Transcendental Turn in Contemporary Philosophy-5: The Transcendental Method and Modern Science

David Hoinski and Ronald Polansky’s “The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism” shows how the general tendencies of contemporary philosophy of science disclose a return to the Aristotelian emphasis on both the formation of dispositions to know and the role of the mind in theoretical science. Focusing on a comparison of Michael Polanyi and Aristotle, Hoinski and Polansky investigate to what degree Aristotelian thought retains its purchase on reality in the face of the changes wrought by modern science. Polanyi’s approach relies on several Aristotelian assumptions, including the naturalness of the human desire to know, the institutional and personal basis for the accumulation of knowledge, and the endorsement of realism against objectivism. Hoinski and Polansky emphasize the promise of Polanyi’s neo-Aristotelian framework, which argues that science is won through reflection on reality.

Download Full-text

Natural Kinds

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199368815.013.22 ◽

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.

Download Full-text

Biological Teleology in Contemporary Science

The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/wcp20-paideia199837684 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 309-316

Author(s):

Spas Spassov

Keyword(s):

Philosophy Of Science ◽

Modern Science ◽

Biological Science ◽

Second Line ◽

Contemporary Philosophy ◽

Complete Understanding ◽

Biological Phenomena ◽

Contemporary Science ◽

Scientific Mind

Continuous controversies about how Aristotle's teleological biology relates to modern biological science address some widely debated questions in contemporary philosophy of science. Three main groups of objections made by contemporary science against Aristotle's biology can be identified: 1) Aristotle's biological teleology is too anthropomorphic; 2) the idea is tied too substance based; 3) Aristotle's final ends contradict the mechanistic spirit of modern science, which is looking for physical causes. There are two ways of dealing with these objections. The first consists in showing misinterpretations of Aristotle's thought that underlie these arguments. A second line of defense explores the idea that teleological concepts are not only incorporated and widely used in contemporary science, but that in fact biology does not have to renounce teleology in order to reconcile with the modern scientific mind. I suggests that a complete understanding of complex biological phenomena can only be achieved by combining different approaches to this issue.

Download Full-text

Pragmaticism, Science, and Theology or How to Answer the Riddle of the Sphinx?

The American Journal of Semiotics ◽

10.5840/ajs20186637 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 34 (1) ◽

pp. 131-161

Author(s):

Søren Brier ◽

Keyword(s):

Modern Science ◽

Science And Religion ◽

Process Philosophy ◽

Contemporary Philosophy ◽

Unique Form ◽

Types Of Knowledge ◽

Process View ◽

Science And Theology ◽

The Many ◽

Semiotic Process

This text is written in the honor of my scholarly friend John Deely, discussing the claims regarding the relation of modern science and religion put forth in Ashley and Deely, How Science Enriches Theology. I view it as the confrontation of a Peircean and a Thomist philosophical view of modern science and its relation to religion. I argue that the book demonstrates the problems inherent in the dialogue between a Thomist theist and a Peircean panentheist process view. Furthermore, that they are central to the contemporary philosophy of science discussion of the relation between the types of knowledge produced in the sciences and in theology. The important choice seems to be whether the link between science and religion should be based on a panentheist process concept of the divine as arising from a pure zero or on a theology with a personal god as the absolute and eternal source. I argue that Peirce’s triadic semiotic process philosophy is a unique form of panentheism in the way it draws on a combination of Schelling, Unitarianism, plus Emerson, and the transcendentalist’s spiritual ecumenical reading of Buddhist emptiness ontology and non-dualist Advaita Vedanta. This and Peirce’s synechism produce a non-confessional theological process philosophy. The surprising conclusion is that, because of its extended process philosophical grounding in emptiness, this panentheism does not assume any supernatural quality about the divine force of reasoning that drives Cosmogony. Rather Peirce’s pragmaticist formulation stands out as a true non-reductionist alternative to logical positivism’s reductionist unity science, especially in its form of mechanicism based on a concept of transcendental absolute law. The panentheism process view is also an alternative to the many forms of radical constructivism and postmodernism on the other hand. This is one of the reasons why Deely insightfully named Peirce the first true postmodernist.

Download Full-text

Own/Alien Concepts in Contemporary Philosophy and Cultural Studies

The Culturology Ideas ◽

10.37627/2311-9489-17-2020-1.65-74 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 65-74

Author(s):

Nataliia Otreshko

Keyword(s):

System Analysis ◽

Modern Science ◽

The Other ◽

Practical Significance ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Contemporary Philosophy ◽

Cultural Concepts ◽

The Subject ◽

Synthesis Methodology ◽

First Time

The purpose of the article is to compare two approaches to analyzing the philosophical and cultural concepts of the Alien that are developing in modern science, to distinguish their specific features and to allow further synthesis. Methodology. System analysis will show the regularity and necessity of studying any encounter with the Other in social reality and must be correlated by the researcher with the configuration of power relations of competing discourses. Results. Drawing on a comparative approach, the author identifies that in both the concept of J. Lacan and the theory of subjection by J. Butler the Other / Alien is an integral part of the personality of the subject. This is a peculiar stage of its formation. Originality. For the first time, the study finds the idea of the subject as alien to oneself. The idea of forming a subject means the experience of communicating with oneself as someone else's (identity crisis), and one of the endpoints of such a process is accepting oneself in a new role, reconciling with oneself in the new capacity of the subject. Practical significance. The information contained in this work can be used for further research and development of methodological material for new courses of lectures and seminars on cultural philosophy and methodology for studying contemporary theories of culture.

Download Full-text

John McDowell e o Naturalismo da Segunda Natureza

Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/philosophica201624487 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 24 (48) ◽

pp. 89-104

Author(s):

Rui Sampaio da Silva ◽

Keyword(s):

Virtue Ethics ◽

Moral Philosophy ◽

Modern Science ◽

Contemporary Philosophy ◽

John Mcdowell ◽

Logical Space ◽

Second Nature ◽

Space Of Reasons

John McDowell gave an important contribution to the debate on naturalism in the contemporary philosophy by proposing a “naturalism of the second nature”, which distinguishes itself by setting aside the conception of nature promoted by the modern science and for being based on the idea of second nature, reinterpreted in the light of the Sellarsian notion of the “logical space of reasons”, understood as the horizon of our world experience. He argues, accordingly, for the unboundedness of the conceptual sphere, which allows him to claim, in Mind and World, that experience justifies our beliefs because it is already conceptually articulated. The naturalism of the second nature extends to the domain of moral philosophy, gaining the form of a virtue ethics. The article points out some of the main problems of McDowell’s naturalism, like the difficulties underlying the experience conceptualism and the charge of idealism, offering also answers, inspired by McDowell himself, to these problems.

Download Full-text

The Significance of System Cybernetics for Contemporary Philosophy-Post-Modernity in System Cybernetics

The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/wcp20-paideia19986158 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 228-233

Author(s):

Keizo Satoh

Keyword(s):

Systems Theory ◽

Complex Adaptive Systems ◽

Adaptive Systems ◽

Modern Science ◽

Active Part ◽

Contemporary Philosophy ◽

Integrative Theory ◽

Modern Mind ◽

Modern System ◽

Complex Adaptive

I call the union of cybernetics and systems theory 'Systems Cybernetics.' Cybernetics and systems theory might be thought of a major source of today's striking development in cyber-technology, the science of complex adaptive systems, and so on. Since their genesis about the middle of this century, these two have gradually come to be connected with each other such that they have now formed an integrative theory which can be called Systems Cybernetics. This article pays attention to its aspects which are often overlooked, but which have profound significance for contemporary philosophy and our handling of various problems posed by modern societies. I insist that the dominant factors of European modernization are primarily economic and technological, though modernity has often been characterized by philosophical and scientific rationalism. I also insist that there are several problems which deserve particular attention but are made invisible by the economic and technological inclination of the modern mind. In such a context, the problem of reductionism in modern science and the concept of subject detached from its surroundings are discussed. In order to cope with these problems, main theories of System Cybernetics are applied. Post-modern System Cybernetics — which will be illustrated — is also expected to play an active part.

Download Full-text