Objective Chance: Lonergan and Peirce on Scientific Generalization

1996 ◽  
pp. 124-139
Author(s):  
Vincent G. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Bernard Lonergan ◽  
Objective Chance ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Universe

This chapter delves into the important issues of substantial unity and the foundations of knowledge. It argues that the views of Bernard Lonergan and Charles Sanders Peirce concerning world process are strikingly similar. Both outline an evolutionary cosmology that pays attention to both the law-like and the chance elements required to think of the universe as developing. Both reject the notion that the universe is mechanistically determined even if it is ordered. Both look upon “chance” as an objective component of the universe, not merely as a cloak for ignorance. The remarkable convergence of ideas of two thinkers separated by almost a century not only illuminates their place in intellectual history but, more importantly, adds an extrinsic confirmation of a cosmological view that takes motion and change seriously.

‘A third way’ of Sergey Dovlatov

2020 ◽  
pp. 221-248
Author(s):  
I. V. Savelzon
Keyword(s):  
Third Way ◽  
Organic Unity ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
The Law ◽  
Recurrent Type ◽  
The Universe

The article defines the principal artistic conflict in S. Dovlatov’s works as an irreconcilable contradiction between the ugly truth of reality and the embellished lies of Soviet ideological appearances, imposing themselves as a substitute for that particular reality. However, a third element in this universe is a recurrent type of protagonist who remains consistent in all of Dovlatov’s works. His situation, fate and personality are defined by his sticking to ‘a third way.’ It is from this viewpoint alone that one can observe the workings of the law of absurdity that rules the universe. According to the author, the popularity of Dovlatov’s books lies in their mainstream protagonist. Devoid of individual traits, Dovlatov’s hero is easy for any reader to identify with psychologically; and not because of many similarities, but due to very few differences. All in all, the article attempts to describe S. Dovlatov’s artistic world as a system that represents an organic unity of the writer’s creative principles and his deeply dramatic worldview.

scholarly journals 2. On the Law of Inertia; the Principle of Chronometry; and the Principle of Absolute Clinural Rest, and of Absolute Rotation

1884 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 568-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Rectilinear Motion ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Universe

There is no distinction known to men among states of existence of a body which can give reason for any one state being regarded as a state of absolute rest in space, and any other being regarded as a state of uniform rectilinear motion. Men have no means of knowing, nor even of imagining, any one length rather than any other, as being the distance between the place occupied by the centre of a ball at present, and the place that was occupied by that centre at any past instant; nor of knowing or imagining any one direction, rather than any other, as being the direction of the straight line from the former place to the new place, if the ball is supposed to have been moving in space. The point of space that was occupied by the centre of the ball at any specifiod past moment is utterly lost to us as soon as that moment is past, or as soon as the centre has moved out of that point, having left no trace recognisable by us of its past place in the universe of space.

scholarly journals Teologi Posmodern: Menimbang Konsep Naturalisme-Teistik

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Ghozi Ghozi
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Direct Influence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
Indirect Influence ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
External Dimension ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Universe

<p>This article will briefly discuss the problems of postmodern theology in the context of the relationship between God and nature. In this case, the author brings the conception of theistic naturalism in the view of classical theology of Islam. Theological conception of postmodernism (theistic naturalism) can be useful contributions to the refreshment of Islamic theology, particularly in the case <em>a</em><em>f</em><em>‘</em><em>â</em><em>l</em><em> </em><em>al</em><em>-</em><em>‘</em><em>ibâd</em> and its derivation. The concept of direct influence and indirect influence may help explain the intervention of God toward human beings without denying the law of causality, as the law that becomes standard of modern science. Nevertheless there are some things that need to be considered in this concept: <em>Firstly</em>, God is only the spirit of the universe, God has entrusted His power to the nature, and all the events occurred due to the co-creativity of God and nature. <em>Secondly</em>, God has no a direct influence on the external dimension, rather He is merely a Spirit of things who has influence on inner dimension.</p>

The Universe Is on Our Side

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Ledewitz
Keyword(s):  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Process Philosophy ◽  
Bernard Lonergan ◽  
Death Of God ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
The Universe

There has been a breakdown in American public life that no election can fix. Americans cannot even converse about politics. All the usual explanations for our condition have failed to make things better. Bruce Ledewitz shows that America is living with the consequences of the Death of God, which Friedrich Nietzsche knew would be momentous and irreversible. God was this culture’s story of the meaning of our lives. Even atheists had substitutes for God, like inevitable progress. Now we have no story and do not even think about the nature of reality. That is why we are angry and despairing. America’s future requires that we begin a new story by each of us asking a question posed by theologian Bernard Lonergan: Is the universe on our side? When we commit to live honestly and fully by our answer to that question, even if our immediate answer is no, America will begin to heal. Beyond that, pondering the question of the universe will allow us to see that there is more to the universe than blind forces and dead matter. Guided by the naturalism of Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, and the historical faith of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we can learn to trust that the universe bends toward justice and our welfare. That conclusion will complete our healing and restore faith in American public life. We can live without God, but not without thinking about holiness in the universe.

Who Instigated Violence: A Rebelling Devil or a Vengeful God?

2015 ◽  
pp. 93-106
Author(s):  
István T. Kristó-Nagy*
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Universe

The contrast between the attitude towards violence of the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament was already explored by Marcion (d. c. 160 ad) before the advent of Islam and has been rediscovered again and again since.1 Marcion saw the former as the creator of the world and God of the law and the latter as the good God, the God of love.2 The character of the former reflects a community’s need for sanctified social norms, while the character of the latter shows the community’s and the individual’s longing for the hope of salvation.3 The God of the Qurʾān is also one of punishment and pardon. This chapter investigates the former aspect and focuses on: (1) the appearance of evil and violence in the universe as described in the Qurʾān; (2) the philosophical-theological questions revealed by this myth; and (3) its social implications.

Time’s Arrow and Statistical Uncertainty in Physics and Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 204-241
Author(s):  
Theodore M. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Statistical Uncertainty ◽  
Newtonian Mechanics ◽  
Historical School ◽  
James Clerk Maxwell ◽  
Objective Chance ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Time’S Arrow

This chapter explores how German economists and statisticians of the historical school viewed the idea of social or statistical law as the product of confusion between spirit and matter or, equivalently, between history and nature. That the laws of Newtonian mechanics are fully time-symmetric and hence can be equally run backwards or forwards could not easily be reconciled with the commonplace observation that heat always flows from warmer to cooler bodies. James Clerk Maxwell, responding to the apparent threat to the doctrine of free will posed by thermodynamics and statistics, pointed out that the second law of thermodynamics was only probable, and that heat could be made to flow from a cold body to a warm one by a being sufficiently quick and perceptive. Ludwig Boltzmann resisted this incursion of probabilism into physics but in the end he was obliged, largely as a result of difficulties presented by the issue of mechanical reversibility, to admit at least the theoretical possibility of chance effects in thermodynamics. Meanwhile, the American philosopher and physicist C. S. Pierce determined that progress—the production of heterogeneity and homogeneity—could never flow from rigid mechanical laws, but demanded the existence of objective chance throughout the universe.

FORUM: THE IDEA OF SUSTAINABILITY INTRODUCTION

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMMA ROTHSCHILD
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Ayn Rand ◽  
Universal History ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

The encounter of environmental history and intellectual history is a union of two insidiously oceanic inquiries. “Oceanic” in the sense of limitlessness, or oneness with the universe. “All history is the history of thought”, and the history of thought is in modern intellectual history a universal investigation, of advertisements for sofas and Ayn Rand and adoption laws in early colonial Bihar. But all history is also the history of space, and of the environment that surrounds the sofas and the laws. It is apparent, now, that “history occurs in space as well as time”. Environmental history is everywhere as well as nowhere. It is a new universal understanding, which subverts even the historians' own anxieties about universalization: a “negative universal history”.

making a peoples defense and safety System

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 350-363
Author(s):  
Novi Herianto ◽  
M. Nakir
Keyword(s):  
Security System ◽  
National Defense ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
National Police ◽  
Supporting Force ◽  
The Universe

Article 30 of the 1945 Constitution is the basis for the formulation and drafting of Law No.3 / 2002 on national defense. In article 30, it is stipulated that national defense and security efforts are carried out through the system of defense and security of the total people by the Indonesian National Army and the Indonesian National Police, as the main force, and the people, as the supporting force. This system of defense and security for the people of the universe is then manifested in Law No.20 / 1982 concerning the main provisions of national defense. However, when the TAP MPR Number VI and Number VII was issued regarding the Separation of the Police from ABRI. The government is drafting a new Defense Law that is aligned to separate Defense and security that is adaptive to these changes. The defense is compiled and formulated and then translated into Law no. 3/2002, however, the Law on Security was not immediately realized, instead Law No.2 / 2002 concerning the Indonesian National Police. Until now, the Law on Security does not exist and has not been materialized. As a result, there is a gap between legislation in the defense sector and legislation in the security sector. Some of the mandates of Law No.3 / 2002 can then be translated into Laws, Government Regulations, Presidential decrees instead other legislation products to support national defense.  The lack of this security aspect of course affects the defense and security system which was previously manifested as a comprehensive unit which is of course adjusted to the history of the nation itself. In addition to defense duties which are military in nature, there are tasks in the field of military Nir which all fall into the category of security aspects. As long as there are no regulations governing Security, the Defense and Security System mandated in the 1945 constitution will never materialize.    

James Willard Hurst as Entrepreneur for the Field of Law and Social Science

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryant G. Garth
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Law And Society ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Professional Identification ◽  
The Law ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Celebrations of the career of Willard Hurst tend to concentrate, quite understandably, on his scholarship in legal history. Most of those who now read and comment on his works are professional legal historians, and they tend to read and define Hurst according to that professional identification. This article takes a different approach, concentrating on Hurst's own role in the more general politics of legal scholarship. Hurst was not content with making a mark in legal history. He sought to challenge the legal establishment. We see the legacy of his efforts in the development of the field of law and social science, institutionalized in the mid 1960s in the Law and Society Association (LSA). Therefore, my focus is on the sociology and politics of scholarship rather than on intellectual history. I will not examine the relationship of Hurst's particular works to those who came before or after him, nor will I go through the exercise of suggesting what was good or lasting or useful about his work for present purposes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document