM VICO TO  FREUD. Harper & Row, 1966; Minerva, 1968. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Meinecke, Friedrich. HISTORICISM. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. (S=Baumer,  MET, 521: on 18th cent)

Nicolson, Marjorie. THE BREAKING OF THE CIRCLE; STUDIES IN THE EFFECT OF  THE "NEW SCIENCE" UPON SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY. Northwestern UP,  1950; Columbia UP, 1960. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Nolte, Ernst. THREE FACES OF FASCISM. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965;  1966. (S=Baumer, MET, 523)

Packard, A.S. Lamarck: The Founder of Evolution. NY & London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1901. [S=Eiseley, 355]

Paley, William. Natural Theology. London. 1822 [S=Eiseley, 355]

Palter, Robert M. ed. Toward Modern Science. 2 vols. NY: Noonday, 1961. [H, R, N7]

Popkin, Richard H., THE HISTORY OF SKEPTICISM FROM ERASMUS TO DESCARTES.  Assen, Van Gorcum, 1960; Harper & Row, 1968. (S=Baumer, MET, 521: on  17th cent)

Popper, Karl. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific  Knowledge. NY: Harper and Row, 1963. (S=The Writer's Mind, 72.)

Randall, John H. THE CAREER OF PHILOSOPHY. 2 vols. Columbia UP, 1962-1965.  (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Raven, Charles E. Organic Design: A Study of Scientific Thought from Ray to Paley. Oxford UP, 1953. [S=Eiseley, 355]

Robertson, Archibald. The Origins of Christianity. NY: International Publishers, 1954. (S = Barrows Dunham, p. 46 -- He praises it highly.)

Roppen, George. Evolution and Poetic Belief. Oslo, 1956. [S=Eiseley, 355]

Sabine, George. A HISTORY OF POLITICAL THEORY. Henry Holt, 1937; Dryden,  1973. (S=Baumer, MET, 521)

Sagan, Carl. DRAGONS OF EDEN: SPECULATIONS ON THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN  INTELLIGENCE. NY: Ballantine Books, 1977. [R, N7]

Sarton, George. Ancient Science & Modern Civilization. NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1954 [H, R, N7]

Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures: and a Second Look. NY: New American Library, 1959. [H,R]

Stephens, Leslie. English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. [Recommended byy Huizinga, Men & Ideas, p. 60]

Vartanian, Aram. DIDEROT AND DESCARTES. Princeton UP, 1953. (S=Baumer, MET,  522)

Vyverberg, Henry. HISTORICAL PESSIMISM IN THE FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT. Harvard  UP, 1958. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Wagar, W. Warren. GOOD TIDINGS: THE BELIEF IN PROGRESS FROM DARWIN TO  MARCUSE. Indiana UP, 1972. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

White, Hayden. METAHISTORY: THE HISTORICAL IMAGINATION IN NINETEENTH-  CENTURY EUROPE. Johns Hopkins UP, 1973. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

Willey, Basil. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND. Chatto & Windus, 1940;  Columbia UP, 1953. (S= Baumer, MET, 522)

_____  NINETEENTH CENTURY STUDIES. Chatto & Windus, 1949; Harper & Row,  1966. (S=Baumer, MET, 522)

_____  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND. Chatto & Windus, 1934;  Doubleday, 1953. [H,R, N7]

 



This border is a reproduction of the right side of 
    Peter Paul RUBENS'
The Three Graces
Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid
Adapted from: Mark Harden's WWW Artchive http://artchive.com/core.html

Click here for the directory of my backgrounds based on art.
[for educational use only]