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Print_and_Modern_thought
| Print and Modern thought
The scientific revolution that would later challenge the
entrenched "truths" espoused by the Church was also largely a
consequence of print technology. The scientific principle of
repeatability--the impartial verification of experimental
results-- grew out of the rapid and broad dissemination of
scientific insights and discoveries that print allowed. The
production of scientific knowledge accelerated markedly. The
easy exchange of ideas gave rise to a scientific community that
functioned without geographical constraints. This made it
possible to systematize methodologies and to add sophistication
to the development of rational thought. As readily available
books helped expand the collective body of knowledge, indexes
and cross-referencing emerged as ways of managing volumes of
information and of making creative associations between
seemingly unrelated ideas.
Innovations in the convenience of knowledge and the formation of
human thought that attended the rise of print in Europe also
influenced art, literature, philosophy and politics. The
introduction of print material adds up to the large and rises of
different fields of endeavor. Thus, the explosive innovation
that characterized the Renaissance was amplified, if not in part
generated by, the printing press. The rigidly fixed class
structure which determined one's status from birth based on
family property ownership began to yield to the rise of an
intellectual middle class. The possibility of changing one's
status infused the less privileged with ambition and a hunger
for education.
Print technology facilitated a communications revolution that
reached deep into human modes of thought and social interaction.
Print, along with spoken language, writing and electronic media,
is thought of as one of the markers of key historical shifts in
communication that have attended social and intellectual
transformation. Oral culture is passed from one generation to
the next through the full sensory and emotional atmosphere of
interpersonal interaction. Writing facilitates interpretation
and reflection since memorization is no longer required for the
communication and processing of ideas. Recorded history could
persist and be added to through the centuries. Written
manuscripts sparked a variation on the oral tradition of
communal story-telling--it became common for one person to read
out loud to the group.
Print, on the other hand, encouraged the pursuit of personal
privacy. Less expensive and more portable books lent themselves
to solitary and silent reading. This orientation to privacy was
part of an emphasis on individual rights and freedoms that print
helped to develop. Print injected Western culture with the
principles of standardization, verifiability and communication
that comes from one source and is disseminated to many
geographically dispersed receivers. As illustrated by dramatic
reform in religious thought and scientific inquiry, print
innovations helped bring about sharp challenges to institutional
control. Print facilitated a focus on fixed, verifiable truth,
and on the human ability and right to choose one's own
intellectual and religious path.
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About the author:
Well actually i'm not fun of writing, i dont write at all. i am
not expecting that i will be in this field. But i love to read
books...almost everything interest me. reading is my passion!
but now that i am in an article writer team, writing gives me an
additional thrill in myself...Before i love to read books but
now im also in a writing stuff. I can't say im a good writer but
i am trying to be one.
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