The astonishing aim of this bold and original study is no less than the construction of a comprehensive theory of culture–a theory that challenges many established approaches in disciplines such as philosophy, semiotics, sociology, political theory, aesthetics, and history itself. Building on the thesis that crucial changes in human cultural history correlate with fundamental transformations in modes of representation, Redner traces human development from primitive culture to that of the present age. He defines four modes of representation to account for the epochal stages in cultural...

In this path-breaking and controversial book, Harry Redner provides a systematic study of how the epistemologically interesting features of contemporary science are to be understood. Taking “science†to include knowledge from the social sciences and humanities as well as the physical sciences, Redner shows how the history of science, philosophical theory, and current scientific research reveal connections between scientific developments and features of the social organization of science. Redner argues that the shift from Classical science to a more complex and less orderly World science...