Nature From Within

Gustav Theodor Fechner And His Psychophysical Worldview

Michael Heidelberger author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Pittsburgh Press

Published:12th Apr '18

Should be back in stock very soon

Nature From Within cover

Translated from German, this exhaustive exploration of Fechner's impact on philosophy and science is an invaluable historical text.

Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887) was a German physicist, psychologist, and philosopher, best known to historians of science as the founder of psychophysics, the experimental study of the relation between mental and physical processes. Michael Heidelberger's exhaustive exploration of Fechner's writings, in relation to current issues in the field, successfully reestablishes Fechner's place in the history and philosophy of science.

A brilliant book. . . . No historian of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German science and philosophy can afford to ignore it.

* British Journal for the History of Science *

A clear, comprehensive, and rigorous treatment of the philosophical basis for Fechner's thought, including, importantly, the way in which he was able to reconcile apparently divergent intellectual themes in his philosophical and scientific writing.

* Isis *

Almost mandatory reading as it provides many new historical insights that are quite significant for contemporary philosophy of science.

* Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook *

From Fechner to Peirce and Freud—Heidelberger explains the context and influence of Fechner's ideas on indeterminism, self-organization, psychophysics, and freedom. . . . A highly informative and comprehensive book about one of the most original and uncompromising thinkers of the nineteenth century.

* Gerd Gigerenzer, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin *

Not very many exemplars of this genre get translated, and perhaps often justifiedly so. In Heidelberger's case there were excellent reasons for producing an English version. The impressive 66-page bibliography at the end of the volume is in itself a joy to study.

* Philosophy in Review *

This superb translation is revised and enlarged from the 1993 German edition, which was acclaimed as one of the finest and most useful studies of 19th-century thought. For the English version, the same accolades apply. . . . Nature from Within is mandatory reading for psychologists, philosophers, and historians of ideas. . . . Highly recommended.

* Choice

ISBN: 9780822965473

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

456 pages