Scientific Realism and the Romantic Reaction Against Reason

2021 ◽  
pp. 130-144
Author(s):  
Steven L. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
Dominant Feature ◽  
Truth Claims

A so-called Romantic counterpoint to the proclamation of the hegemony of reason by Enlightenment thinkers blossomed in the nineteenth century in the form of philosophies that explicitly challenged the rationalist domination of Western philosophy and the truth claims of modern science. Thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Bergson formulated philosophies in which reason played only a limited role either in understanding human affairs or in apprehending reality. For Kierkegaard, reality transcended reason, while for Schopenhauer, human will was the ultimate reality. For Nietzsche, will was the dominant feature of humanity, which guaranteed that reason could not achieve a synoptic understanding of experience, let alone apprehend reality: reasoning could at best achieve partial perspectives on human experience. Bergson offered the most developed alternative to reason, especially modern science-based reasoning, to penetrate experience to reality.

Natural Kinds

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Cluster Theory ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Homeostatic Property Cluster ◽  
Natural Groups ◽  
Scientific Classification

Science posits entities that are neither individuals nor properties but kinds of individuals that share a number of distinct properties. Philosophers have designated them “natural kinds” and have held different views about how to distinguish them from arbitrary collections of individuals. The doctrine of “kinds” or “natural groups” was first explicitly introduced by nineteenth-century philosophers interested in taxonomy or scientific classification and continues to be the subject of lively debate in contemporary philosophy. After canvassing some of the philosophical controversies regarding natural kinds, the article presents two influential contemporary theories of natural kinds: essentialism and the homeostatic property cluster theory. The article goes on to defend naturalism, which is more in tune with the findings of modern science.

scholarly journals W poszukiwaniu początków oraz prób zrozumienia „zachowań symbolicznych”. Zarys problematyki

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Bożena Józefów-Czerwińska
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Animal World

In academic literature there is a whole range of hypotheses relating to the genesis of the symbolic behavior, which are usually also associated with the beginnings of the development of spirituality. In the nineteenth century, the considerations conducted in this area were often influenced by negative stereotypes (relating, among others, to hunter-gatherers), which were later deconstructed. Although the discussion on this subject has been ongoing since the nineteenth century, even in the light of research and achievements of the modern science, the problem of the origins of symbolic behavior has still not been unequivocally resolved. However, it is assumed that they should be attributed primarily to the changes that were initiated in our ancestors from the Homo Sapiens family. In recent years, however, some ethologists and primatologists believe that the genesis of symbolic behavior should be sought in the animal world. I devote my article to this diversified subject matter.

Thinking differently about leadership: a critical history of the form and formation of leadership studies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Suze Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Form Function ◽  
History Of ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Thinking Differently ◽  
The Relationship

<p>We have come to live in an age where leadership is the solution, regardless of the problem. Today, managers are called on to provide leadership which is ‘visionary’, ‘charismatic’, ‘transformational’ and ‘authentic’ in nature. This is what ‘followers’ are said to need to perform to their potential. The efforts of the academy in promoting these ideas means they are typically understood as modern, enlightened and grounded in scientific research. Taking a critical step back, this study examines why we have come to understand leadership in this way.  Adopting a Foucauldian methodology, the study comprises three case studies which examine Classical Greek, 16th century European and modern scholarly discourses on leadership. The analysis foregrounds change and continuity in leadership thought and examines the underpinning assumptions, problematizations and processes of formation which gave rise to these truth claims. The relationship and subjectivity effects produced by these discourses along with their wider social function are also considered.  What the study reveals is that our current understanding of leadership is not grounded in an approach more enlightened and truthful than anything that has come before. Rather, just as at other times in the past, it is contemporary problematizations, politically-informed processes of formation and the epistemological and methodological preferences of our age which profoundly shape what is understood to constitute the truth about leadership.  Through showing how leadership has been thought of at different points in time, this thesis argues that far from being a stable enduring fact of human nature now revealed to us by modern science, as is typically assumed, leadership is most usefully understood as an unstable social invention, morphing in form, function and effect in response to changing norms, values and circumstances. Consistent with this understanding, a new approach to theory-building for organizational leadership studies is offered. This study shows, then, why we ought to think differently about leadership and offers a means by which this can occur.</p>

Thinking differently about leadership: a critical history of the form and formation of leadership studies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Suze Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Form Function ◽  
History Of ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Thinking Differently ◽  
The Relationship

<p>We have come to live in an age where leadership is the solution, regardless of the problem. Today, managers are called on to provide leadership which is ‘visionary’, ‘charismatic’, ‘transformational’ and ‘authentic’ in nature. This is what ‘followers’ are said to need to perform to their potential. The efforts of the academy in promoting these ideas means they are typically understood as modern, enlightened and grounded in scientific research. Taking a critical step back, this study examines why we have come to understand leadership in this way.  Adopting a Foucauldian methodology, the study comprises three case studies which examine Classical Greek, 16th century European and modern scholarly discourses on leadership. The analysis foregrounds change and continuity in leadership thought and examines the underpinning assumptions, problematizations and processes of formation which gave rise to these truth claims. The relationship and subjectivity effects produced by these discourses along with their wider social function are also considered.  What the study reveals is that our current understanding of leadership is not grounded in an approach more enlightened and truthful than anything that has come before. Rather, just as at other times in the past, it is contemporary problematizations, politically-informed processes of formation and the epistemological and methodological preferences of our age which profoundly shape what is understood to constitute the truth about leadership.  Through showing how leadership has been thought of at different points in time, this thesis argues that far from being a stable enduring fact of human nature now revealed to us by modern science, as is typically assumed, leadership is most usefully understood as an unstable social invention, morphing in form, function and effect in response to changing norms, values and circumstances. Consistent with this understanding, a new approach to theory-building for organizational leadership studies is offered. This study shows, then, why we ought to think differently about leadership and offers a means by which this can occur.</p>

Wheat Breeding : Coalescence of a Modern Science, 1900-1939

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Plant Breeding ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Educational Programs ◽  
Wheat Breeding ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
New Science ◽  
Slow Decline ◽  
Political Economic

Plant breeding in general and wheat breeding specifically were rudimentary activities on many grounds in the nineteenth century. Not many people engaged in the activity. Those who did were self-taught. because no formal educational programs existed in the subject. For the most part, they had only a few very modest institutional bases within which to work. Many farmers paid them little or no attention, and governments usually ignored their contributions and gave them next to no support. They had no organized way of broadly disseminating their results, which in any case were few in number. By 1970, wheat and other plant breeders occupied a very different position within both the scientific and political economic landscapes. Many people worked as breeders. They were highly trained in educational programs dedicated to the reproduction of plant breeders. Elaborate networks of institutions gave them employment. A substantial proportion of farmers cared very much what they did, and governments gave substantial, sometimes lavish, support. They had means of communicating their work that included both scientific and popular outlets. And they had substantial results to convey to farmers and the general public, some of them remarkable either for their scientific cleverness or for their broad political, economic, and ecological impacts, or both. Another way of gaining perspective on the change in status of wheat and other plant breeders is to suggest that their absence might not have been noticed by anybody but their families had they suddenly disappeared in the nineteenth century. In contrast, the twentieth century came increasingly to depend upon the plant breeders. Cessation of wheat breeding after 1970, for example, would have put some agricultural systems in distinct danger of slow decline or even collapse and failure. In both political economic and ecological terms, an increasing portion of the global human community became absolutely dependent upon wheat breeders and other plant scientists, certainly for prosperity as we now know it and possibly for survival and security. The transformation of wheat breeding from nearly invisible to virtually indispensable resulted from two mutually interacting events: a commercial-industrial revolution in agriculture and construction of a new science of plant breeding.

A Righteous Consensus, Whig Style

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-88
Author(s):  
George M. Marsden
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
State Universities ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Christian Morality ◽  
Protestant Denominations

Various Protestant denominations founded hundreds of colleges during the first half of the nineteenth century. Even two-thirds of presidents of state universities were clergymen. Though those in the Reformed tradition tended to be the leading educators, denominational diversity and necessities of attracting varieties of students weakened doctrinal distinctives. The prevailing “Whig” ideal emphasized combining building a modern civilization with Christian morality. Educators, such as Francis Wayland or Mark Hopkins, confidently assumed that the best of objective common sense and modern science would support traditional Christianity. Colleges still promoted the evangelical tradition, as in campus revivals. They taught the classics as a way of developing moral faculties, as the Yale Report of 1828 advocated. Specifically Christian perspectives were found in capstone moral philosophy courses.

What Is Epistêmê?

2021 ◽  
pp. 132-139
Author(s):  
Jessica Moss
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Modern Knowledge

I have argued that Plato conceives epistêmê first and foremost as cognition of Being. What sense can we make of this notion, however? This chapter considers precedents in others’ interpretations of Plato, and historical counterparts from Parmenides’ nous to early modern Science. Considering these counterparts helps yield an intuitive characterization of the notion of cognition of Being: the idea is that of a deep grasp of ultimate reality. Then I return to the question of epistêmê’s relation to knowledge as nowadays conceived. The differences are clear: most fundamentally, knowledge is thought of as a relation to true propositions rather than to metaphysically privileged objects. I speculate however that we can think of modern knowledge and Plato’s epistêmê as two developments of a common, basic idea, the idea of an especially good cognitive relation to reality.

Inference 2: Causation

2020 ◽  
pp. 271-284
Author(s):  
Robert Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Effect Modification ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Bradford Hill ◽  
Causal Criteria

Most epidemiological research, beyond the simple descriptive study, is attempting to elucidate a causal relationship. This chapter continues the consideration of causal inference in a broader context, covering the principles of inductivism and refutationism that emerged in seventeenth-century Western philosophy and which have had profound influences on modern science. However, life sciences cannot rely on perfectly controlled experimental conditions and consequently a number of other principles have had to be developed to allow knowledge to accumulate despite uncertainties in hypothesis testing. For epidemiology, these include the principle of consensus (repeated experiments contributing to a ‘verdict of causality’) and the causal criteria outlined by Bradford Hill. Finally, the potential combinations of variables under investigation (causal, confounding, mediation, effect modification) are considered in relation to analysis designs.

Ali Sedad Bey’s (d. 1900), ()

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazif Muhtaroglu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Working Mechanism ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
First Time ◽  
Late Ottoman

This chapter presents and evaluates Ali Sedāt’s (d. 1900) Principles of Transformation in the Motion of Particles. In this work, Ali Sedad gives a detailed description of the working mechanism of the whole universe, including topics that range from the interaction of atoms to the emergence of animate bodies and the motion of heavenly bodies. In doing this, he introduces thermodynamics and Darwin’s theory of evolution for the first time to the Turkish-speaking community in a detailed way and discusses the laws behind natural phenomena in a philosophical way. Ali Sedāt’s Principles of Transformation is a unique work introducing the basic principles of the natural sciences in nineteenth-century European circles to the Ottoman world and interpreting them from an Ashʿarite perspective. It shows how an Ashʿarite scholar from the late Ottoman era followed modern science thoroughly but interpreted it critically from its own philosophical point of view.

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