LEADER 04959nam 2200745 a 450 001 9910785467403321 005 20230124190117.0 010 $a1-282-90460-4 010 $a9786612904608 010 $a0-226-47538-7 024 7 $a10.7208/9780226475387 035 $a(CKB)2670000000060887 035 $a(EBL)616044 035 $a(OCoLC)690177213 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000416251 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11280774 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000416251 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10422936 035 $a(PQKB)10986368 035 $a(StDuBDS)EDZ0000117447 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC616044 035 $a(DE-B1597)523745 035 $a(OCoLC)1135589284 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780226475387 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL616044 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10432643 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL290460 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000060887 100 $a20011026d2002 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aDying to know$b[electronic resource] $escientific epistemology and narrative in Victorian England /$fGeorge Levine 210 $aChicago $cUniversity of Chicago Press$dc2002 215 $a1 online resource (339 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 $a0-226-47537-9 311 $a0-226-47536-0 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 285-315) and index. 327 $aThe narrative of scientific epistemology -- Dying to know Descartes -- Carlyle, Descartes, and objectivity : lessen thy denominator -- Autobiography as epistemology : the effacement of self -- My life as a machine : Francis Galton, with some reflections on A.R. Wallace -- Self-effacement revisited : women and scientific autobiography -- The test of truth : Our Mutual Friend -- Daniel Deronda : a new epistemology -- The Cartesian Hardy : I think, therefore I'm doomed -- Daring to know : Karl Pearson and the romance of science -- The epistemology of science and art : Pearson and Pater. 330 $a"Dying to Know is the work of a distinguished scholar, at the peak of his powers, who is intimately familiar with his materials, and whose knowledge of Victorian fiction and scientific thought is remarkable. This elegant and evocative look at the move toward objectivity first pioneered by Descartes sheds new light on some old and still perplexing problems in modern science." Bernard Lightman, York University, Canada In Dying to Know, eminent critic George Levine makes a landmark contribution to the history and theory of scientific knowledge. This long-awaited book explores the paradoxes of our modern ideal of objectivity, in particular its emphasis on the impersonality and disinterestedness of truth. How, asks Levine, did this idea of selfless knowledge come to be established and moralized in the nineteenth century? Levine shows that for nineteenth-century scientists, novelists, poets, and philosophers, access to the truth depended on conditions of such profound self-abnegation that pursuit of it might be taken as tantamount to the pursuit of death. The Victorians, he argues, were dying to know in the sense that they could imagine achieving pure knowledge only in a condition where the body ceases to make its claims: to achieve enlightenment, virtue, and salvation, one must die. Dying to Know is ultimately a study of this moral ideal of epistemology. But it is also something much more: a spirited defense of the difficult pursuit of objectivity, the ethical significance of sacrifice, and the importance of finding a shareable form of knowledge. 606 $aEnglish prose literature$y19th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aLiterature and science$zGreat Britain$xHistory$y19th century 606 $aNarration (Rhetoric)$xHistory$y19th century 606 $aKnowledge, Theory of, in literature 606 $aScience in literature 606 $aScience$xPhilosophy 610 $ascience, knowledge, research, experimentation, victorian, history, philosophy, objectivity, truth, disinterest, bias, perspective, positionality, self-abnegation, purity, enlightenment, death, sacrifice, descartes, rhetoric, carlyle, autobiography, epistemology, francis galton, machine, ar wallace, women, gender, our mutual friend, dickens, eliot, literature, daniel deronda, hardy, karl pearson, pater, art, altruism, nonfiction. 615 0$aEnglish prose literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aLiterature and science$xHistory 615 0$aNarration (Rhetoric)$xHistory 615 0$aKnowledge, Theory of, in literature. 615 0$aScience in literature. 615 0$aScience$xPhilosophy. 676 $a828/.80809356 700 $aLevine$b George Lewis$0214452 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910785467403321 996 $aDying to know$93684087 997 $aUNINA