MISCELLANEOUS

(Miscellaneous documents and media)

Jacoby, Susan (2008) The Age of American Unreason.

New York: Pantheon Books.  ISBN: 9780375423741. 356 Pages. 

Publisher’s blurb: “Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon — one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science.  With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of ‘junk thought.’ Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the mass media, triumphalist religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public.”

Lloyd,   G. E. R. (1973) Greek Science After Aristotle.

New York: W. W. Norton & Co.  ISBN: 0393043711.  189 pages.

A brief and interesting overview of the scientific philosophy of ancient Greece after the time of Aristotle.  Frankly discusses both the great achievements and the limitations of the Greek worldview.  The last chapter, “The Decline of Ancient Science,” examines the arguments about whether, or to what degree, Christianity contributed to the decline and loss of ancient scientific knowledge.  Lloyd discusses the view of early church fathers such as Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine.  The most interesting quotation comes from Chapter 7 of  Tertullian’s On Prescriptions against Heretics:  “What then has Athens to do with Jerusalem, the Academy with the Church, the heretic with the Christian?  Our instruction comes from the Porch of Solomon who himself taught us that the Lord is to be sought in the simplicity of one’s heart . . . We have no need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor of research after the gospel,”  (quoted here from Lloyd’s page 168). 

Two references, last updated 12 May 2008.