The Socratic Turn: Knowledge of Good and Evil in an Age of Science

233 Pages·2015·1.98 MB·English

by  Dustin Sebell

The Socratic Turn

The Socratic Turn
•
Knowledge of Good and Evil in an Age of Science
Dustin Sebell
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
A volume in the Haney Foundation Series, established in
1961 with the generous support of Dr. John Louis Haney
Copyright © 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for
purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book
may be reproduced in any form by any means without
written permission from the publisher.

Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104- 4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
ISBN 978- 0- 8122- 4780- 0
To Florence and Leonard Sebell,
Edith Tagrin and Marvin S. Kaplan, and Anne and Joel Youkeles

Contents
•
Introduction 1
PART I
Chapter 1. The Problem of the Young Socrates 17
Chapter 2. What Is Science? 25
Chapter 3. The Prospects for Matter in Motion 45
Chapter 4. Noetic Heterogeneity 61
PART II
Chapter 5. Teleology 75
PART III
Chapter 6. Science and Society 95
Chapter 7. Dialectic 106
Conclusion 144
viii Contents
Notes 147
References 195
Index 211
Acknowledgments 217
As for any Obligations they owed to the Antients, they
renounced them all. ’Tis true, said they, we are informed, some
few of our Party have been so mean to borrow their Subsistence
from You; But the rest, infinitely the greater Number . . .
were so far from stooping to so base an Example, that there
never passed, till this very hour, six Words between us. For,
our Horses are of our own breeding, our Arms of our own
forging, and our Cloaths of our own cutting out and sowing.
Plato was by chance upon the next Shelf, and observing
those that spoke to be in the ragged Plight, mentioned a
while ago; their Jades lean and foundred, their Weapons of
rotten Wood, their Armour rusty, and nothing but Raggs
underneath; he laugh’d loud, and in his pleasant way, swore, By
G—— , he believ’d them.
— Jonathan Swift, A Full and True Account
of the Battel Fought Last Friday, &c.