Dear All,
How many of you our there have actually read the first edition (1802) of
William Paley's Natural Theology (e.g. before it was amended, chopped up
and illustrated from the 1820s onward)? Moreover, if presented with a
new paperback edition of the original work (complete with an
introduction and annotations that address the book's significance in
relation to the history and philosophy of science and medicine), would
you put it on your undergraduate syllabi? The reason I ask is because I
am currently trying to convince a publisher to pursue just such a
project. My motivation being that most people simply quote the watch
example and never really delve into the book. Since I've done some
extensive work on Paley, I know that there are some extremely
interesting bits that occur later in the work which would be of great
interest to historians and philosophers of science. If you have any
reservations, suggestions or 'testimonials' regarding such a project, I
would be happy to receive them on or off the list.
Yours,
Matthew.
--
M. D. Eddy
University of Durham, Department of Philosophy, 50 Old Elvet, Durham,
DH1 3HN UK. http://www.dur.ac.uk/m.d.eddy/ NB: As of the end of August,
my new contact information will be: Dibner Institute, MIT E56-100, 38
Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA, 02139, USA. Tel. 617-253-8721 Fax.
617-253-9858.
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