E.A. Burtt, Historian and Philosopher

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Diane Davis Villemaire

   Pages 1-6

3. Columbia University in the 1920s: The Young Radical Philosophers

   • Diane Davis Villemaire

   Pages 7-14

4. The Idealists: James Harvey Robinson and the Genetic Method of History, John Dewey and Reflective Thinking

   • Diane Davis Villemaire

   Pages 15-29

5. The Realists Who Sharpened the Edges of Burtt’s Ideas

   • F. J. E. Woodbridge

   Pages 31-45

6. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science

   • Diane Davis Villemaire

   Pages 47-65

7. The Chicago School of Pragmatism

   • Diane Davis Villemaire

   Pages 67-81

8. Religious Humanism

   • Diane Davis Villemaire

   Pages 83-93

9. Burtt’s New Philosophy of Mind

   • Diane Davis Villemaire

   Pages 95-129

10. FROM The Genesis of Hypothesis (1935) TO The Metaphysics of Empirical Theology (1987?)

    • Diane Davis Villemaire

    Pages 131-153

11. Burtt’s Newton and the Debate over the Rationality of Early Modern Science

    • Diane Davis Villemaire

    Pages 155-186

12. What Happened to the Metaphysical Foundations and Burtt’s Interest in the History of Science?

    • Diane Davis Villemaire

    Pages 187-196

13. Burtt’s Philosophy after 1935

    • Diane Davis Villemaire

    Pages 197-213

14. A Return to the Ideas in the Metaphysical Foundations

    • Burtt, R. G. Collingwood

    Pages 215-232

15. Conclusion

    • Diane Davis Villemaire

    Pages 233-245

16. Back Matter

    Pages 247-299

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Burtt's book, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, is something of a puzzle within the context of twentieth-century intellectual history, especially American intellectual history. Burtt's pioneering study of the scientific revolution has proved to prophetic in its rejection of both scientism and positivism. Published in 1924, Burtt's book continues to be read in educated circles and remains both the rose and the thorn on university reading lists, raising skeptical questions about science methods and science knowledge just as it did seventy-five years ago.
This book examines Burtt's public, academic and personal life. From his politics of conscience after World War I on through the Cold War Burtt is shown to be a man of unparalleled integrity, whose relentless search for philosophic understanding drove his more quixotic philosophical quests and steered his personal life, including its tragic dimension, toward simple virtue.
The many who have been affected by The Metaphysical Foundations will be especially interested in this new perspective on the life and thought of its author. Those who have not read Burtt's books might be inspired to study this unusual American thinker.

• cold war
• history of science
• metaphysics
• science
• scientific revolution

• McGill University, Montreal, Canada

  Diane Davis Villemaire

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