World pictures

the world of the history and philosophy of science

Jürgen Mittelstrass

pp. 319-341

in: James BROWN, Jürgen Mittelstrass (eds), An intimate relation, Berlin, Springer, 1989

Abstract

Science is not an external aspect of rational cultures. On the long road from their highly praised discovery of the scientific mind by the Greeks, these cultures first learned to define their rationality primarily in terms of the concept of the scientific, and later also in terms of the technical. Rational cultures in this sense are technical cultures supported by science. As such they constitute the modern world.