Seeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science (Science and Literature Series)

Thoreau was a poet, a naturalist, a major American writer. Was he also a scientist? He was, Laura Dassow Walls suggests. Her book, the first to consider Thoreau as a serious and committed scientist, will change the way we understand his accomplishment and the place of science in American culture. Walls reveals that the scientific texts of Thoreaus day deeply influenced his best work, from Walden to the Journal to the late natural history essays. Here we see how, just when literature and science were splitting into the two cultures we know now, Thoreau attempted to heal the growing rift. Walls shows how his commitment to Alexander von Humboldts scientific approach resulted in not only his marriage of poetry and science but also his distinctively patterned nature studies. In the first critical study of his The Dispersion of Seeds since its publication in 1993, she exposes evidence that Thoreau was using Darwinian modes of reasoning years before the appearance of Origin of Species. This book offers a powerful argument against the critical tradition that opposes a dry, mechanistic science to a warm, organic Romanticism. Instead, Thoreaus experience reveals the complex interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day. Drawing on recent work in the theory and philosophy of science as well as literary history and theory, Seeing New Worlds bridges todays two cultures in hopes of stimulating a fuller consideration of representations of nature. An excellent book, well-written, even eloquent. Walls is clearly the first scholar to read Thoreau thoroughly in the context both of the science of his own day and of the theory and philosophy of science in our day, in such a way as profoundly to call into question all previous work in this area and to open up questions about the very nature of science and scientific truth.Robert Sattelmeyer, Georgia State University

Thoreau was a poet, a naturalist, a major American writer. Was he also a scientist? He was, Laura Dassow Walls suggests. Her book, the first to consider Thoreau as a serious and committed scientist, will change the way we understand his accomplishment and the place of science in American culture.
    Walls reveals that the scientific texts of Thoreau’s day deeply influenced his best work, from Walden to the Journal to the late natural history essays. Here we see how, just when literature and science were splitting into the “two cultures” we know now, Thoreau attempted to heal the growing rift. Walls shows how his commitment to Alexander von Humboldt’s scientific approach resulted in not only his “marriage” of poetry and science but also his distinctively patterned nature studies. In the first critical study of his “The Dispersion of Seeds” since its publication in 1993, she exposes evidence that Thoreau was using Darwinian modes of reasoning years before the appearance of Origin of Species.
    This book offers a powerful argument against the critical tradition that opposes a dry, mechanistic science to a warm, “organic” Romanticism. Instead, Thoreau’s experience reveals the complex interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day. Drawing on recent work in the theory and philosophy of science as well as literary history and theory, Seeing New Worlds bridges today’s “two cultures” in hopes of stimulating a fuller consideration of representations of nature.
   

CONTENTS......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Abbreviations......Page 14 Introduction......Page 18 1. Facts and Truth: Transcendental Science from Cambridge to Concord......Page 30 Nominalists, Realists, Idealists: Harvard and After, 1837......Page 31 Romantic Theologies......Page 39 Natural History before Walden......Page 50 2. The Empire of Thought and the Republic of Particulars......Page 68 Law as Logos......Page 69 Rational Holism......Page 75 The Organic Machine: Making Matter Mind......Page 85 Emergent Laws......Page 91 Empirical Holism......Page 99 3. Seeing New Worlds: Thoreau and Humboldtian Science......Page 109 Alexander von Humboldt, the “Napoleon of Science”......Page 110 Fronting Nature at Walden, 1845–1847......Page 123 After Walden: Old Worlds and New......Page 131 4. Cosmos: Knowing as Worlding......Page 146 Thoreau as Humboldtian......Page 149 Relational Knowing: Thoreau’s Epistemology of Contact......Page 162 Writing the Cosmos: Walden......Page 172 5. A Plurality of Worlds......Page 182 Intentions of the Eye......Page 185 Worlds without End: The Dispersion of Seeds......Page 194 The Transcendentalist at the Cattle Show: Thoreau’s Ironic Science......Page 214 6. Walking the Holy Land......Page 227 Contingent Wholes: A Few Herbs and Apples......Page 228 Chance and Necessity: The Laughter of the Loon......Page 238 “Walking, or the Wild”......Page 247 Conclusion: Disciplining Thoreau......Page 261 Notes......Page 270 Bibliography......Page 295 Index......Page 309 Thoreau was a poet, a naturalist, a major American writer. Was he also a scientist? He was, Laura Dassow Walls suggests. Her book, the first to consider Thoreau as a serious and committed scientist, will change the way we understand his accomplishment and the place of science in American culture. Walls reveals that the scientific texts of Thoreau s day deeply influenced his best work, from Walden to the Journal to the late natural history essays. Here we see how, just when literature and science were splitting into the two cultures we know now, Thoreau attempted to heal the growing rift. Walls shows how his commitment to Alexander von Humboldt s scientific approach resulted in not only his marriage of poetry and science but also his distinctively patterned nature studies. In the first critical study of his The Dispersion of Seeds since its publication in 1993, she exposes evidence that Thoreau was using Darwinian modes of reasoning years before the appearance of Origin of Species. This book offers a powerful argument against the critical tradition that opposes a dry, mechanistic science to a warm, organic Romanticism. Instead, Thoreau s experience reveals the complex interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day. Drawing on recent work in the theory and philosophy of science as well as literary history and theory, Seeing New Worlds bridges today s two cultures in hopes of stimulating a fuller consideration of representations of nature. -- Amazon.com Facts And Truth : Transcendental Science From Cambridge To Concord -- The Empire Of Thought And The Republic Of Particulars -- Seeing New Worlds : Thoreau And Humboldtian Science -- Cosmos : Knowing As Worlding -- A Plurality Of Worlds -- Walking The Holy Land. Laura Dassow Walls. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 280-293) And Index. Considering Thoreau as a serious, committed scientist, this book offers an alternative understanding of his accomplishment and the place of science in American literature. It shows how Thoreau's experience reveals the interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day.