Song Sparrow and the Child: Claims of Science and Humanity - Hardcover

Vining, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0268043620 ISBN 13: 9780268043629

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004

Synopsis

In this thought-provoking book, distinguished legal scholar Joseph Vining traces the complex roots of brutal twentieth-century human experimentation and extermination to worldviews that dehumanize both perpetrators and victims in distinctive ways, stripping them of their individuality as well as their intrinsic dignity and value. Vining finds a disturbing parallel between these worldviews and what he calls total theory. Total theories are beautiful and helpful explanations through attention to system and process that aggressively claim to account for the universe and everything in it. Vining maintains that some of the most gifted intellectuals and scientists of our time profess these theories without necessarily considering the implications of such totalizing worldviews. Using the example of the song sparrow and the child, Vining opens our eyes to the ramifications of total theory. He challenges readers to question casual acceptance of the total theories that are widely and quietly taught in contemporary biology, physics, and mathematics - theories that Vining maintains cannot be and are not actually believed by the people espousing them.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"THE SONG SPARROW AND THE CHILD is a powerful indictment of the impulses toward intellectual imperialism that have arisen in the wake of the fragmentation of the human and natural sciences. Vining has given us an important book, illuminating as only he can the hidden connections among seemingly unrelated phenomena." —Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University

"THE SONG SPARROW AND THE CHILD is an astonishing and wonderful book. With exquisite sensitivity to science as an admirable human practice Joseph Vining has thought through the implications of the scientific ambition for "total theory," for all-encompassing frameworks of explanation. Far from being intrinsic to the scientific endeavor, Vining argues that total theory is a threat—not only to science but also to the broader realm of human thought and ethical action. The Song Sparrow and the Child recalls us to a concern for particularity and for honesty about the infliction of suffering which is intellectually convincing and does so with both grace and passion. This is a book that demands, and rewards, thinking hard with the mind and heart." —H. Jefferson Powell, Duke University

"An erudite and poetic discourse on the dangers of those attitudes that assign all power, possibilities, and responsibilities to humankind or conceive of humankind as the ultimate creator." —Harold T. Shapiro, Princeton University

"THE SONG SPARROW AND THE CHILD is an amazingly learned, unpretentiously cultured meditation on a moral, spiritual, and cultural problem. It emerges as a deeply felt and beautifully written provocation to think and respond to what Vining calls ‘total theory.’" —George Levine, Rutgers University

About the Author

Joseph Vining is Hutchins Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0268043620
• ISBN 13: 9780268043629
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212