Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 290 pages
- Published by: Cambridge University Press
- Edition: 1st Edition May 6, 2002
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0521009839
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521009836
-
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
- Weighs: 1 pounds
Product Review
"an ambitious, engaging and widely ranging contribution to the interdisciplinary study of literature, philosophy, religion, and science of the last three hundred years. this book deserves to be read and studied carefully by a wide audience" Religion & Literature
"Prickett wants to carve out a space for religion against postmodern relativism [T]his book can probably be read with most pleasure by the neophyte student of postmodernism." Choice
"a tour de forceit contributes provocatively and valuably to the case for regarding the narrative relation between science and religion as being much closer than some might be prone to acknowledge." The Journal of Religion
"brisk, jargon-free and spendidly readable" The Times Literary Supplement
Book Description
An increasing number of contemporary scientists, philosophers and theologians downplay their professional authority and describe their work as simply "telling stories about the world". If this is so, literary criticism can and should be applied to all these fields. Yet story telling is neither innocent nor empty-handed. Register, rhetoric, and imagery all manipulate in their own ways. Above all, irony emerges as the natural mode of our modern fragmented culture. Since the eighteenth century there have been only two possible ways of understanding the world--the fundamentalist and the ironic.
Reader Reviews
I would agree with the editorial reviews above, especially with regard to the book's wide range and readability. For those interested in Kierkegaard, it is worth noting that he provides a helpful comparison between SK and Richard Rorty on the issue of irony. As the title suggests, Prickett sees the world in terms of ironists and fundamentalists, and ends up placing SK in the former camp and Rorty in the latter. According to Prickett, Rorty is guilty of developing what he labels a "closed system" with "no external reality-check." He therefore finds SK's approach of "mastered irony" far more helpful. This discussion is carried on in Brad Frazier's work, and while Frazier comes to similar conclusions he is less dismissive of Rorty's contributions.
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