Understanding Nature - Hub Zwart

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Résumé :
Science is not the only route to understanding nature. This volume presents a series of case studies in comparative epistemology, critically comparing the works of prominent representatives of the life sciences, such as Aristotle, Darwin, and Mendel, with the writings of literary masters, such as Andersen, Melville, Verne, and Ibsen. It constitutes a major contribution to the growing field of science and literature studies.

Sommaire:
Comparative Epistemology.- Antecedents: Comparative Epistemology as an Outcome.- Animal Epistemology.- What is an Animal? A Comparative Epistemology of Animals.- What is a Whale? Moby-Dick, Marine Science and the Sublime.- What is a Dog? Animal Experiments and Animal Novels.- The Birth of a Research Animal.- Plants, Landscapes and Environments.- Aquaphobia, Tulipmania, Biophilia: A Moral Geography of the Dutch Landscape.- Taming Microbes: Ibsen's Dr. Stockmann as a Contemporary of Pasteur and Koch.- Pea Stories. Why was Mendel's Research Ignored in 1866 and Rediscovered in 1900?.- Jules Verne's Oeuvre: A Literary Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology.- Conclusion.- Epistemological Exercises: Towards a Typology of Knowledge Forms.

From the reviews: Hub Zwart's Understanding Nature is a project designed as a defense of epistemology reformulated as a comparative practice that conceives knowledge as a process undertaken by a range of disciplines and practices to apprehend the constitutive features of complex phenomena. ... the great strength of Understanding Nature is Zwart's fascinating and provocative readings of philosophers, novelists, poets, scientists, and dramatists. ... it is a study of the limits and uniqueness of the perceptual vantages that give rise to scientific and literary forms of expression. (Christopher C. Robinson, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Vol. 22, 2009)