Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man [Paperback]

Bryan Appleyard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1994

This book aims to make the wider issues and principal ideas of our age understandable to all. The book refers to all spheres - culture, philosophy and politics - and is split into five sections: facts, analysis, connections, perceptions and thesis, and begins with an analysis of the growth of science. Bryan Appleyard is the author of "The Culture Club: Crisis in the Arts" and in 1986 he was General Feature Writer in the British Press Awards.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Science columnist for the Sunday Times of London, Appleyard here chronicles the history of science from moral and philosophical points of view, aiming to explicate the "appalling spiritual damage that science has done." Pandering to neither neo-Luddites nor eco-reactionaries, he argues for the primacy of the human soul, recalling the spirit, if not the ontologic letter, of Teilhard de Chardin. The chapter "The Humbling of Man"--effected by a reductionist science--begins with a discussion of the 17th-century figures Newton, Galileo and Descartes and ends by considering Freud's arguably scientific work as being both in this continuum and a way to move beyond its limitations. Appleyard sees the scientific paradigm as having developed into a psuedo-religion that is incompatible with its core human culture, both personal and social. "Science, quietly and inexplicitly, is talking us into abandoning . . . our true selves." Impassioned and robust, his arguments with such humanist apologists for science as Bertrand Russell and Jacob Bronowski are consistently provocative and often persuasive.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

A withering indictment of modern science by, of all people, the science-and-philosophy columnist of The Sunday Times of London. Appleyard's blast is ferocious: Science has done ``appalling spiritual damage'' to modern human beings, for it rules the day but ``offers no truth, no guiding light, and no path.'' Enough is enough: ``We must resist and the time to do so is now.'' Appleyard's resistance takes the form, largely, of a history of how science came to be and the havoc it has wreaked. The crisis began in 1609, when Galileo peered through the telescope and ``invented the modern.'' Suddenly, observation and experiment replaced rational authority (exemplified by Aquinas's brilliant synthesis of Aristotle and Christianity) as the bastion of knowledge. This new way of seeing eschewed value and meaning, Appleyard says; it found its philosophy in Cartesian dualism, and its final, tragic expression in Darwinism. Appleyard runs through responses to this alleged debacle, from Nietzsche to Kierkegaard--all noble failures, he contends. Science's internal revolutions, especially quantum physics, may provide new life--but Appleyard doubts it. Nor does he have faith in New Age science (Bohm, Capra, Sheldrake) or the Green movement, which he describes as ``a religion of rejection.'' What, then, to do? Consider that science cannot understand self-consciousness or the soul, he says, although subjective experience indicates that we may possess both. These are clues that science is blinkered, that it poses its own questions and then insists these are the only ones that exist. The answer is to ``humble'' science, to see it as just one ``convention'' of knowing rather than as the royal road to truth. An old argument, but Appleyard attacks scientism with uncanny intelligence and heat (who else has managed to squash hard and New Age science with the same hammer, or has scorned Sagan, Hawking, and other scientific icons in such blistering terms?). This should crack a few test tubes. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (February 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385420986
• ISBN-13: 978-0385420983
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #605,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Freedom from the Monster, August 30, 2007

By 

Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding the Present: An Alternative History of Science (Paperback)

Science has been good to me.

Not only has it provided the tools to have a life that would have been unimaginable when I was born, but also the fruits of science helped save me when I had a surprising medical challenge. And it became a building block of a successful career.

But I have also been beset by nagging worries about the direction of the scientific enterprise and by the disinterest of most scientists in the implications of what we are doing.

In discussions with many prominent scientists, most go blank or shrug when asked about the philosophical underpinnings of science, or the practical implications of unfettered and unaccountable scientific experimentation.

Enter Bryan Appleyard's excellent book. Bryan is a journalist who writes mainly for the Sunday Times in London, though he has some other outlets: if you are interested, I subscribe to his wonderfully iconoclastic weblog - Thought Experiments - through mine: RichardGPettyMD.blogs. You will have to work out the final part of the address: this review will not allow me to post the whole link!

This is a book about the "appalling spiritual damage that science and how much more it can still do." Not the physical damage of rampant technology, but from an inner desolation.

Attacks on science are two-a-penny, but rarely do they come from someone birthed into a family of engineers, who taught him to respect science and its handmaiden: technology. He does not want some return to nature of like Rousseau or the Luddites: he wants to restore balance into human affairs.

As he says, despite the admirable intentions of most scientists, "science, quietly and inexplicitly is talking us into abandoning ourselves."

He goes on to say that,
"Science is not a neutral or innocent commodity which can be employed as a convenience by people wishing to partake only of the West's material power. It is spiritually corrosive, burning away ancient authorities and traditions. It cannot really co-exist with anything... As it burns away all competition, the question becomes: what kind of life is it that science offers to its people?.... What does it tell us about ourselves and how we must live?"

Though most scientists tend to disclaim responsibility for social and spiritual matters, they cannot continue to do so.

The trouble he says, is not with science, which is simply a method and a tool, but scientism: the belief that science is, or can be the complete and only explanation for life, the universe and everything. But explaining everything means understanding everything that exists, and that is a tall order.

So "scientists inevitably take on the mantle of the wizards, sorcerers and with doctors," and they have become the preferred authority on matters of morality and spirituality. Bryan cites a troubling quotation form the former Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru: "
"It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening of custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, or a rich country inhabited by starving poor... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science."

The trouble is that science by its very nature is designed to be objective, and when scientism rules supreme, Nature and the universe are no longer seen as a living whole with purpose and meaning, but is instead dead material for study. Science provides us with descriptions of the universe that contain everything except us.

Subjectivity is not an illusion, even though we constantly see people who claim that all of our thoughts and emotions are simply reflexes.

So what are the solutions?

Bryan believes that understanding the limitations of science and of what it can explain is all to the good. After pointing out the limitations of a purely objective science, he believes that our thoughts and feelings, our relationships with others and the meanings that they create are the bedrock of existence. He also alludes to the idea of a new science that will se beyond the objective and may contribute to the development of a new spirituality.

In this he presages the fascinating work by Alan Wallace who is creating a "contemplative science" that incorporates contemplative practices and contemporary neuroscience to arrive at an extraordinary synthesis.

The myth of an all-seeing all-knowing science that insists that we are simply bio-molecular machines is dangerous in that, if taken too far, it strips us of some of the key components of our humanity.

Although this book was originally written several years ago, its arguments are even more important today, and I recommend it to anyone with any interest in the philosophical foundations of the modern world.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bracing Critique of Materialist perspective and Modernity, April 28, 2003

By 

John Granger - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man (Paperback)

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is the modernist or skeptic's assault on modernity in general and the regime of science specifically. As limited as this view must be relative to a traditional or symbolist perspective (i.e., from someone not using the methods criticized to criticize them), I have not read a more accessible book on the subject. If you want to know how much and in what ways our present time (as all times) are an 'Age' with peculiar blind spots, graces, and misconceptions, this is the place to start. Ignore the two reviews below that offer apologies for the regime and accuse Applyard of pessimism; the man who sees the train about to roll over him - rolling over him? - is not a pessimist. Guenon's The Reign of Quantity and Upton's System of AntiChrist are this book's betters but they assume much more on the reader's part; please find this book and delight in his illumination of the ideas that frame our shallow and narrow worldview in the present time. Then read Swift's Battle of the Books and see that this fight is an old one each person must come to terms with.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, Yet Overly Pessimistic, February 22, 2001

By 

Phil Reakes (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man (Paperback)

I picked this up in a bargain bin thinking it was a pop science book. A few pages in, it became apparent that the book was a criticism of science's failure to provide a sense of comfort about the big issues ("what is our purpose in life" etc). The author compares science to olde time religion and comes to the conclusion that religion is a lie that makes people happy, whilst science is a truth that saddens.

While this may be an accurate description of the general metaphysical discomfort caused as religion loses ground, it seems a bit presumptuous to suggest we devalue truth and return to the dark ages. As some ancient Roman guy once said, "the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise". Instead of seeking wonder, purpose and freedom in a godless universe, Appleyard invites us to throw in the towel. And that is what makes this book so morbidly interesting...