The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse 1900 - 1939
- Leiden: Brill, 2014
Leiden: Brill, 2014. First edition. Octavo. x, (2), 631, (1)pp. Indices and 50 page bibliography. Pictorial buckram with lilac/gray spine lettered in white. Illustrated with 14 text figures. A fine but ex-library copy (with minimal markings; i.e. rubber stamps on title page & bottom of text block).
The Problem of Disenchantment offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the intellectual history of science, religion, and “the occult” in the early 20th century. By developing a new approach to Max Weber’s famous idea of a “disenchantment of the world”, and drawing on an impressively diverse set of sources, Egil Asprem opens up a broad field of inquiry that connects the histories of science, religion, philosophy, and Western esotericism. Parapsychology, occultism, and the modern natural sciences are usually viewed as distinct cultural phenomena with highly variable intellectual credentials. In spite of this view, Asprem demonstrates that all three have met with similar intellectual problems related to the intelligibility of nature, the relation of facts to values, and the dynamic of immanence and transcendence, and solved them in comparable terms. (Publisher)
Contents: List of Figures; Acknowledgments; Introduction: The Limits of Reason; Part 1 From Process to Problem; 1 From Process to Problem; 2 Science as Worldview; Part 2 New Natural Theologies; 3 Brave New World: An Introduction to Part Two; 4 Physical Science in a Modern Mode; 5 The Meaning of Life: Mechanism and Purpose in the Sciences of Life and Mind; 6 Five Schools of Natural Theology: Reconciling Science and Religion; Part 3 Laboratories of Enchantment; 7 Against Agnosticism: Psychical Research and the Naturalisation of the Supernatural.; 8 Laboratories of Enchantment: Parapsychology in Search of a Paradigm 9 Professionals Out of the Ordinary: How Parapsychology Became a University Discipline; Part 4 Esoteric Epistemologies; 10 Esoteric Epistemologies; 11 The Problems of a Gnostic Science: The Case of Theosophy's Occult Chemistry; 12 Perceiving Higher Worlds: Two Perspectives; Conclusion: Implications for the Study of Science, Religion, and Esotericism; Bibliography; Index of Names; Index of Subject. (OCLC)
Volume 147 in the Brill's series, "Numen Book Series. Studies in the History of Religions.
The Problem of Disenchantment offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the intellectual history of science, religion, and “the occult” in the early 20th century. By developing a new approach to Max Weber’s famous idea of a “disenchantment of the world”, and drawing on an impressively diverse set of sources, Egil Asprem opens up a broad field of inquiry that connects the histories of science, religion, philosophy, and Western esotericism. Parapsychology, occultism, and the modern natural sciences are usually viewed as distinct cultural phenomena with highly variable intellectual credentials. In spite of this view, Asprem demonstrates that all three have met with similar intellectual problems related to the intelligibility of nature, the relation of facts to values, and the dynamic of immanence and transcendence, and solved them in comparable terms. (Publisher)
Contents: List of Figures; Acknowledgments; Introduction: The Limits of Reason; Part 1 From Process to Problem; 1 From Process to Problem; 2 Science as Worldview; Part 2 New Natural Theologies; 3 Brave New World: An Introduction to Part Two; 4 Physical Science in a Modern Mode; 5 The Meaning of Life: Mechanism and Purpose in the Sciences of Life and Mind; 6 Five Schools of Natural Theology: Reconciling Science and Religion; Part 3 Laboratories of Enchantment; 7 Against Agnosticism: Psychical Research and the Naturalisation of the Supernatural.; 8 Laboratories of Enchantment: Parapsychology in Search of a Paradigm 9 Professionals Out of the Ordinary: How Parapsychology Became a University Discipline; Part 4 Esoteric Epistemologies; 10 Esoteric Epistemologies; 11 The Problems of a Gnostic Science: The Case of Theosophy's Occult Chemistry; 12 Perceiving Higher Worlds: Two Perspectives; Conclusion: Implications for the Study of Science, Religion, and Esotericism; Bibliography; Index of Names; Index of Subject. (OCLC)
Volume 147 in the Brill's series, "Numen Book Series. Studies in the History of Religions.
Details
Title
The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse 1900 - 1939
Author
Asprem, Egil
Condition
Unknown
Publisher
Brill: Leiden
Date
2014
Edition
First edition