The territories of science and religion /

Harrison, professor of the history of science at the University of Queensland, argues that present conceptions of science and religion as opposing disciplines have been anachronistically mapped onto the past, and that their relationship was much more intimately connected in earlier Western understandings. In their original usage, "religio" and "scientia" were not doctrines or claims of knowledge as they're now understood, but rather descriptions of ethical life centering on mental habits, spiritual interior formation, and dispositions. To be "religious" and/or "scientific" meant that one was concerned with the moral implications of reading the universe and practicing the habits required to exercise those different ethics. Harrison masterfully traces the delicate history between religio and scientia to their modern conceptions, unearthing their relationships to auxiliary disciplines such as theology, natural philosophy, and hermeneutics. Harrison's work is an admirable contribution to the history of science and religion. Though it's aimed mainly at an academic audience, general readers will also be interested in this analysis and its challenges to assumptions about both disciplines. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.