La Moral y la Ciencia

La Moral y la Ciencia

French mathematician Henri Poincaré is well known by his remarkable contributions to Mathematics, but also in other fields such as Celestial Mechanics, Mathematical Physics, Engeneering and Philosophy of Science.

In 1910, as part of the activities of the Conferénces de Foi et Vie, Poincaré gave the talk "La Morale et la Science" (Morality and Science), which was published later by Éditions de Foi et Vie in a special issue entitled Questions du temps présent. This special issue included also publications of talks by the philosophers Émile Boutroux, Gaston Richard, Mark Baldwin and Victor Delbos.

More than hundred years after the special issue Questions du temps présent, Chilean editorial Fe de Ratas is publishing the first Chilean edition of Poincaré's philosophical manuscript "La Morale et la Science". See this note made by the online Chilean News "El Mostrador".

"La moral y la ciencia" is a bilingual edition (Spanish-French) whose translation was made by Marcelo Pérez and also includes a preface/notes by myself. In "La moral y la ciencia", Poincaré ellaborates on how science can eventually play a role of a morality guide, but such role is not exclusively played by science, it has to be complementary to other aspects of human knowledge.

The preface highlights some of the connections between Morality and Science observed by Poincaré, but these connections are explained from a modern point of view relying on Poincaré's own work on Algebraic Topology. The text aims at anyone interested in Philosophy and Science, with emphasis in Mathematics. No technical background in required