In Rescuing Humanity, Willem H. Vanderburg reminds us that we have relied on discipline-based approaches for human knowing, doing, and organizing for less than a century. During this brief period, these approaches have become responsible for both our spectacular successes and most of our social and environmental crises. At their roots is a cultural mutation that includes secular religious attitudes that veil the limits of these approaches, leading to their overvaluation. Because their use, especially in science and technology, is primarily built up with mathematics, living entities and systems can be dealt with only as if their ""architecture"" or ""design"" is based on the principle of non-contradiction, which is true only for non-living entities. This distortion explains our many crises.
Vanderburg begins to explore the limits of discipline-based approaches, which guides the way toward developing complementary ones capable of transcending these limits. It is no different from a carpenter going beyond the limits of his hammer by reaching for other tools. As we grapple with everything from the impacts of social media, the ongoing climate crisis, and divisive political ideologies, Rescuing Humanity reveals that our civilization must learn to do the equivalent if humans and other living things are to continue making earth a home.
By:
Willem H. Vanderburg
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 560g
ISBN: 9781487552473
ISBN 10: 1487552475
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 25 August 2023
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface Introduction Suspended in Language and Culture Attempts at Escaping Our Suspension in Language and Culture Foundationalism and the Architecture of Non-Life The Technical Division of Labour and the Architecture of Non-Life Technique and the Architecture of Non-Life Technique, the State, and the Law Growing Up and Living with Technique 1. Our Physical Embodiment within the Relativity of Life and the World Can We Escape Our Embodiment? The Great Cultural Divide in the Relativity of Human Life The Relativity of Our Lives before Screen-Based Devices The General Relativity of Human Life and the World before Screen-based Devices 2. Our Social and Cultural Embodiment in the Relativity of Human Life in the World A Hidden Discontinuity The Artificiality of a Culture Screens as Magic Portals Growing Up with Symbolization and Desymbolization Two Streams of Experiences Language Acquisition in Anti-Societies with Three Frames of Reference 3. Living with a Dual Relativity beyond Cultural Embodiment A General Interpretation of Our Dual Relativity Living and Constructed Entities The Emergence of Cultural Mediation in a General Relativity From Cultural to Technical Mediation The Economy, Art, and the Order of Non-Sense Making Sense of Non-Sense 4. Mathematics as the Non-Language of Science and Technique Mathematical Foundations and Truths The Emergence of a Secular Religious Daily-Life World Science and Mathematics Disciplines, Games, and the General Relativity of Human Life Mathematics as a Discipline Mathematics, Languages, and Games Mathematics and Time Mathematics and Daily Life Mathematics and Education Is Mathematics the Secular Religion of Technique? 5. Human Knowing and Discipline-Based Science Is Our Science Unlike All Others? Disciplines and Daily-Life Knowing The Known and the Unknown Culture and Discipline-Based Science Science, Reality, and Our Life-Milieu Physics as a Mathematical Game? Our Metaphors for Space, Time, Matter, and Numbers Science, Religion, and Christianity 6. Human Doing, Technique, and the Living of Our Lives Naming What We Have Lost Recognizing the Symptoms of What We Have Lost Absolute and Relative Efficiency Economics as Technique Our Daily Lives and the Professions of Technique Technique and Non-Life Technique as Response to Relativism, Nihilism, and Anomie Epilogue: Possessed by Secular Myths Endangered by Secular Religious Attitudes Is Humanity Truly against Enslavement? Notes Index
Willem H. Vanderburg has taught preventive engineering, sociology, and environmental studies at the Centre for Technology and Social Development at the University of Toronto.
Reviews for Rescuing Humanity: Transcending the Limits of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
"" Rescuing Humanity is a timely and important work. Any scholar or student interested in the perils and promises of contemporary technology will find this book a thought-provoking resource. Vanderburg shows that our reliance on a 'secular myth' of contemporary technology, along with its narrow and mathematical interpretation of economics, hobbles us from rising to the occasion of the environmental disasters that are upon our doorstep."" --Stuart Dreyfus, Professor Emeritus of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of California, Berkeley ""We must change the way we do things, particularly how and what we teach the technologists in our society. Human beings must not be a side-effect of what contemporary engineers call 'progress.' If we treat each other like objects, we will kill life on the planet. Vanderburg's incisive, passionate book shows us how to avoid this abyss, how to reset our minds, take back our agency about what we wish to do next. This is a guide about how to stop being a piece of data, and start being a human: it's a guide to surviving and flourishing in this new century."" --Tim Blackmore, Professor of Information and Media Studies, Western University
