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William Whewell (1794–1866)

Autor von Theory of Scientific Method

30+ Werke 131 Mitglieder 2 Rezensionen

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Born the son of a builder in Lancaster, England, William Whewell soon revealed his intellectual gifts, which opened the doors to an education at Trinity College, Cambridge University. Whewell is remembered chiefly for having been an extraordinary polymath. His earliest studies were in mathematics, mehr anzeigen with his first publications being two very successful textbooks on mechanics. In 1826 he was ordained a priest and two years later became professor of mineralogy at Trinity. In a few short years he revolutionized British crystallography with the introduction of a new system of nomenclature and taxonomy. At the same time he was writing a work on the architecture of German churches; he soon resigned the professorship to continue his architectural studies. Whewell next turned to astronomy, natural theology, and a mathematical study of the tides. In 1837 he published his History of the Inductive Sciences, which served as the foundation for his magnum opus, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840). This work is strikingly modern in its insistence that the philosophy of science be sensitive to the history of science, but Whewell's Kantianism and the religious setting of his philosophy of science may strike the modern reader as somewhat anachronistic. Whewell's later works included a book arguing for the likelihood of extraterrestial life, translations of Plato (see also Vol. 3) and of various poets, and several works on moral philosophy, most notably the Elements of Morality Including Polity (1845). In 1838 he became professor of moral philosophy at Trinity College. He soon resigned his second professorship and in 1841 was made master of Trinity. (Bowker Author Biography) weniger anzeigen

Beinhaltet die Namen: W Whewell, William Whewell, Rev. W. Whewell

Bildnachweis: William Whewell by James Lonsdale circa 1800

Werke von William Whewell

Theory of Scientific Method (1968) 22 Exemplare
On the philosophy of discovery (2009) 3 Exemplare

Zugehörige Werke

Der Staat (0380) — Übersetzer, einige Ausgaben21,919 Exemplare
Darwin (Norton Critical Edition) (1970) — Mitwirkender — 655 Exemplare
The Rights of War and Peace (1625) — Übersetzer, einige Ausgaben416 Exemplare

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William Whewell was a mid-Victorian scientist-- arguably the Victorian scientist, as he's the one who coined the word in 1833, though it didn't catch on for several decades. Of the Plurality of Worlds is Whewell's attempt to determine if there is life on other planets. He says "no," but it seems to me a somewhat reserved "no," as he admits that it is possible by any number of arguments... it's just that none of these arguments prove anything. You can only trust analogy so far, after all, and that's largely all we have going for us in our "examination" of distant stars.

Whewell wrote works on the philosophy of science, and hints of his perspective from those texts bleed through here: he warns that astronomers must "be upon their guard against the tricks which fancy plays upon their senses" (168). I particularly enjoyed reading some of his utopian thoughts from the excised chapters: Whewell claims that "[i]f the nations of the earth were to employ, for the promotion of human knowledge, a small fraction only of the means, the wealth, the ingenuity, the energy, the combination, which they have employed in every age, for the destruction of human life and of human means of enjoyment; we might soon find that what we hitherto knew, is little compared with what man has the power of knowing" (344). Even better, though, would be to form a Divine Society based on sympathy towards others-- what a George Eliotian thought, so perfectly of its time.
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Werke
30
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3
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131
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#154,467
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2
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