Publisher description
This work makes available in a single volume all the important historical
essays Edgar Zilsel (1891-1944) published during WWII on the emergence of
modern science. This edition also contains one previously unpublished essay and
an extended version of an essay published earlier. In these essays, Zilsel
developed the now famous thesis, named after him, that science came into being
when, in the late Middle Ages, the social barriers between the intellectuals
and the artisans were eroded, due to the fact that the rapidly expanding
commercial classes of that period had a keen interest in improvements in
technology. This class was city-based and stimulated a social environment in
which men of learning came to regard the craftsmen and technicians with a new
respect, in which they no longer felt any contempt for manual work and in which
theory and practice were eventually combined to produce modern science. This
critical edition also carries a long introduction in which much new material
about Zilsel's life and work is presented. It suggests that a radical new look
at Zilsel's project needs to be taken. Zilsel's essays on the history of science look like a standard case study
to substantiate a particular position on the origins of modern science, but
they were also an attempt to show that lawlike explanation in history and
social theory is possible. It is claimed that Zilsel's historical essays were a
part of another project he was working on which focused on the idea that social
phenomena were open to causal explanation as much as physical phenomena. Hence
the volume also contains the essays Zilsel wrote in relation to this other
project. Previously there have been published a German and an Italian edition
of the Zilsel essays. This edition is the first in English; compared to the
other two editions this one is the first that includes unpublished material and
the first to undertake a serious effort to research Zilsel's life and work.
What is special about this volume is the well-articulated social perspective it
takes on the origins of modern science. This work makes available in a single volume all the important historical
essays Edgar Zilsel (1891-1944) published during WWII on the emergence of
modern science. This edition also contains one previously unpublished essay and
an extended version of an essay published earlier.
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The Social Origins of Modern Science
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