CONTENTS Preface ... x Acknowledgments ... xi Introduction ... l 1 The Scientific and the Artistic : Two Approaches to Experience ... 8 The vault of heaven ... 8 Scientific objectivity ... 10 Pure realism : the world as it is ... 14 Imagination and subjectivity ... 18 The language of feelings ... 20 Artistic expression and the human world ... 21 2 A Decentred Universe : The World of Modern Science ... 29 The Aristotelian perspective ... 29 The scientific image versus the manifest image ... 32 The explanatory power of the scientific picture ... 39 The theorising bat ... 41 3 Science and Truth ... 44 Newtonian questions ... 45 The inference to best explanation ... 49 Observation without theory ... 53 Empiricism ... 58 The absolute conception of the world ... 65 The passing of time ... 67 Science and mythology ... 71 4 Human Culture and the Role of Artistic Expression ... 74 Human culture and practices ... 75 Common culture and religion ... 80 A la Recherche du Temps Perdu ... 82 The 'two' cultures ... 83 Music ... 85 Art and self-understanding ... 88 Art and social science ... 91 5 Truth and Art ... 94 The literal and the metaphorical ... 96 Metaphor in science ... 99 Metaphor in religion ... 100 Metaphor and the expression of inner attitudes ... 103 Homeric metaphor ... 105 Art and imaginative transformation ... 107 6 The Common Pursuit and Individual Creativity ... 112 Lapiths and centaurs ... 112 The contemporary crisis in the arts ... 114 Artistic modernism ... 116 Art and religion ... 125 Aesthetic sensibility : 'mere' taste ... 129 Practical knowledge and artistic tradition ... 133 7 A Ministry to Life ... 139 Self and world ... 140 Art and the machine ... 145 Nature ... 147 Apollo and Dionysus ... 148 Delightful illusions ... 150 'Our social situation' ... 154 Decadence ... 156 Redemption ... 158 Conclusion ... 161 Notes ... 164 Index ... 174