Trading Pain for Knowledge, or, How the West Was Won

Social Research: An International Quarterly 75:485-510 (2008)
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Abstract

The Western tradition has been in part defined by a characteristic bargain in which pain is "traded" for knowledge. An ascetic resistance to temptation, or renunciation of desire, is the condition for achieving the truth. This paper examines how the exchange is negotiated in three texts, including The Life of Antony by St. Athanasius, The Future of Science by Ernest Renan, and That the World May Know by James Dawes. In each, an act of voluntary renunciation produces an increase in knowledge and in moral stature.

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