E.A. Burtt, Historian and Philosopher: A Study of the author of The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 226)

Here is a much needed study of the American historian and philosopher, E.A. Burtt. H. Floris Cohen, author of "The Scientific Revolution, A Historiography", has described Burtt as an "individual thinker...beyond philosophical or historical currents or fashion." 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.

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.

Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-6 Columbia University in the 1920s: The Young Radical Philosophers....Pages 7-14 The Idealists: James Harvey Robinson and the Genetic Method of History, John Dewey and Reflective Thinking....Pages 15-29 The Realists Who Sharpened the Edges of Burtt’s Ideas....Pages 31-45 The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science....Pages 47-65 The Chicago School of Pragmatism....Pages 67-81 Religious Humanism....Pages 83-93 Burtt’s New Philosophy of Mind....Pages 95-129 FROM The Genesis of Hypothesis (1935) TO The Metaphysics of Empirical Theology (1987?)....Pages 131-153 Burtt’s Newton and the Debate over the Rationality of Early Modern Science....Pages 155-186 What Happened to the Metaphysical Foundations and Burtt’s Interest in the History of Science?....Pages 187-196 Burtt’s Philosophy after 1935....Pages 197-213 A Return to the Ideas in the Metaphysical Foundations ....Pages 215-232 Conclusion....Pages 233-245 Back Matter....Pages 247-299