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A Sense of the Future: Essays in Natural Philosophy
Jacob Bronowski truly educated an enormous number of members of that diffuse population usually referred to, with a hint of condescension, as educated laymen through his widely shared television series on the concepts of science and through such highly regarded books as The Identity of Man and The Ascent of Man. This volume extends the process to a further level of insight, and it may be more than suggestive that its final essay is entitled The Fulfillment of Man. Bronowski was an extraordinary teacher precisely because he did not condescend to his audience. He did not talk down to them; he knew how to talk them up to something near his own level, however briefly. He felt that if human beings are taken seriously, they can be led to respond to serious and difficult subjects that relate to the deepest aspects of nature, both beyond and within themselves.A Sense of the Future succeeds brilliantly in this respect, in part because it is a collection of essays that can be read independently as self-contained, delimited presentations; and in part because the book is more than the sum of these individual essays--it is a unified whole in which Bronowski's most abiding concerns are interrelated, juxtaposed, and tested for consistency in various intellectual contexts. The major unifying theme of the work is the intensely creative and human nature of the scientific enterprise--its kinship, at the highest levels of individual achievement, with comparable manifestations of the artistic imagination, and its ethical imperatives, evolved within the community of scientists over the centuries, which both embody and forge the values of civilized life at large. Still, the book's diversity of topics is as striking as the unity of its aim. Among the subjects within the realm of Bronowski's mind that are presented here are the limitations of formal logic and experimental methods, the epistemology of science, the distinctive nature of human language and the human mind, and the bases of biological and cultural evolution.Bronowski also contrasts the findings of science as the here and now of man's understanding with the ongoing activity of science as the open-ended search for truth, and he undertakes to demonstrate that the factual, individual is and the ethical, societal ought can be derived each from the other. A mathematician by training, Bronowski published poetry as well as books on literature and intellectual history. In addition to those mentioned above, The Common Sense of Science and Science and Human Values are among the most widely read of his books. Before his death in 1974, he was for many years a Senior Fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where his formal area of research was concerned with the questions of human specificity and uniqueness. Clearly, his interests ranged far beyond this area, and in many directions.
300 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1977
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About the author
Jacob Bronowski
78 books226 followersJacob Bronowski was a British mathematician and biologist of Polish-Jewish origin. He is best remembered as the presenter and writer of the 1973 BBC television documentary series, The Ascent of Man.
In 1950, Bronowski was given the Taung child's fossilized skull and asked to try, using his statistical skills, to combine a measure of the size of the skull's teeth with their shape in order to discriminate them from the teeth of apes. Work on this turned his interests towards the human biology of humanity's intellectual products.
In 1967 Bronowski delivered the six Silliman Memorial Lectures at Yale University and chose as his subject the role of imagination and symbolic language in the progress of scientific knowledge. Transcripts of the lectures were published posthumously in 1978 as The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination and remain in print.
He first became familiar to the British public through appearances on the BBC television version of The Brains Trust in the late 1950s. His ability to answer questions on many varied subjects led to an offhand reference in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus where one character states that "He knows everything." However Bronowski is best remembered for his thirteen part series The Ascent of Man (1973), a documentary about the history of human beings through scientific endeavour. This project was intended to parallel art historian Kenneth Clark's earlier "personal view" series Civilisation (1969) which had covered cultural history.
During the making of The Ascent of Man, Bronowski was interviewed by the popular British chat show host Michael Parkinson. Parkinson later recounted that Bronowski's description of a visit to Auschwitz—Bronowski had lost many family members during the Nazi era—was one of Parkinson's most memorable interviews.
Jacob Bronowski married Rita Coblentz in 1941. The couple had four children, all daughters, the eldest being the British academic Lisa Jardine and another being the filmmaker Judith Bronowski. He died in 1974 of a heart attack in East Hampton, New York a year after The Ascent of Man was completed, and was buried in the western side of London's Highgate Cemetery, near the entrance.
In 1950, Bronowski was given the Taung child's fossilized skull and asked to try, using his statistical skills, to combine a measure of the size of the skull's teeth with their shape in order to discriminate them from the teeth of apes. Work on this turned his interests towards the human biology of humanity's intellectual products.
In 1967 Bronowski delivered the six Silliman Memorial Lectures at Yale University and chose as his subject the role of imagination and symbolic language in the progress of scientific knowledge. Transcripts of the lectures were published posthumously in 1978 as The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination and remain in print.
He first became familiar to the British public through appearances on the BBC television version of The Brains Trust in the late 1950s. His ability to answer questions on many varied subjects led to an offhand reference in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus where one character states that "He knows everything." However Bronowski is best remembered for his thirteen part series The Ascent of Man (1973), a documentary about the history of human beings through scientific endeavour. This project was intended to parallel art historian Kenneth Clark's earlier "personal view" series Civilisation (1969) which had covered cultural history.
During the making of The Ascent of Man, Bronowski was interviewed by the popular British chat show host Michael Parkinson. Parkinson later recounted that Bronowski's description of a visit to Auschwitz—Bronowski had lost many family members during the Nazi era—was one of Parkinson's most memorable interviews.
Jacob Bronowski married Rita Coblentz in 1941. The couple had four children, all daughters, the eldest being the British academic Lisa Jardine and another being the filmmaker Judith Bronowski. He died in 1974 of a heart attack in East Hampton, New York a year after The Ascent of Man was completed, and was buried in the western side of London's Highgate Cemetery, near the entrance.
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October 7, 2019
Bronowski professzor három rövid tételben oktatja a hozzám hasonló mezei laikusokat:
1.) A természet logikája. Miért veszítettek presztízst a tudósok a huszadik században, és hogyan alakult ki a szakadék a tudomány nyelve és a köznapi nyelv között? Hová tűntek azok a fasza metaforák, amelyek segítségével egy Kepler még meg tudta értetni magát a környezetével? Érdekes és inspiratív, de valahogy nem érzem a kifutását. Mintha nem lenne lekerekítve. Ha interaktív könyv lenne, biztosan feltennék kérdéseket.
2.) A kísérletezés logikája. Bronowski olyan tévhiteket oszlat el a természettudományos kísérletek módszertanával kapcsolatban, amiknek én még a létezéséről sem tudtam. Nyilván mert nem foglalkoztam eddig a kérdéssel. Én személy szerint csak az olvasmánylistámat illetően kísérletezem – és nem látom, hogy ezekben a szférákban alkalmazni tudnám a tanultakat.
3.) Az értelem logikája. Számomra egyértelműen ez a csúcs: miben speciális az emberi értelem, és hogyan köti össze ez a specialitás a tudományt az irodalommal? Ez a specialitás nem más, mint az önmagunkra reflektálás, annak a sajátos abszurdumnak a következménye, hogy gondolkodásunkat csak a gondolkodás eszköztárával tudjuk vizsgálni, ami óhatatlanul kreatív torzulásokhoz vezet. Bronowski messziről indul, és tulajdonképpen csak a végére pörög fel – de ez az utolsó tíz oldal kifejezetten élményszerű volt. Felcsigázott, hogy aztán a tetőponton elengedje a kezemet. Ez dobja meg a kötetet.
1.) A természet logikája. Miért veszítettek presztízst a tudósok a huszadik században, és hogyan alakult ki a szakadék a tudomány nyelve és a köznapi nyelv között? Hová tűntek azok a fasza metaforák, amelyek segítségével egy Kepler még meg tudta értetni magát a környezetével? Érdekes és inspiratív, de valahogy nem érzem a kifutását. Mintha nem lenne lekerekítve. Ha interaktív könyv lenne, biztosan feltennék kérdéseket.
2.) A kísérletezés logikája. Bronowski olyan tévhiteket oszlat el a természettudományos kísérletek módszertanával kapcsolatban, amiknek én még a létezéséről sem tudtam. Nyilván mert nem foglalkoztam eddig a kérdéssel. Én személy szerint csak az olvasmánylistámat illetően kísérletezem – és nem látom, hogy ezekben a szférákban alkalmazni tudnám a tanultakat.
3.) Az értelem logikája. Számomra egyértelműen ez a csúcs: miben speciális az emberi értelem, és hogyan köti össze ez a specialitás a tudományt az irodalommal? Ez a specialitás nem más, mint az önmagunkra reflektálás, annak a sajátos abszurdumnak a következménye, hogy gondolkodásunkat csak a gondolkodás eszköztárával tudjuk vizsgálni, ami óhatatlanul kreatív torzulásokhoz vezet. Bronowski messziről indul, és tulajdonképpen csak a végére pörög fel – de ez az utolsó tíz oldal kifejezetten élményszerű volt. Felcsigázott, hogy aztán a tetőponton elengedje a kezemet. Ez dobja meg a kötetet.
January 22, 2019
In this series of essays, Bronowski outlines his "natural philosophy." There is no division between the world of facts ("is") and the world of obligation ("ought"). Science requires a commitment to truth, to free thought and speech, and respect and tolerance for different viewpoints. These values are requirements for scientific truth-seeking and, in this way, Bronowski hopes to lay the foundation for a modern-day rationalism that breaks from religious or otherwise dogmatic thought systems that tell people how to think. "Man," is free, and that is how "Man" ought to be. Truth about the objective world can emerge only through a collective dialogue among free-thinking individuals. For Bronowski, as for Plato, ethics resides in an objective world. What one ought to do is directed by a moral law that is every bit as valid as a scientific law. Truth-seeking requires freedom and mutual respect.
The findings of science – and this is where Bronowski excels in these essays – sees a world in flux. Everything is in motion. Nothing is fixed, including human nature. Unlike animals, he argues, we are free beings. This is why "we direct their lives," and "why they do not direct ours." This is why animals "are in cages and we are not." Ironically, our only fixed essence is being free. We ought to be who we are and, here, Bronowski sounds like Sartre. We create our future based on rational principles: commitment to truth, freedom of thought and speech, respect and tolerance for other points of view.
Bronowski's ethics work for science, but it does not work for behavior. The laws that apply to non-life are different that the laws that apply to life and, by extension, to behavior.* We, as all of life, are need-seeking beings and these supply the motive force that explains why we act as we do. The needs for nurture, for security and sex are fixed. These are our essence, as is our need to be free to seek and to defend ourselves.** How these needs are satisfied, and how we defend ourselves, lie in the realm that Bronowski dismisses so prominently. We have free choice but how that choice is exercised depends on who we are, not as a species per se, but as, per Darwinian variation, individual species members. At one pole, some satisfy need by being the good citizen that Bronowski, rightfully, values. But at the other pole, lie those whose sole motivation is self-advantage regardless of the impact on others or on the whole. Both poles work as survival strategies. Between them lie everyone else with shades of one or the other, in varying degrees, that are expressed differently according to situation.
Bronowski's "ought" world neglects the world of motivation. He advocates all of his good values as if his advocacy and good reason is sufficient to change how we operate. For some, perhaps, this might work. But for many, it will not because there's no motivation to behave as he says we must. His various and persisting pleadings – his "duties of mankind" – is tiresome because so many could care less about this. The only thing that works to preserve order for the whole and to protect the freedom of all is the application of counter power to keep overly self-oriented behavior in check.
*Bronowski bases his notion of freedom on the quantum world. Animals are mechanistic and determined for the most part. They are of Newton's world. Humans operate at the higher, quantum level that transcends strict causal relationships. Behavior operates only probabilistically and in this indeterminate reality lies human freedom. Though I found this part of his argument unclear, I believe he is saying something like this.
**This need to be free is what we share with the animal world and that's why it's not ok to deny animals their freedom, i.e., why it's not ok to put them in cages.
The findings of science – and this is where Bronowski excels in these essays – sees a world in flux. Everything is in motion. Nothing is fixed, including human nature. Unlike animals, he argues, we are free beings. This is why "we direct their lives," and "why they do not direct ours." This is why animals "are in cages and we are not." Ironically, our only fixed essence is being free. We ought to be who we are and, here, Bronowski sounds like Sartre. We create our future based on rational principles: commitment to truth, freedom of thought and speech, respect and tolerance for other points of view.
Bronowski's ethics work for science, but it does not work for behavior. The laws that apply to non-life are different that the laws that apply to life and, by extension, to behavior.* We, as all of life, are need-seeking beings and these supply the motive force that explains why we act as we do. The needs for nurture, for security and sex are fixed. These are our essence, as is our need to be free to seek and to defend ourselves.** How these needs are satisfied, and how we defend ourselves, lie in the realm that Bronowski dismisses so prominently. We have free choice but how that choice is exercised depends on who we are, not as a species per se, but as, per Darwinian variation, individual species members. At one pole, some satisfy need by being the good citizen that Bronowski, rightfully, values. But at the other pole, lie those whose sole motivation is self-advantage regardless of the impact on others or on the whole. Both poles work as survival strategies. Between them lie everyone else with shades of one or the other, in varying degrees, that are expressed differently according to situation.
Bronowski's "ought" world neglects the world of motivation. He advocates all of his good values as if his advocacy and good reason is sufficient to change how we operate. For some, perhaps, this might work. But for many, it will not because there's no motivation to behave as he says we must. His various and persisting pleadings – his "duties of mankind" – is tiresome because so many could care less about this. The only thing that works to preserve order for the whole and to protect the freedom of all is the application of counter power to keep overly self-oriented behavior in check.
*Bronowski bases his notion of freedom on the quantum world. Animals are mechanistic and determined for the most part. They are of Newton's world. Humans operate at the higher, quantum level that transcends strict causal relationships. Behavior operates only probabilistically and in this indeterminate reality lies human freedom. Though I found this part of his argument unclear, I believe he is saying something like this.
**This need to be free is what we share with the animal world and that's why it's not ok to deny animals their freedom, i.e., why it's not ok to put them in cages.
May 17, 2013
Essay's by one of the most brilliant men of the 20th century, Jacob Bronowski writings will never be dated.
June 25, 2018
This was my third re-reading of A Sense of the Future since 1979. Bronowski remains as thought provoking today as he was nearly 40 years ago. The majesty of the scientific process will prevail.
July 25, 2016
Like so many I discovered Jacob Bronowski through The Ascent of Man on PBS. It was a seminal series that brought me to read everything the man had written. Although A Sense of the Future was written 4 decades ago, it is still current. Authoritarianism and worship of ignorance are still the lead news stories. Anti-intellectualism and fear of science are as popular as ever. WHy listen to scientists in the AAAS when you can get your opinions from Jenny McCarthy and Exxon and Koch via Fox News?
We sit under the shadow of the nine o'clock news, nursing a sense of gloom about what it (science) has done, and we think ourselves worse off than our forefathers a hundred and seventy years ago, who were at war with Napoleon for a generation. But a hundred and twenty years ago, the working week was eighty hours for children. Cholera was more common in England than flu. The country could barely support ten million people, and not a million of them could read. You know how all this has been changed; and don't let anyone tell you that nothing has been gained but comfort. ... Every machine has been a liberator. They have freed us from drudgery and disease and ignorance and from the misery Hogarth painted that could forget itself only in the stupor of drink.
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