The Janus-Faced Nature of Philosophy of Science: Eleven Theses

Elsewhere I have tried to provide the justification of both the irreducible (transcendental) distinction of science and philosophy and their inevitable (naturalistic) complementarity. Unlike empirical science, philosophy has no limit whatever as far as its possible objects are concerned. To say that there is no limit whatever to the possible objects of philosophy is to say that, strictly speaking, it has no object at all and must find its object outside itself, that is, in common sense knowledge and the natural and human sciences. Against the background of this conception, the paper argues that philosophy of science, as a critical reflection on common sense knowledge and the natural or human sciences, inherits from philosophy in general this two-faced Janus nature, which in the philosophy of science shapes the epistemological status of the discipline in an even more prominent way. To show this in detail, the paper enunciates eleven theses that derive from the intimate connection of unity and distinction that exists between philosophy of science on the one hand and the particular and specialized scientific knowledge on the other.

Audience Demands as a Strategic Maneuver in Imam Al-Hassan's Speech after his Truce with Muaawiya

Strategic maneuvering is an extended version of pragma-dialectics. It manifests itself in three basic aspects, p. topical potential, audience demands, and presentational devices. These aspects are interrelatedly used with each other. The aspect of audience demands, which is the concern of this study, indicates the use of cultural, conventional and common-sense knowledge of the audience’s preferences, following particular presentational devices as strategies. Thus, in their attempts to reasonably and effectively persuade the audience, speakers resort to this strategy in their endeavor to win the audience support. The use of this strategic manoeuvre in this concern seems to have not received its due scholarly attention from a pragmatic angle, particularly in religious discourse. Hence, this study attempts to bridge this gap in the literature via scrutinizing the speech of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) grandson, Imam Al-Hassan son of Ali Bin Abi Talib (PBUT). This speech is considered as one of the most notable speeches in the Shiite theology. Imam Al-Hassan (PBUH), as the caliphate of Muslims, delivered this speech after the truce which was held between him and Muaawiya, the leader of the Umayyad people. To unravel the pragmatic features of strategic maneuvering in this speech, the current work addresses fulfilling audience demands by using certain presentational devices in this speech. In so doing, the study attempts to find out the persuading manifestations and rhetorical effects that influence the audience and change their attitude. To achieve those aims, the study appeals to Emeren and Houtlosser’s (2002) model for the pragmatic analysis of the speech in question. This analysis yields certain findings among which is Imam Al-Hassan’s (PBUH) exploitation of specific cultural issues related to Muslims as pragmatic strategic maneuvers that fulfill their demands.

The liberation of nature and knowledge: a case study on Hans Reichenbach’s naturalism

Our main goal in this paper is to present and scrutinize Reichenbach’s own naturalism in our contemporary context, with special attention to competing versions of the concept. By exploring the idea of Reichenbach’s naturalism, we will argue that he defended a liberating, therapeutic form of naturalism, meaning that he took scientific philosophy (or philosophy of nature, Naturphilosophie) to be a possible cure for bad old habits and traditional ways of philosophy. For Reichenbach, naturalistic scientific philosophy was a well-established form of liberation. We do not intend to suggest that Reichenbach acted as an inventor of naturalism; nonetheless, invoking the term and the idea of ‘naturalism’ is more than a simple rhetorical strategy for rehabilitating Reichenbach as a forerunner of this field. We think that his ideas can make a valuable contribution to contemporary debates, and that he presents an interesting case among the other scientifically oriented proponents of his time. After presenting a short reconstruction of the meaning of naturalism—or, more appropriately, naturalisms—in order to be able to correctly situate Reichenbach within his own as well as a systematic context, we discuss Reichenbach’s naturalism against the background of his scientific philosophy, his views on the relation of common-sense knowledge to science, and his efforts at popularization. To delve deeper into this topic, we present a case study to show how Reichenbach argued that in both scientific and philosophical discussions (assuming their naturalistic continuity), it is necessary to move from the request and value of truth to probability. And, finally, we argue that the liberation of knowledge and nature was a socio-political program for Reichenbach, who talked about his own scientific philosophy as “a crusade.” By emphasizing this aspect of Reichenbach’s naturalism, we may be in a better position to situate him in the history of analytic philosophy in general, and in the yet-to-be-written narrative of the naturalistic movement in particular.

Analysis

Drawing on sociological Grounded Theory and ethnographic semantics, this chapter argues that analysis is a genuinely creative practice. Analysis entails not simply classifying the data found or produced in the field in accordance with everyday, common-sense knowledge but rather looking for aesthetic and semantic clues in it. It is also not a fixed program, but rather a hermeneutic and explorative search for new connections and patterns of meaning. This is demonstrated through examples of various data materials, such as transcripts of interviews, observation protocols, photographs, video, and material culture.

An alternative world: a perspective from the North on racism and migration

With the rise of populist movements of various kinds, racism has become one of the key issues debated in the present. This piece stresses the need to recognise racism as a part of the wider social and cultural contexts that populist movements operate within in Nordic countries and beyond. Populist movements’ claims of not being racist gain legitimacy through discourses of race and difference that are generally not recognised as racist but seen as constituting common-sense knowledge that creates an alternative world where racist claims seem to make sense. The article discusses this through three points of emphasis: everyday racism and racist exceptionalism; the idea of prior immobility; and the continued existence of structural racism. Finally, the discussion focuses on this alternative world from the perspective of debates about migration revolving essentially around future anticipation, which become particularly salient during times of crisis.

FULL-FLEDGED SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AS A TOOL FOR RESOLVING TRIANGLE-COPA SOCIAL SCENARIOS

Text interpretation often requires common sense knowledge and reasoning. A convenient tool for developing methods of common sense reasoning are special sets of challenge problems whose interpretation requires sophisticated reasoning. An interesting example is a recently published data set called Triangle Choice of Plausible Alternatives (Triangle-COPA), which contains 100 multiple-choice problems that test the interpretation of social scenarios. Each problem includes a statement and two alternatives. The task is to identify the more plausible alternative. For processing Triangle-COPA data we use SemETAP, a general purpose semantic analyzer. We implement the full scenario of NL understanding starting from NL texts and not from manually composed simplified logical formulas, which is a common practice in logic-based approaches to common sense reasoning. We produce Enhanced Semantic Structures of the statement and both alternatives and check which alternative manifests more semantic agreement with the statement in terms of inferences.