内容简介

Peter Harrison provides an account of the religious foundations of scientific knowledge. He shows how the approaches to the study of nature that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were directly informed by theological discussions about the Fall of Man and the extent to which the mind and the senses had been damaged by that primeval event. Scientific methods, he suggests, were originally devised as techniques for ameliorating the cognitive damage wrought by human sin. At its inception, modern science was conceptualized as a means of recapturing the knowledge of nature that Adam had once possessed. Contrary to a widespread view that sees science emerging in conflict with religion, Harrison argues that theological considerations were of vital importance in the framing of the scientific method.

作者简介

Peter Harrison is a former Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford and is presently Research Professor and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. He was the 2011 Gifford Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and holds a Senior Research Fellowship in the Ian Ramsey Centre at Oxford....

(展开全部)

精彩摘录

实验科学产生于一种新的认识，即知识的获得并不是一个轻而易举的自然过程，而是需要强加外在约束：对知识主张的严格检验，重复实验，共同见证，逐渐积累“志”（histories），用人造工具来放大迟钝的感官能力，以及共同地而不是单靠个人产生知识。学术共同体的这些强制性结构所发挥的作用将与奥古斯丁所说的国家相当。和奥古斯丁所说的国家一样，这种知识虽然得到了神的认可，但还不够理想。这种知识适合于一个居住在基督降临与万物的最终完满之间的具有内在不稳定性的时间间隔一一世代（saeculum）一一中的堕落族类。

——引自章节：第一章亚当的广博知识

诚然，怀疑论和奥古斯丁人论都会导致对人类知识可靠性的怀疑，但它们提供了截然不同的对策。在怀疑者看来，我们的无知并非源于一场由人的不服从所引发的巨大灾难，而是人性所固有的，因此需要平静地加以接受。于是，我们不该试图纠正心灵的运作（这些运作当然是有限的），而应接受不可避免的事物，悬搁判断，保持内心的宁静。而在那些把我们目前的无知状态归因于堕落的人看来，亚当的形象具有双重意义：一方面，堕落为人的苦难和易错性提供了一种解释；另一方面。亚当在堕落之前的完美性，包括他那广博的学识，都被认为象征着未被实现的人类潜能，这个满怀希望的向前看的要素未见于古往今来的所有怀疑论表述。此外，怀疑论的对策与哲学家作为沉思生活倡导者的古典理想是一致的。认真看待堕落的真实性的人，则往往希望扭转或部分扭转其不幸后果，而这需要行动的生活，充满热情参与到社会领域和自然领域中去。

——引自章节：导言