The Collected Works of Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin. :: Modern Science and Anarchism ::

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Modern Science and Anarchism

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modern science and anarchism

I. two fundamental tendencies in society: the popular and the governmental. — the kinship of anarchism and the popular-creative tendency.

II. the intellectual movement of the XVIII century: its fundamental traits: the investigation of all phenomena by the scientific method. — the stagnation of thought at the beginning of the XIX century. — the awakening of socialism: its influence upon the development of science. — the fifties.

III. auguste comte’s attempt to build up a synthetic philosophy. — the causes of his failure: the religious explanation of the moral sense in man.

IV. the flowering of the exact sciences in 1856–62. — the development of the mechanical world-conception, embracing the development of human ideas and institutions. — a theory of evolution.

V. the possibility of a new synthetic philosophy. — herbert spencer’s attempt: why it failed. — the method not sustained. — a false conception of “the struggle for existence.”

VI. the causes of this mistake. — the teaching of the church: “the world is steeped in sin.” — the government’s inculcation of the same view of “man’s radical perversity.” — the views of modern anthropology upon this subject. — the development of forms of life by the “masses,” and the law. — its two-fold character.

VII. the place of anarchism in science. — its endeavor to formulate a synthetic conception of the world. — its object.

VIII. its origin. — how its ideal is developed by the natural-scientific method.

IX. a brief summary of the conclusions reached by anarchism: law. — morality. — economic ideas. — the government.

X. continuation: — methods of action. — the understanding of revolutions and their birth. — the creative ingenuity of the people. — conclusion.

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The Collected Works of Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin.

Modern Science and Anarchism

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