Vladislav Razdyakonov
Mapping Imagination on the Borders of Science: Quest for Universal Unity at the Turn of the 19th - 20th Centuries
Vladislav Razdyakonov - Associate Professor, Center for the Study of Religion, Russian State University of Humanities (Moscow). razdyakonov.vladislav@gmail.com
Drawing upon latest studies in the history of parascience, this review article demonstrates crucial differences between its main branches at the turn of the 19th century. The author calls for a careful approach in using "presentist" historical methodology and highlights the motivations of both scientists and those labeled "stepchildren of science", who tried to find universal principles regulating the processes in the world of nature. The degree in which scientific ideas correlate with personal value biases may be used as a possible criterion for demarcating the boundary between scientific and parascientific discourses.
Keywords: parascience, history of science, parapsychology, modern spiritualism, occultism.
page 297Book Review:
Oppenheim, J. P. (1985) The Other World. Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850 - 1912. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - 503 p.
Wolffram, H. (2009) The Stepchildren of Science. Psychical Research and Parapsychology in Germany. Amsterdam - New York: Rodopi. - 342 p.
Lachapelle, S. (2011) Investigating Supernatural. From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metaphysics in France, 1853 - 1931. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. -198 p.
OVER the past few years, the West has published several academic monographs devoted to the analysis of the cultural context of the late XIX-early XX century and revealing the logic and dynamics of the development of "parascience". The review nature of these works makes it possible to create a map of the main ideas of near-scientific groups, demonstrating the similarities and differences that existed between them, primarily in their attitude to the images of "science" and "sci ...
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