The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination

When Jacob Bronowski died in 1974, we lost one of the great minds of the twentieth century. His was a mind which could originate and develop complex theories in mathematics, biology, economics, and philosophy; yet his widespread appeal was certainly due in some part to his ability to think on the spot and communicate his ideas in common terms. This posthumous volume, which transcribes a series of six orations (the Silliman Lectures at Yale), highlights the latter. Being a man of both the arts and sciences Bronowski was indeed occupied with the subjects of knowledge and imagination; however, this is also a book of language. Borrowing from Bertrand Russell, William Blake (Bronowski was also a Blake scholar), Isaac Newton, and others, he weaves through varied notions which intrigue and linguistically taunt the reader. Citing paradoxes and other literary contradictions, Bronowski suggests that facts and distortions are inseparable and therefore that ultimate truth is not accessible to us through language. Even the grammar of mathematics is imprecise in the eyes of Bronowski. To him, mathematical axioms are merely postulates with a great following and mathematical proofs are often based on inconsistent premises. There is some sagacity reserved for his fellow scientists in this book as well. His advice is to emphasize the human side of discovery and progress and to reject the premise that science is a truly mechanical process. In his own words: "Progress is the exploration of our own error. Evolution is a consolidation of what we have always begun as errors. And errors are of two kinds: errors that turn out to be true and errors that turn out to be false (which are most of them). But they both have the same character of being an imaginative speculation." He further states that knowledge is attained ". . . by this constant adventure of taking the closed system and pushing its frontiers imaginatively into the open spaces where we shall make mistakes." The one reservation which can be held about this book is that the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. As an entity it does not cogently thread together the many independent thoughts touched upon throughout the lectures; rather its appeal is in the multitude of intellectual tid-bits which it proffers. This, perhaps, is the hallmark of Bronowski's genius: the ability to imagine freely and to be unfettered by the confines of strict organization. This volume, replete with logic and innovative thought, will therefore stand as a simple legacy to a great man and a great mind.