Elkana: Discovery of Conservation Energy
Elkana: Discovery of Conservation Energy by Elkana
English | 6 Dec. 1974 | ISBN: 0674212401 | 213 Pages | PDF | 7 MB
English | 6 Dec. 1974 | ISBN: 0674212401 | 213 Pages | PDF | 7 MB
The main idea of this book is the meeting of several converging lines of thought. The fundamental idea behind it all is the essential unity of all aspects o f the intellectual enterprise. This idea, though it sounds like an overworked commonplace, can serve as a practical guide to historical investigation. Above all, it implies a coherence theory of personality. That same unidentifiable element which makes one recognize any piece by Bach, Beethoven or Britten is there in any written work too. New ton’s Principia, New ton’s alchemical studies and New ton’s theological works are demonstrably written by the same man. Books come to illustrate this: to illustrate the regular interaction between science and philosophy, by a case history. The interaction, I assume, is an influence which works in both directions. ‘The Emergence o f the Concept o f Energy’ seems to me to be one chapter in a long unwritten history which illustrates the roots of science in metaphysics and the roots of scientific metaphysics in the problem-situations o f the age: this book is that chapter.