Inferential Contextualism, Epistemological Realism and Scepticism: Comments on Williams

2005 ◽  
pp. 203-210
Author(s):  
Thomas Grundmann
2015 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Alloa

Der Begriff der Phänomenotechnik, den Gaston Bachelard in den 1930er Jahren einführte, erfreut sich in der neueren Wissenschaftsforschung großer Beliebtheit, welche damit auf die technische und sozial vermittelte Dimension wissenschaftlicher Tatsachen hinweist. Im Zuge der allgegenwärtigen Rückkehr zu ›realistischen‹ Wirklichkeitsauffassungen wurde das Konzept der Phänomenotechnik mehrheitlich als ›konstruktivisches‹ Relikt verworfen. Der Beitrag schlägt eine alternative Lesart des Konzepts vor, in der es anstelle der These von der Konstruiertheit aller wissenschaftlicher Tatsachen um die spezifische Verbindung von Phänomenalität und Technizität geht: Was heißt es, davon auszugehen, dass dasjenige, was erscheint, nicht einfach gegeben ist, sondern immer erst zur Sichtbarkeit gebracht werden muss? Anstelle einer Technikauffassung, die Technik bloß auf Entlastung und auf die Fähigkeit des ›Übersehens‹ zurückführt (›Anästhesie‹ des Mediums), wird für eine Technikauffassung plädiert, die der eigentümlich hervorbringenden, aisthetisierenden Leistung des Technischen Rechnung trägt. Abschließend werden die Parameter einer noch zu schreibenden ›Techno-Ästhetik‹ benannt. <br><br>The notion of ‘phenomenotechnique’ which Gaston Bachelard introduced in the 1930’s has enjoyed popularity among historians of science who used it in order to insist upon the technical and social mediateness of scientific facts. In the wake of the current triumphal return to epistemological ‘realism,’ the idea of phenomenotechnique has been dismissed as an alleged relic of ‘constructivism.’ The article advocates for a different reading of ‘phenomenotechnique,’ which, rather than insisting on the fabrication of the scientific fact, highlights the intrinsic connection of phenomenality and technicality. Phenomena are not simply given, they must be brought to visibility. While philosophies of technique have mostly stressed that technicity consists in overlooking the process (the ‘anesthesia’ of the medium), the paper argues for a conception of technicity that makes space for its productive, aestheticizing capacity. Finally, the article gestures towards parameters of what a ‘techno-aesthetics’ could look like.


Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Madzia

AbstractThe paper proposes an outline of a reconciliatory approach to the perennial controversy between epistemological realism and anti-realism (constructionism). My main conceptual source in explaining this view is the philosophy of pragmatism, more specifically, the epistemological theories of George H. Mead, John Dewey, and also William James’ radical empiricism. First, the paper analyzes the pragmatic treatment of the goal-directedness of action, especially with regard to Mead’s notion of attitudes, and relates it to certain contemporary epistemological theories provided by the cognitive sciences (Maturana, Rizzolatti, Clark). Against this background, the paper presents a philosophical as well as empirical justification of why we should interpret the environment and its objects in terms of possibilities for action. In Mead’s view, the objects and events of our world emerge within stable patterns of organism-environment interactions, which he called “perspectives”. According to pragmatism as well as the aforementioned cognitive scientists, perception and other cognitive processes include not only neural processes in our heads but also the world itself. Elaborating on Mead’s concept of perspectives, the paper argues in favor of the epistemological position called “constructive realism.”


2021 ◽  
pp. 231-245
Author(s):  
Peter H. Hare ◽  
Chandana Chakrabarti

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-189
Author(s):  
Gaven Kerr ◽  

After the emergence of the neo-Thomist movement in the early twentieth century, the question of how best to present Aquinas’s latent epistemological realism came to the fore. Léon Noël was an important contributor to this area of neo-Thomism, but his work has unfortunately been eclipsed by that of other more recognizable authors such as Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain. Noël argued that Aquinas’s realism is a form of immediate realism that recognizes the challenge of modern representationalist epistemologies but does not succumb to non-realist ways of thinking. Hence Noël presented immediate realism as an epistemological position that is inspired by Aquinas but also capable of addressing philosophical concerns that emerged after his death. In this article I present Noël’s view as interesting in its own right and capable of engaging with contemporary non-Thomist trends in epistemology.


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