The Social Foundations of the Mechanistic Philosophy and Manufacture

The following is not meant to be a résumé of the contents of Borkenau’s book The Transition from the Feudal to the Bourgeois World-Picture. Rather, these are but a few economic-historical and sociological reflections on some problems connected with the book’s main subject, leaving aside problems involving philosophy and the history of ideas Borkenau wants to show that the metamorphosis of the image of nature in the course of historical development “can only be understood from the changes in the image of the world in general” (p. 15). These again do not only depend on the experiences derived from the process of production, but also on the “general categories” which, by virtue of their being organizing concepts, hold the world-picture together.