The Links between Science, Philosophy, and Military Theory : Understanding the Past, Implications for the Future

By Lieutenant Colonel Robert P. Pellegrini, USA

Book Id: WPLBN0002170841
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.4 MB
Reproduction Date: 10/24/2012

Title:	The Links between Science, Philosophy, and Military Theory : Understanding the Past, Implications for the Future
Author:	Lieutenant Colonel Robert P. Pellegrini, USA
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Military Science, Military Theory
Collections:	Authors Community, Philosophy
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Air University Press

Member Page:	Air University Press
Citation APA MLA Chicago Colonel Robert P. Pellegrini, Us, B. L. (n.d.). The Links between Science, Philosophy, and Military Theory : Understanding the Past, Implications for the Future. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.us/

Description
This study examines the links between science, philosophy, and military theory. The author uses two case studies to demonstrate the links between these disciplines. He presents an overview on the rise of Newtonian science, and he examines how the key frameworks and concepts of that science became interwoven into Western civilization to affect its philosophy with an emphasis on its interpretation by the German Romanticist philosopher Immanuel Kant. He then shows how Newtonian science and Kant’s philosophy affected the military theory of Carl von Clausewitz. His second case study concerns the theory and philosophy of evolution developed by British philosopher Herbert Spencer and its influence on the military theory of J. F. C. Fuller. The author compares these two case studies to find commonalities between them that suggest a mechanism which explains how and why scientific theory and their philosophical interpretations eventually influence military theory. The author then uses this mechanism as a tool with which “new” sciences such as quantum mechanics, relativity, and complexity theory can be evaluated to see if and in what manner they will affect future military theories.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . 1 THE RISE OF NEWTONIAN SCIENCE . . . . . 5 KANT . . . . 15 CLAUSEWITZ . . . . 21 SPENCER AND FULLER . . . . . 29 THE PATH FROM SCIENCE TO PHILOSOPHY TO MILITARY THEORY . . . . 39 THE NEW SCIENCES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR MILITARY THEORY . . . . . 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . 59