In the late nineteenth century the structure of knowledge was being defined in such a way as to suggest that philosophy could definitely disappear. In the course of the century some key disciplines of philosophy, such as logic and psychology (as a study of thought, or mind), had become autonomous sciences.
Even anthropology, sociology, linguistics, political science, which once were part of the territory of philosophy, now boasted the status of specialized sciences. "If philosophy was something one could do without it", wrote Ortega y Gasset, "there is no doubt that in the late nineteenth century it would definitely be dead." Afterwards, the perspective of the 'end of philosophy' has been a favorite theme of the reflections of philosophers.
However, just the sciences that had threatened the scientific and public role of philosophy in the twentieth century came to results that would require the intervention of those general thoughts that were fundamental characteristics of the philosophy, and were definitely excluded from scientific methodology.
The discoveries of physics (quantum theory, relativity) and after the events of logic (development of non-classical logic, the birth of the analytic philosophy of language), and towards the mid-century, the beginning of the great informatics revolution presented a completely different cultural situation to hypothesize a new importance and new roles for philosophy.
It is in this framework that in the second half of the twentieth century one of the most important meta-philosophical issues in the history of philosophy occurred: the comparison/conflict between the analytic tradition and the one called 'continental' (analytics-continentals). In fact, at a time when science and public life seemed to consult again philosophy, it found herself scattered in many and diverse currents, but definitely broken into two main strands, which were expressed in different styles of research, theoretical vocabularies, canons.
The analytic philosophers (generally) defended a kind of philosophical work very attentive to logic and argumentation, respectful of science and common sense, preferentially being an outsider to public life and the media. Philosophers called 'continental' - instead - generally did not care much about the argumentation; they had no sympathy for logic, nor for common sense or science, but they were very interested in the public use of philosophy, and were associated with the mass media, speaking often in the newspapers and in cultural debates. From these differences of principle very different philosophical styles emerged.
The perception of this "great divide", whose origins lied in the late nineteenth century, deepened in the course of the century, and in the last years of the twentieth century works emerged interested in a general reconsideration of the dispute, and in mediation efforts.
Hi Gianrocco,
Well as a visual artist, for me this question is actually miss-posed! To move forwards we need to change the ontology entirely from 3rd party observer to one where its acknowledged that we are embedded within the universe - which is just as well! We have no real understanding for the phenomenon of vision or audition for that matter. We need to study such phenomenon and understand the vital role that subjectivity (as complex biological systems) makes to observation. So its the ontology that needs to change from the remote observer to the 'experiential' and the understanding of the human umwelt. Only with that understanding in bester shape can we move to observation at remote scales. Obviously philosophy is very important when we understand that reality is a relationship we from with the real and that our instrumentation is out of that loop.
You may be interested in Vision-Space, a new form of illusionary space based on perceptual structure as opposed to optical projection. Some presentations attached. There are some papers (or ramblings!) on my page.
The "great divide" in philosophy you mention is just a version of the old conflict between the arts versus the sciences. This in turn is just an incarnation of the even older conflict between the ancients and the moderns, from the end of the middle ages. This is a good talk about this: https://youtu.be/XVZgNfDQR2A
So that analytical philosophy is more interested in (natural) science and continental philosophy in art and literature is no accident. That they play different roles and want to contribute to society in different ways is no wonder either.
There are some philosophical fields uncovered by the other sciences until now: 1) ethics, aesthetics and other applied philosophies; 2) meta-discourse in every science that tries to define itself or to search a new research perspective; 3) the base of world-view, without which we can't imagine our daily life or even the sciences.
Nick, I understand the reference of course however, if you follow the argument set out in Vision-Space theory then the art/science divide (that has its derivation within us) disappears. The case is not proven, but we are working to get ourselves in the position whereby experimentation adopting the base position established by following the experiential ontology enable science to move into areas covered off by the paradoxes generated by working through its 3rd party ontology. "All knowledge has its origins in perception." Da Vinci. Obviously that statement resonates for me!!
Philosophical reflection surely has a role in science and in life (public discourse). However, the problem is that professional philosophers are not (and cannot be) experts in specific sciences, and most professional scientists know rather little about logic (formal), ontology, and epistemology. You mentioned theory of relativity and quantum theory. Standard discourse in these theories is inconsistent (which means, meaning-less), but nobody cares about that. The discourse (about relativity, indeterminacy, ...) is *exciting*, and this is enough to make it appealing, charming, ... In sum, there is space and need for philosophical (analytic, critical) reflection, but the question is who is competent enough for doing this, and who is interested in such things. We have become rather *pragmatic* creatures: things "work" or do not "work"; the rest has become less relevant.
Dear Gianrocco,
I think philosophy could never disappear whenever there are the concepts such as “time”, “space”, “infinite-finite”, … (with “deep or broad or … ” meanings?) in our science. Philosophy is right there in the fundamental parts of each science not only in the specialized sciences. So we have philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of linguistic, philosophy of physics, …. A typical philosophic example is the suspended defects disclosed by ancient Zeno’s Paradoxes which have been warning us for more than 2500 years the importance of philosophy.
I am very sorry to say that it is miserable we sometimes have to stuff our students something very philosophic-----what is culture? what is science? what is mathematics? what is infinite? what is infinitesimal? what is infinity? ．．．
Just see following divergent proof of Harmonic Series------ one of the modern family members of “strict mathematically proven” ancient Zeno’s Achilles-Turtle Paradox, very elementary and important, which can be found in many current higher mathematical books written in all kinds of languages:
1＋1/2 ＋1/3＋1/4＋．．．＋1/n ＋．．． （1）
=１＋1/2 ＋（1/3＋1/4 ）＋（1/5＋1/6＋1/7＋1/8）＋．．． （２）
>1+ 1/2 ＋( 1/4＋1/4 )+（1/8＋1/8＋1/8＋1/8）＋．．． （3）
=1+ 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 + ．．．------>infinity （4）
We teach our students that we can produce infinite numbers each bigger than 1/2 or 1 or 100 or 100000 or 10000000000 or… from infinite Un--->0 items in Harmonic Series by “brackets-placing rule" with modern limit theory and skill to change an infinitely decreasing Harmonic Series with the property of Un--->0 into any infinite constant series with the property of Un--->constant or any infinitely increasing series with the property of Un--->infinity.
The more we try to explain the more doubts be aroused and we feel more helpless.
Yours, Geng
Some general considerations raised by the responses to my Question
Men of the nonspiritual culture of the modern age reject the language of medieval metaphysics that appeared cumbersome, abstract and formal. Descartes, in fact, now will assign a new drive to philosophy, it will be necessary, he says, "a good man, who does not have read all the books or have learned with care all that is taught in schools "may have a knowledge that will enable him to tackle and solve everyday existence
This requirement of a philosophy systematically ordered and useful to man already felt by Bacon who distinguishes natural philosophy (experimental sciences), human philosophy (logic, psychology and ethics) and civil philosophy (policy). At the basis of all the philosophy ‘prima’.
In this new meaning of decisive philosophizing, which gives solutions, Descartes resumes his traditional field for which philosophy is like a "tree whose roots are metaphysics, the trunk physics, and the branches that radiate, all other sciences ». Here we return to the setting of the Aristotelian philosophy as a science ‘prima’ in the context of which make sense and meaning all the other particular sciences.
The current of empiricism will argue that the comparison between philosophy and science should not be conducted in terms of method, but checking that all forms of knowledge can sustain the ordeal of sensible experience. This must be the test of philosophical truths and then the new meaning of philosophy that with Locke would assume the task of critics of knowledge by defining "the origin, certainty and extent of human knowledge." Locke believes that the insolubility of some philosophical problems depends on missed prior analysis of the issue to be solved: if this, that is it falls or not within the scope of reason.
Why these issues concern the analytic philosophers? Some of them have practical implications of no small importance, or have to do with the interests and universal values: who is not interested in understanding what is a good deed, or to what conditions a society can be considered fair? But, if you ask one of these philosophers why he deals with the question of which he is concerned, he would probably answer, "Because there is " .
In the footsteps of Schelling, for whom the Absolute then objectifies in art, Arthur Schopenhauer sees in art itself the objectification of the Will to live, now understood by him as the original principle, leading similarly to unify the philosophy of art with natural philosophy and practical philosophy (or ethics). Art is the tool that allows to reach momentarily Noluntas, i.e. liberation from the domination of desires, thanks to the art work. In fact, both in the artist and in the audience, the actors forget themselves, their physicality, so that the will to live crosses without affecting materiality. The ‘consumer’ of the work of art is thus able to deny his desire to become pure disinterested contemplative subject, able to imagine the truth without dissimulation.
The renewal of the tradition of "natural philosophy", born with Galilei, covers the relationship between physics and philosophy in two directions: on the one hand it researches in more established physical theories the possible solution to traditional problems of philosophy of nature (relating to space, time, matter, causality), trying "to make explicit the philosophical assumptions that are present anyway in the interpretation that the physicists give of the mathematical formalism"; on the other hand reflects on how philosophy should compare its theories to the results of physics, referring to the "rigor of the best philosophical tradition [that] is used to interpret the physical theories”.
In plain language, but that does not save the technicality, from the point of view of philosophy of physics topics are addressed such as the "arrow of time", the philosophy of the of Reichenbach space, energy and ‘fields of force’, the question of hidden variables in quantum mechanics (Pollini) and the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and quantum measurement (Taron). Certainly, there is the need to know the fundamentals of mathematics for physics. However, reading satisfies in the form of a more general philosophical reflection on the origin of the concepts of physics.
As far as the ontological issue is concerned, in Parmenides the ontological dimension is overwhelming, to the point of subordinate to himself every other aspect of philosophy, including the very thought. Before Being, thought can only say that "it is." Any other predicate you want to assign, would mean objectifying it reducing to a specific entity: one would mean to think the false and therefore the ‘not-being’; but since ‘it has not’, the thought would become so inconsistent and would fall into error. Even the five senses, according to Parmenides, testify the fake, because they are victims of an illusion, making us believe that ‘becoming’ exists.
From such a ‘Being’, ontologically perfect, he deduced its necessary attributes: it is not generated, eternal, unchanging, unmoving, finite, one, homogeneous; features that will henceforth refer to the Absolute whatever it is conceived. Plato, Aristotle, and all of the Greek philosophy, elaborated gradually this and other topics, bequeathing to philosophy what is considered the problem of the existence in its maximum extension and universality.
If I think then everything is lost - Cezanne
Before thought lies perceptual experience. This experience 'occurs to us' due to a perceptual structure that we as biological systems generate. It embeds us in the universe. It facilitates our relationship with the real - this being reality. Conceptual thought follows on and never makes the cut!
"Science manipulates things and gives up living in them. It makes its own limited models of things; operating upon these indices or variables to effect whatever transformations are permitted by their definition, it comes face to face with the real world only at rare intervals - M. Merleau-Ponty
All kinds of human knowledge are coproduced by nature world and human, they are divided into philosophy, culture, religion, science,….
All kinds of human knowledge (including philosophy of cause) are coexisting with human------they may have different names but none of them is able to disappear.
All kinds of human knowledge (including philosophy) are evolving along with human’ evolutions.
Certain paradoxes are the stimulating substances for certain evolutions of “certain philosophy”.
It is miserable that we human do nothing to the “infinite related philosophy” challenged by the suspended infinite related paradoxes since Zeno’s time.
May be my ideas are not agreeable but what I say above are true.
Look for philosophical questions, often not recognized as such, in any field to the extent that it has internal controversies, or differing "schools of thought" or "alternative approaches." If competing options cannot be decided by some well-established practices or heuristics, then rational attempts at persuasion will inevitably be "philosophical," i.e. invoking premises not contained uniquely within the fundamental "elements" of the field's discourses.
I believe that philosophy lies at the base of science (all objective science). Metaphysics: is there a real world out there? Does it obey causal laws? In epistemology: how do we know? The key issue in the latter is having a valid theory of the nature of concepts. Plato, Kant, Hegel, Russell and others are destroyers, esp. Kant who claimed the real world was unknowable. Is there a objective theory of concepts? I think so. A. Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
I believe that “The world of human knowledge” is built by us human to cognize “A real world (including ourselves) out there”. As “A being, a compound coproduced by nature world and human”, all the things in it are not “hundred percent human” or “hundred percent objective” and at least half of “The world of human knowledge” (such as concepts, some relationship between and among concepts) is valid only to human (not to other living things such as tiger or fish or oak tree…).
“The world of human knowledge” is sure to be bigger and bigger as its metabolisms, evolutions, developments take place along with human evolutions.
Right: animals do not grasp concepts--concepts are the human form of knowledge though it all has to start with the material provided by the senses--
Well its a bit of an illusion that knowledge resides in conceptual thought and the assumption that that derives from this thing 'consciousness'. Well at least I think so. I think our sense clearly debunk it but we have 'learned' to ignore this situation. i.e. got stupid somehow!
Vision-Space: The Protagonists http://youtu.be/516mjrU3aC0
If by philosophical reflection you mean conceptual analysis, then yes this still has an important role in psychology and the social sciences. Wittgensteinian concept analysis is alive and well, although interpretations and applications are contested by social constructionists, realists and pragmatists, amongst others.
In physics, philosophical reflection is not practised by the vast majority of physicists, not only because they - rightfully - think that philosophical reflection is irrelevant when doing calulations and performing experiments, but also because they - wrongfully - think that their use of concepts doesn't require any further reflection.
I can think of no better example than all these claims that ultrashort-lived particles (such as the Higgs boson) have been observed. The calculations by which predictions are made, and the experiments by which these predictions are confirmed, are all state of the art, yet the concept "observation" doesn't apply: what the physicists call "an observation" of a short-lived particle isn't an observation at all. For me these claims (and I do mean all these claims) are clear examples of overstatements that are the result of not practising philosophical reflection.
Well that is a critical point Marcoen. Unless we actually get a grip on what's actually involved in the act of observation (we are complex biological systems) its unlikely that our instrumentation (which are not complex biological systems) will be designed in accordance with it. i.e. they are not 'objective'. So what do the records instrumentation create actually mean? Accuracy becomes meaningless? Check out Vision-Space.
I think any kind of knowledge whether specialized or not such as psychology, requires disciplined philosophical inquiry in order to question its assumptions. Unfortunately ignoring philosophical reflection and/or philosophical knowledge created a situation where we've developed fragmented forms of knowledge and a view founded on materialistic assumptions about the nature of reality...this has been the case in contemporary psychology until this day. Many streams coming from other philosophical foundations such as phenomenology have taken psychology down a different path but these perspectives are still in the minority. Others take different subject matter such as consciousness but don't use a disciplined philosophical frame to understand what is implicit in their perpesctives.
well I think I agree with Gloria--consciousness, though real and dependent on the brain, is not material--it has different attributes than physical matter--I view cs as an emergent property of our brains--neither mystical nor material-most physical scientists cannot abide by this-
@John: the data created by the devices are the input of our senses. So by technical devices (e.g. particle accelerators with their detectors) we can get input that otherwise would we inaccessible. But that doesn't mean that the input amounts to the observation of an ultrashort-lived particle.
For the whole argument, see my paper on unobservability of short-lived particles (accessible from my account).
Concepts are the basic stones of human science. Logics are in fact those relationships between and among concepts. Human cognizing mansion is built by concepts and logics. So, philosophy accompanies concepts and logics all the time, everywhere in our science.
Dear Gianrocco
I am glad that you once more returned to the relationship between philosophy and the special sciences. It reminds me of what Land said in 1889:
“Philosophy at large can dispense with Universities, but Universities, that try to dispense with Philosophy will be found in the long run to tamper with the mainspring of their own constitution” (Land, quoted in Spruyt, 1889:127). [Spruyt, C.B.: Die Geschichte der Philosophie in Holland in den letzten zehn Jahren. In: Archiv für die Geschichte der Philosophie, Hermann Diels, Wilhelm Dilthey, Benno Erdmann und Eduard Zeller, hrsg. Ludwig Stein, Volume II, Druck & Verlag von Georg Reinen, 1889.]
Recently I have published an extensive work (PDD) discussing this issue from a systematic philosophical perspective: D F M Strauss 2009 Philosophy: Discipline of the Disciplines (716 pages), PAIDEIA PRESS 2009, ISBN 978-0-88815-207-7. It is available for US$15.00 from Amazon.com (use the ISBN number to find it or go to http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=978-0-88815-207-7)
To give you a “taste” of my argumentation you may want to look at the following excerpt (pages 58-59):
There are in fact two kinds of disciplines: (i) those which can only account for what they are doing by moving beyond their own universe of discourse, and (ii) those which are actually destined to treat (boundary-exceeding) questions like these. By definition, we can designate those belonging to (i) as special sciences and (ii) as philosophy, as the discipline of the disciplines.
If we combine arguments (i) and (ii) (flowing from the nature of modal ab- straction and the necessity of moving beyond the confines of a discipline in order to define it), the following statement seems justified.
Special scientists have two options (but just one choice!):
(i) either they give an account of the philosophical presuppositions with which they work – in which case they operate with a philosophical view of reality, or (ii) implicitly (and uncritically) proceed from one or another philosophical view of reality – in which case they are the victims of a philosophical view.
The first natural reaction of a special scientist is to state that the philosopher cannot explain what a specific discipline is about, for in order to do this, one needs to be informed about what is going on in that discipline. However, nothing argued above contradicts this objection. Indeed it does form part of the relationship between philosophy and the disciplines, that the philosopher ought to be informed by the specialist about what is going on within her particular special science. The point above is not a personal one – it does not concern the question: who
gives the answer (the person who is a special scientist or the person who is a philosopher)? What is at stake is the systematic question: what is the nature of the answer given to the question? Is it special scientific or philosophical in nature? And we have seen that it cannot be special scientific in nature. Ergo ...
Even within the “most exact” of all the sciences, namely mathematics and physics, the intimate link between philosophy and the special sciences is discernable. Within modern mathematics there are different kinds of mathematics (see our remarks in a later context, page 213), while modern physics it- self did not succeed in liberating itself from philosophical assumptions. Max Planck, for example, admitted in his presentation on the genesis and subsequent development of quantum theory at the reception of the Nobel Prize, that his initial positivistic philosophical orientation prevented him, in his research of black radiation, from investigating the real problem, namely the relationship between entropy and probability (see Vogel, 1961:151).
Daniel Strauss
Contents of PDD
Chapter One
Preliminary examples
The philosophical frame of mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Human rationality – a divine spark? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The conceptual roots of rationality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Reality embraces more than (natural and social) entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Functions, aspects or modes of reality – the contribution of Dooyeweerd . . . . 21
Concept formation in scholarly reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Chapter Two
The uniqueness of science
The problem of ‘demarcation’ in the philosophy of science . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The infallibility of mathematical thought – Descartes and the
classical science ideal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The road back to autonomous freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Remark about determinism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The basic thrust of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The mixed legacy of the 19th century – positivism and its collapse . . . . . . 37
‘Truth’ and ‘meaning’ in logical positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Probing the restrictions of sensory perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Science embedded in a supra-rational commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
The normativity of human life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The distinctness of structure and direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Once again the problem of ‘demarcation’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The impasse of positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
What is unique about science? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Thought activities involved in doing science – shared properties . . . . . . . 46
The distinctive feature of scientific thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Are the disciplines ‘restricted’ to certain ‘parts’ of reality only? . . . . . . . 52
Modal abstraction entails that every special science has
philosophical presuppositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Philosophy and the special sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The problem of unity and diversity within various disciplines . . . . . . . . 60
Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Linguistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Sociology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Economic Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
i
Philosophy: Discipline of the Disciplines
Intellectual creativity and the acquisition of new ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Chapter Three
The uniqueness of modal aspects
The relation between aspects and entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Are modal aspects merely properties of entities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Modal aspects: universal, functional conditions for
the existence of concrete entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Modal aspects are not “modes of thought” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
The structure of a modal aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Criteria for the identification of modal aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Aspects and entities: modal laws and type laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
The various modal aspects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
The quantitative aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
The spatial aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
The kinematic aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
The physical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
The biotical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
The sensitive-psychical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The logical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The cultural-historical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The sign aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
The social aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
The economic aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
The aesthetic aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The jural aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The ethical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
The certitudinal aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Diversity and the quest for an ‘origin’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Chapter Four
Being human
The outward search turned inward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Philosophical assumptions operative in theories of evolution . . . . . . . . . . 106
The mystery of the genesis of the first living entities . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Neo-Darwinism as a theory of change:
are there any constants in the bio-world? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
The scope and limitations of genetics and “molecular biology” . . . . . . . 112
Will the fossils ever be able to ‘tell’? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
The uniqueness of the human being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The eccentricity of the human being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Animal ‘speech’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
The absence of logical concept formation and argumentation
in animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Sensitive and rational intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
The formative imagination in human tool-making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Flexibility and specialization – the difference between
human beings and animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
ii
Contents
Is Dollo's law of irreversible specialization universal? . . . . . . . . . . . 129
The ontogenetic uniqueness of humans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
The mystery of being human . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
The structural principle of the human being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Why a comprehensive philosophical view is valuable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
The problem of the mind-brain identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
The danger of technicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Chapter Five
Inter-modal coherence
The nature of modal aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Metaphoricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Concept and word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
The “embodied mind”: Conceptual metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Meaning requires uniqueness and comes to expression
in coherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
The unbreakable coherence between the various
ontic modes within reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Dooyeweerd's confusion of retrocipations and antecipations . . . . . . . . 158
C.T. McIntire: Turning the theory of inter-modal
connections upside down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Inaccurate account of the core meaning of and social
retrocipation within the moral aspect: Stafleu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Sphere-sovereignty and sphere-universality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
The order of succession between the aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Primitive terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Multiplicity and meaning as primitive terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
The distinction between antinomy and contradiction :
a provisional account. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Primitive meaning: between pan-vitalism and pan-mechanism . . . . . . . . . 172
An example: the meaning of the jural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Implications for rationality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Rationality: the legacy of an over-estimation of conceptual knowledge . . . . . 174
Concept-transcending knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
What lies between the restrictive and expansive boundaries
of rationality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Trust (faith) in rationality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Theology and the limits of conceptual knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
The temptation of theo-ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
God's infinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Aquinas and Barth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Turning negative theology upside down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
The philosophical dependence of theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Inertia and God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Transcendence approached from ‘within’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Vollenhoven's “negative theology” in his Isagoogè . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Transcending a metaphysics of Being: Jean-Luc Marion . . . . . . . . . . 205
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Cosmic time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Modes of time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
The correlation of law side and factual side within the
natural aspects of reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Do 2+2 really equal 4? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Is a line the “shortest distance between two points?” . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
What is presupposed in space?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Which region is more basic – number or space? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
The interconnections between number and space . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
The primitive meaning of space underlying Hilbert 's
primitive terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Law and factuality within the physical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
The law-subject distinction in biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Disclosure as an opening-up of modal antecipations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
The ethical antecipation sphere within the jural aspect . . . . . . . . . . . 228
The disclosure of the sign mode and the aesthetic aspect . . . . . . . . . . 229
Sphere-universality and conceptual links between disciplines . . . . . . . . . . 230
The elementary basic concepts of the academic disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . 231
The unavoidable interconnectedness of scientific terminology . . . . . . . 232
Mathematics and the nature of infinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Space presupposes the successive infinite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Infinite divisibility as an analogical basic concept . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
The modal seat of the whole-parts relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
The inter-modal meaning of an ‘infinite totality’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
The ‘at once infinite’ as antecipatory hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
The increasing complexity involved in the analysis of
elementary basic concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
The system concept in economics and sociology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Economic theory and the notion of equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
The meaning of the cultural-historical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Seerveld's view of the meaning-nucleus of the aesthetic aspect . . . . . . . 250
Chapter Six
The inter-disciplinary significance of modal analysis
The logical function of theoretical thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
The double-sided edge of analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
The limits of conceptual affirmation in Plato's thought . . . . . . . . . 254
Principles for logical reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Terminological considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
The normative sense of the contrary: logical-illogical . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
The difference between confusing spatial figures and
making space an all-encompassing denominator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
‘Primitives’ and the problem of ‘reduction’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Zeno's paradoxes: a different understanding of antinomies . . . . . . . . . 262
The inter-modal meaning of an ‘antinomy’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Apparent contradictions/antinomies resulting from a lack
of understanding of inter-modal coherences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Are Kant's ‘antinomies’ real antinomies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
The irony of reductionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
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The “cul de sac” of historicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
The antinomy involved in collapsing law and morality . . . . . . . . . . . 274
The logical function is constitutive for (theoretical) thinking
– but not for the ontic meaning of the pre-logical aspects . . . . . . . . . . 275
Once again: cardinality versus ordinality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
The set theoretical attempt to define an ordered pair . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
The antinomous attempt to expel causality from
the domain of normativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Causality and history in the thought of Gadamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
The historical background of Gadamer's combination of
‘cause’ and ‘teleology’ – the dialectical tradition of
necessity and freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Antinomies and the self-insufficiency of logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
The foundational role of the principium exclusae antinomiae . . . . . . . . . . 286
Critical thinking versus critical solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
A self-defeating argument against the possibility of
Christian scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Modal norms (principles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
The distinction between principle and application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Between natural law and legal positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Are principles valid for all time? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Central appeal and contemporary expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
The humanistic idea of autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Epistemic values and the “laws of thought” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Kuhn and McMullin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
The logical principles of identity and non-contradiction . . . . . . . . . . . 300
The principle of the excluded middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Kinematic and physical analogies within the logical aspect . . . . . . . . . 306
Addition within different modal contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
The inter-modal meaning of epistemic values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Occam's razor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Kant and the distinction between constitutive
concepts and regulative ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Credit as economic trust: Derrida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
‘Reason’ and ‘faith’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Constitutive and regulative historical principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
‘Conservation of energy’ – the kinematic analogy on
the law side of the physical aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
The inter-modal foundation of linguistic communication . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Causality versus totality and meaning: Jaspers and Habermas . . . . . . . 321
Historical starting points for an understanding of communication . . . . . . 321
The multi-vocality of the term communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
The subtle dualism in Habermas's understanding
of communicative action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Communicative actions in their inter-modal coherence . . . . . . . . . 325
Is linguistic communication a transmission and/or
sharing of meaning? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Language acquisition – an a priori human
faculty: Chomsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
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The semantic domain of words: synonyms and antonyms . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Between the “mutability and immutability” of the lingual sign
as medium of communication: De Saussure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Implicit ontic conditions for language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Habermas and the norms for communicative actions . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
The modal universality of the sign mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Multiple modal norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
The principle of jural economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Modal aesthetic principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Disclosure in the sense of opening up object functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Subject-object relations in plant and animal life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Mutually exclusive special scientific terms? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
The interdisciplinary conceptual foundations of the
term ‘Umwelt’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
The theory of von Uexküll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
The original spatial foundation of a theory of
an ambient (‘Umwelt’). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
The irreducibility of the spatial whole-parts relation . . . . . . . . . . 353
The one-sidedness of opposing ‘element’and
‘totality’ (Ganzheit) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
Objectification in living and sentient creatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Knowledge and the logical subject-object relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
The Kantian background of Dooyeweerd's idea of
a Gegenstand-relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
The archeological discourse theory of Visagie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
The more complicated challenge to characterize nominalism . . . . . . . . . . 370
The historical importance of universality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
The rise of modern nominalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Universality and its connection with order and orderliness . . . . . . . . . 371
Descartes and Hobbes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Once again the Corpernican Revolution in epistemology . . . . . . . . . . 372
The vacuum created by nominalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
What caused the shift to language? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
From historicism to language as new horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
The hybrid nature of nominalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
The economic subject-object relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Economic price theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
The jural and ethical subject-object relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Moral normativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
The universal scope of the moral aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Ethical subject-subject and subject-object relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
The distinction between law and morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Can animals (and plants) be bearers of subjective rights? . . . . . . . . . . 388
Some misunderstandings regarding the nature of modal aspects. . . . . . . . . 391
Do the aspects ‘subdivide’ reality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Once again: are aspects properties of entities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
The cross-fertilization of the dimensions of
functions and entities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
vi
Is it confusing to equate modalities, aspects and functions? . . . . . . . . . 397
Frege's implicit understanding of the difference
between modal and typical. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
The meaning of the term ‘function’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Aspects caught up in the confusion of law and subject
and universality and individuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Are aspects mental constructs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Chapter Seven
Things
Modes of explaining material things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Points of departure in Greek culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Transition to the modern era – extension challenged . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Motion as the new principle of explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Force and energy-operation: another mode of explanation . . . . . . . . . 412
The mystery of matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Kant's synthetic a priori and the distinction between
modal laws and type laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Material subjects mistakenly labeled as ‘objects’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
The problem of identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
Identity, entity and property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Modes of explanation making identity understandable . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Mechanistic biology and the identity of living entities . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Societal identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Identity and concept-transcending knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
The problem of what is individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
The concept of a natural law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
Law and subject in relation to universality and
what is individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Abstract and concrete: Stegmüller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Cross-cutting systematic distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Historical connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Once again the complex nature of nominalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Shortcomings in Stegmüller's analysis of nominalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
The impact of nominalism on Dooyeweerd's thought . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
Ambiguities in Dooyewerd's idea of individuality structures . . . . . . . . 449
The distinction between various dimensions of reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
Complexities involved in characterizing the dimension of modal aspects . . 454
The dimension of entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
The apparent “ontological circle” involved in
chacterizing entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
Physical entities exceed the limits of physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Complementarity – limits to experimentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Wave and particle: the typical totality structure of an entity . . . . . . . . . 468
Living things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
The many-sided nature of living things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
The classification of living entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
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Does change dominate the bio-world? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Constancy and change within paleontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Chapter Eight
Human society
Individual and society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
A false opposition: individuals versus supra-individual totalities . . . . . . . . 501
Classifying social interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
‘Socializing’ the individual and ‘de-totalizing’ society . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Rawls's view of justice and the basic structure of society . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
The background of Rawls's theory of justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
Rawls's ‘justice’ and its ‘primary subject’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
Rawls's idea of the basic structure of society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
Rawls's justice: universal or limited in scope? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Society: towards an alternative to the whole-parts relation . . . . . . . . . . . 519
A critical appraisal of some contemporary theoretical
approaches to human society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
A dynamic social field theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
The dualism between action and system (order): Habermas . . . . . . . . . 520
The step from modal to typical concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
The AGIL scheme of Parsons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
Giddens: the theory of structuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
Habermas and Rawls: acknowledgement of the
“inner nature” of distinct societal spheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Contours of a differentiated society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
The distinction between kingdom and republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Can society be ‘democratic’? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
Problems inherent in the notion of a “democratic society” . . . . . . . . . 541
The typical nature of the state exceeds the scope of any
discipline exploring only one modal perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
The multi-aspectual nature of the state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
The type law for being a state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
The unique position of the state within society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
The salus publica as regulative typical principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
Political aims presuppose the internal structural
principle of the state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
Non-civil private law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
Civil law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
Criminal law and civil law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Chaplin: “public justice” as critical political norm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
State and society: differentiated spheres of law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
Internal function and external relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
A different idea of internal and external coherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Justice and the distinction between constitutive
and regulative structural elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
Sphere-sovereignty: typical and a-typical tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
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The shortcoming in Luhmann's system-theoretical
conception of the legal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
The fundamental distinction between a power state
(‘magstaat’) and a just state (‘regstaat’) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Justice and legal validity (the force of law):
Derrida, Dooyeweerd and Habermas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
The force of law: legal validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
Law and justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Equity and transformation – a case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
The position of the university within a
differentiated society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592
University or multiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
External and internal intermodal connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
University, state and law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
The importance of recreation and leisure in a
differentiated society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
Structural changes within modern industrial society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
Consequences for ‘labour’: the rise of trade unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
The scope of leisure and the quality of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Exercise and sport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
Concluding remark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
Chapter Nine
Philosophy is more than merely the
“Discipline of the Disciplines”
Philosophy as totality science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
Philosophical sub-disciplines versus an encyclopedic approach . . . . . . . . . 613
Ultimate commitments in the history of Western culture . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
Greek culture: the urge towards the incorruptible
and immutable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
Transition to Stoic philosophy and the medieval synthesis . . . . . . . . . 620
Nominalism paving the way for modern Humanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
Husserl wrestling with the dialectic of humanistic thought . . . . . . . . . 625
The early development of Husserl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Platonism in Husserl's thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
The genesis of Husserl's transcendental idealism . . . . . . . . . . . . 628
The intuitionistic core of Husserl's transcendental idealism . . . . . . . 628
Husserl and the mathematical intuitionism of Herman Weyl . . . . . . 629
The basic motive at the root of Husserl's
phenomenological intuitionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
The presence of ultimate commitments within the special sciences . . . . . . . 631
Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Biology and bio-philosophical anthropology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
Sociology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
ix
Philosophy: Discipline of the Disciplines
Political Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638
Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Agree with a lot of the views echoed here: philosophy is the wellspring and bed rock of much theorizing and scientific practice. Even if it is good for nothing else but to serve as a reflective, intuitive or imaginative midwife for serious, rigorous, scientific inquiry. Whether or not we consider philosophy a whimsical, idealistic pursuit; or take seriously the views of a Paul Feyerabend or a Albert Einstein ; the history of science has always had, woven into it, strands of the philosophical. In particular at times of science's greatest hour of need, its practitioners have often reached for the philosopher's tool. One that comes to mind is the thought experiment, or gedanken. Which both Einstein and Schrödinger, steeped in philosophical traditions, put to fruitful use.
Hi Marcenone. You need to look at some art work because vision is entirely non-photographically rendered.
@John: the data created by the devices are the input of our senses.
This is rubbish, and its obviously rubbish unless you are happy to live in a room of mirrors and that fosters neural redundancy?
Vision-Space: Health implications of non-perceptually structured content and screen technology http://youtu.be/6gizIuLL9mg
Vision-Space: Typical and atypical perceptual structures, Potential links to ASD and stroke related conditions
http://youtu.be/Pss3UOoiuyQ
@John
You wrote that it is "rubbish" to state that the data created by measurement devices are the input of our senses. That is an interesting position.
Suppose I am at CERN and I walk to a particle accelerator, and I take its output (which is basically some lines on a piece of paper) in my hands: are you suggesting that I cannot see those lines? How are these lines not the input of my senses (in casu: vision)?
Marcoen
Maecoen: I totally agree. No, vision is not a photograph but it does give us knowledge of reality- for example, it enables us to cross the street without getting run over.
“Peirce described his thought as “the attempt of a physicist to make such conjecture as to the constitution of the universe as the methods of science may permit, with the aid of all that has been done by previous philosophers” (CP 1.7)”
~Kelly A. Parker, “The Continuity of Peirce's Thought”
“If you carefully consider the question of pragmatism you will see that it is nothing else than the question of the logic of abduction”
The logic of abduction:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_best_example_of_Peircean_abduction
Example:
The surprising fact, continental philosophy (CP), is observed.
But if analytic philosophy (AP) were true,
CP would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect AP is true.
“The problem, it will be recalled, was how to retain both direct experience and argument and so relate them that the former is not surpassed or rendered superfluous, while the latter bestows upon experience a rationality that delivers it from the charge of fancy, wish or caprice.”
~ Smith on The Tension Between Direct Experience and Argument in Religion
If not this, which?
In fact, we can see lots of topics in RG strongly show how philosophical reflection has still a role in many sciences. We have the topics closely relating to philosophy: “what is mathematics?”, “what is number?”, “what is infinite?”, “what is 0?”, “what is logic?”, “what is time?”, “what is language?”, …, even “what is philosophy?”,…
Whenever we human survive in universe, the above questions will be asked repeatedly and our answers improved as we human evolve. So, philosophical reflection is sure to have a role in our sciences forever.
Btw, shouldn't philosophy also be given respect as a specialized science, with its own criteria for goodness?
Therefore, "good" philosophical reflection in applied studies should also address open problems worthy of philosophers' interests; rather than simply catering as ancillary musings during scientific investigation. The latter is what we generally expect of good scientists, is it not?
I argue my report is good because it succinctly demonstrates cohesiveness of Peircean philosophy, semiosis and abduction, in its correct relation. :)
Promoting convergence: the phi spiral in abduction of mouse corneal behaviors.
Jerry,
"Therefore, "good" philosophical reflection in applied studies should also address open problems worthy of philosophers' interests; rather than simply catering as ancillary musings during scientific investigation. The latter is what we generally expect of good scientists, is it not?"
I agree totally. The same is true of the visual arts. It's not there to 'illustrate' science.
The Primacy of Perception, Merleau-Ponty.
"Science manipulates things and gives up living in them. It makes its own limited models of things; operating upon these indices or variables to effect whatever transformations are permitted by their definition, it comes face to face with the real world only at rare intervals"
Its time that we adopted the experiential ontology and made something of ourselves! This will involve the talking stopping and the action and delivery starting.
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