The European Modernity: Science, Truth and Method

The European Modernity is a classic attack on western dualism and an attempt to understand its consequences, from the nuclear bomb to the structure of the university. This study examines the foundations of the European modernity in relation to the non-dual Hermetic tradition and its cosmological approach to life and knowledge. The symmetry of Dante, medicine of Paracelsus and science of Goethe form the background for this investigation of the modernist regime—its truth and method, pure and applied, its science of vivisection and technology of obsolescence. The leading hypothesis is that the self, the world and the other can have better relations in the future than they have had in the modern past, from the new Eucharist to the bomb. Uberoi begins with an exploration of the origins of modernity in European science and religion, and proceeds to a discussion of the end of modernity. In the latter part of the book, he analyses society and selfhood, the Manhattan project, and the politics of language and pluralism in India. This book completes the trilogy that Uberoi began with Science and Culture (OUP 1978) and The other Mind of Europe (OUP 1984) and is an important contribution to the history and philosophy of science. It is essential reading for students and scholars of sociology, philosophy, science, and history.