The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination

By Jacob Bronowski

Book Overview

"A gem of enlightenment. . . . One rejoices in Bronowski's dedication to the identity of acts of creativity and of imagination, whether in Blake or Yeats or Einstein or Heisenberg."--Kirkus Reviews

"A delightful look at the inquiring mind."--Library Journal

In this eloquent volume Jacob Bronowski, mathematician and scientist, presents a succinct introduction to the state of modern thinking about the role of science in man's intellectual and moral life. Weaving together themes from ethnology, linguistics, philosophy, and physics, he confronts the questions of who we are, what we are, and how we relate to the universe around us.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300024096
• ISBN13: 9780300024098
• Release Date: September 1979
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Another great buy

It is easy today to get depressed about mankind. Bronowski demonstrates that there is hope for us yet. He also demonstrates that we, perhaps know more and are capable of more than we thought. I wish I had had the chance to meet him.

Musings of one of the premiere philosophers of science

Jacob Bronowski was one of the best philosophers of science ever to walk the Earth. His perspectives on the role of science in our world are some of the most profound and meaningful statements on how humans view themselves, each other and the universe in general. This book is a reprint of six lectures he gave as part of the Silliman Foundation lecture series. The titles of the lectures are: *) The mind as an instrument for understanding *) The evolution and power of symbolic language *) Knowledge as algorithm and metaphor *) The laws of nature and the nature of laws *) Error, progress and the concept of time *) Law and individual responsibility and they sum up the essence of Bronowski better than anything I could coin. If you have an interest in the philosophy of science, then you must read Bronowski. His thoughts are profound, human and very descriptive of how we humans continue to expand the body of knowledge and make the appropriate corrections when necessary.

A Whole College Education in One Book

This one book is so thoughtful and broad in perspective that it can't fail to nourish your intellect.

The shaper of minds : Mr. Bronowski

Bronowski at his glittering brilliance in this book, is the memory I carry at the end of reading it, filled with a warmth of understanding and a calmness of knowledge.It is not easy to find someone as wonderfully coherent and structured and yet intelligent and powerful in ideology, and yet so simple and easy to understand by the lay reader. Bronowski's series of lecture presentations here attempts as he himself says, to complete what Kant set out to do... to create a philosophy of mankind that is based on man's perceptual tools of biology. In this task, Bronowski succeeds brilliantly. Starting with vision, through hearing, through language itself... Bronowski builds up a picture of human thought and action like never before and the essays read like a thriller through our own minds and its origins. If Ascent of Man was groundbreaking, this book is breathtaking in its scope and parallel simplicity.

twentieth century book

A very unifying book. Creativity comes about by means of viewing some other new subject from the perspective of a subject or set of skills already mastered. Jacob Bronowski creates a world view from the Human perspective.The last chapter is about the spirituality and ethics that comes out of the activity of doing science. With reference to the review before this one, while governments don't set their ideas by persueing truth, they do so at their peril. A human lifetime might not be able to detect the fall of a nation, but the reason nations fall is because they did not base decisions on sound reasoning.