ABSTRACT
The new scientific worldview gained increasing hold on the minds of intellectuals and even ordinary people by the beginning of the nineteenth century. For the thinkers of this socalled “radical Enlightenment” outlook, the only thing that exists in the universe is matter in causal interaction. The human mind itself, on this view, is nothing other than the functioning of the brain of an organism that has evolved through various stages and now exhibits behavior that is merely a product of its adaptation to a physical environment. For those who accept this perspective on things, the scientific worldview brings with it a powerful sense of human progress and emancipation. It promises to free us from the old illusions bred by religious dogma, social custom, superstition and tradition. Using scientific method, we can discover the ultimate truth about reality. The Faustian dream reaches its culmination in the assurance that empirical observation and rational theorizing will reveal everything there is to know about reality.
