Victorian relativity : radical thought and scientific discovery / Christopher Herbert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Herbert, Christopher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Relativity--History--19th century.

Knowledge, Theory of--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (319 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

One of the articles of faith of twentieth-century intellectual history is that the theory of relativity in physics sprang in its essentials from the unaided genius of Albert Einstein; another is that scientific relativity is unconnected to ethical, cultural, or epistemological relativisms. Victorian Relativity challenges these assumptions, unearthing a forgotten tradition of avant-garde speculation that took as its guiding principle "the negation of the absolute" and set itself under the militant banner of "relativity." Christopher Herbert shows that the idea of relativity produced revolutionary changes in one field after another in the nineteenth century. Surveying a long line of thinkers including Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, Alexander Bain, W. K. Clifford, W. S. Jevons, Karl Pearson, James Frazer, and Einstein himself, Victorian Relativity argues that the early relativity movement was bound closely to motives of political and cultural reform and, in particular, to radical critiques of the ideology of authoritarianism. Recuperating relativity from those who treat it as synonymous with nihilism, Herbert portrays it as the basis of some of our crucial intellectual and ethical traditions.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

PREFACE: Relativity and Ideology

INTRODUCTION. The Conspiracy against Truth

Chapter 1. Difference, Unity, Proliferation

Chapter 2. Relativity and Authority

Chapter 3. The Relativity of Logic

Chapter 4. Karl Pearson and the Human Form Divine

Chapter 5. Frazer and Einstein

Afterword: Protagoras and History-Writing

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-277) and index.

ISBN:

9786612901935

9781282901933

1282901931

9780226327365

0226327361

OCLC:

690177209