Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition

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In Life is a Miracle, Wendell Berry urges us to begin a "conversation out of school." Believing we are on a course of arrogant and dangerous behavior in science and other intellectual disciplines, this proclamation against modern superstition recommends a shift in priorities and goals. Berry observes, "it is clearly bad for the sciences and the arts to be divided into 'two cultures.' It is bad for scientists to be working without a sense of obligation to cultural tradition. It is bad for artists and scholars in the humanities to be working without a sense of obligation to the world beyond the artifacts of culture." They must be the subjects of one complex conversation."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved Cover Title Copyright Contents I. Ignorance II. Propriety III. On Edward 0. Wilson’s Consilience 1. Materialism 2. Materialism and Mystery 3. Imperialism 4. Reductionism 5. Creatures as Machines 6. Originality and the “Two Cultures” 7. Progress Without Subtraction IV. Reduction and Religion V. Reduction and Art VI. A Conversation Out of School VII. Toward a Change of Standards VIII. Some Notes in Conclusion