1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819346403321

Autore

Lukacs John <1924-2019.>

Titolo

At the end of an age / / John Lukacs

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven : , : Yale University Press, , 2002

©2002

ISBN

0-300-18092-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 230 pages)

Disciplina

121

Soggetti

Civilization, Modern - 1950- - Philosophy

Postmodernism

Science and civilization

Dualism

Monism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- A Brief Introduction -- A Few Acknowledgments -- One. At The End Of An Age Convictions: A Personal Envoi. The Evolution Of ''Modern.'' Main Features Of The Modern Age. Contradictory Dualities. ''Post-Modern.'' The Need To Rethink The Current Idea Of ''Progress.'' -- Two. The Presence Of Historical Thinking My Vocation. The Historicity Of Our Thinking. Professional History. Justice/Truth. The Appetite For History. History And The Novel. History At The End Of A Historical Age. -- Four. An Illustration 1959. The Limits Of Knowledge. The Limits Of Objectivity. The Limits Of Definitions. The Limits Of Mathematics. The Inevitability Of Relationships. Inevitable Unpredictability. Insufficient Materialism. The Limits Of Idealism. -- Five. At The Center Of The Universe Timeliness, And Limitations Of My Argument. Heisenberg And Duhem. At The Center Of The Universe. Conditions Of Belief. A Necessity For Christians. -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

At the End of an Age is a deeply informed and rewarding reflection on the nature of historical and scientific knowledge. Of extraordinary philosophical, religious, and historical scope, it is the product of a great historian's lifetime of thought on the subject of his discipline and



the human condition. While running counter to most of the accepted ideas and doctrines of our time, it offers a compelling framework for understanding history, science, and man's capacity for self-knowledge.In this work, John Lukacs describes how we in the Western world have now been living through the ending of an entire historical age that began in Western Europe about five hundred years ago. Unlike people during the ending of the Middle Ages or the Roman empire, we can know where we are. But how and what is it that we know?In John Lukacs's view, there is no science apart from scientists, and all of "Science," including our view of the universe, is a human creation, imagined and defined by fallible human beings in a historical continuum. This radical and reactionary assertion-in its way a summa of the author's thinking, expressed here and there in many of his previous twenty-odd books-leads to his fundamental assertion that, contrary to all existing cosmological doctrines and theories, it is this earth which is the very center of the universe-the only universe we know and can know.