Popper or Kuhn: Truth and the progress of science

The questions of whether science pursues truth as correspondence to reality and whether science in fact progresses towards attaining a truthful understanding of physical reality are fundamental and contested in the philosophy of science. On one side of the debate stands Popper, who argues that science is objective, necessarily assumes a correspondence theory of truth, and inevitably progresses toward truth as physical theories develop, gaining a more truthful understanding of reality through progressively more sophisticated empirical analysis. Conversely Kuhn, influenced by postmodern philosophy, argues that ultimate truth cannot be attained since no objective metaphysical reality exists and it cannot be known, and consequently the notion of scientific objectivity and "progress" is a myth, marred by philosophical and ideological value judgments. Ultimately, Kuhn reduces so-called scientific progress through the adoption of successive paradigms to leaps of "faith". This paper seeks a reconciliation of the two extremes, arguing that Popper is correct in the sense that science assumes a correspondence theory of truth and may progress toward truth as physical theories develop, while simultaneously acknowledging with Kuhn that science is not purely objective and free of value judgments. The notion of faith is also critical, for it was the acknowledgement of God's existence as the creator and instituter of observable natural laws which allowed the development of science and the scientific method in the first place. Therefore, accepting and synthesising the contentions that science is to some extent founded on faith, assumes and progresses toward truth, and is subject to value judgments is necessary for the progress of science.

Evil Gods and Reckless Saviours : Adaptation and Appropriation in Late Twentieth Century Jesus-Novels

Late twentieth century Jesus-novels search after a completely new picture of Jesus. Novels written for instance by Norman Mailer, José Saramago, Michèle Roberts, Marianne Fredriksson, and Ki Longfellow provide an inversive revision of the canonic Gospels. They read the New Testament in terms of the present age. In their adaptation the story turns often into a critique of the whole Christian history. The investigated contrast-novels end up with an appropriation that is based on prototypical rewriting. They aim at the rehabilitation of Judas, and some of them make Mary Magdalane the key figure of Christianity. Saramago describes God as a blood thirsty tyrant, and Mailer makes God combat with the Devil in a manichean sense as with an equal. Such ideas are familiar both from poststructuralist philosophy and post-metaphysical death-of-God theology. The main result of the intertextual analysis is that these scholars have adopted Nietzschean ideas in their writing. Quite unlike earlier Jesus-novels, these more recent novels present a revision that produces discontinuity with the original source text, the New Testament. The intertextual strategy is based on contradiction. The reader wittnesses contesting and challenging, the authors attack Biblical beliefs and attempt to dissolve Christian doctrines. An attack on Biblical slave morality and violent concept of God deprives Jesus of his Jewish Messianic identity, makes Old Testament law a contradiction of life, calls sacrificial soteriology a violent pattern supporting oppression, and presents God as a cruel monster who enslaves people under his commandments and wishes their death. The new Jesus-figure contests Mosaic Law, despises orthodox Judaism, abandons Jewish customs and even questions Old Testament monotheism. In result, the novels intentionally transfer Jesus out of Judaism. Furthermore, Jewish faith appears in a negative light. Such an intertextual move is not open anti-Semitism but it cannot avoid attacking Jewish worship. Why? One reason that explains these attitudes is that Western culture still carries anti-Judaic attitudes beneath the surface covered with sentiments of equality and tolerance. Despite the evident post-holocaust consciousness present in the novels, they actually adopt an arrogant and ironical refutation of Jewish beliefs and Old Testament faith. In these novels, Jesus is made a complete opposite and antithesis to Judaism. Key words: Jesus-novel, intertextuality, adaptation, slave morality, Nietzsche, theodicy, patriarchy.

Philosophy as a Path to Happiness : Attainment of Happiness in Arabic Peripatetic and Ismaili Philosophy

The aim of the dissertation is to explore the idea of philosophy as a path to happiness in classical Arabic philosophy. The starting point is in comparison of two distinct currents between the 10th and early 11th centuries, Peripatetic philosophy, represented by al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, and Ismaili philosophy represented by al-Kirmānī and the Brethren of Purity. They initially offer two contrasting views about philosophy in that the attitude of the Peripatetics is rationalistic and secular in spirit, whereas for the Ismailis philosophy represents the esoteric truth behind revelation. Still, they converge in their view that the ultimate purpose of philosophy lies in its ability to lead man towards happiness. Moreover, they share a common concept of happiness as a contemplative ideal of human perfection, which refers primarily to an otherworldly state of the soul s ascent to the spiritual world. For both the way to happiness consists of two parts: theory and practice. The practical part manifests itself in the idea of the purification of the rational soul from its bodily attachments in order for it to direct its attention fully to the contemplative life. Hence, there appears an ideal of philosophical life with the goal of relative detachment from the worldly life. The regulations of the religious law in this context appear as the primary means for the soul s purification, but for all but al-Kirmānī they are complemented by auxiliary philosophical practices. The ascent to happiness, however, takes place primarily through the acquisition of theoretical knowledge. The saving knowledge consists primarily of the conception of the hierarchy of physical and metaphysical reality, but all of philosophy forms a curriculum through which the soul gradually ascends towards a spiritual state of being along an order that is inverse to the Neoplatonic emanationist hierarchy of creation. For Ismaili philosophy the ascent takes place from the exoteric religious sciences towards the esoteric philosophical knowledge. For Peripatetic philosophers logic performs the function of an instrument enabling the ascent, mathematics is treated either as propaedeutic to philosophy or as a mediator between physical and metaphysical knowledge, whereas physics and metaphysics provide the core of knowledge necessary for the attainment of happiness.

A New Definition of A Priori Knowledge: In Search of a Modal Basis

In this paper I will offer a novel understanding of a priori knowledge. My claim is that the sharp distinction that is usually made between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is groundless. It will be argued that a plausible understanding of a priori and a posteriori knowledge has to acknowledge that they are in a constant bootstrapping relationship. It is also crucial that we distinguish between a priori propositions that hold in the actual world and merely possible, non-actual a priori propositions, as we will see when considering cases like Euclidean geometry. Furthermore, contrary to what Kripke seems to suggest, a priori knowledge is intimately connected with metaphysical modality, indeed, grounded in it. The task of a priori reasoning, according to this account, is to delimit the space of metaphysically possible worlds in order for us to be able to determine what is actual.

Constructions and situations : a constructivist reading of Hegel's System

The object of this work is Hegel's Logic, which comprises the first third of his philosophical System that also includes the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit. The work is divided into two parts, where the first part investigates Hegel s Logic in itself or without an explicit reference to rest of Hegel's System. It is argued in the first part that Hegel's Logic contains a methodology for constructing examples of basic ontological categories. The starting point on which this construction is based is a structure Hegel calls Nothing, which I argue to be identical with an empty situation, that is, a situation with no objects in it. Examples of further categories are constructed, firstly, by making previous structures objects of new situations. This rule makes it possible for Hegel to introduce examples of ontological structures that contain objects as constituents. Secondly, Hegel takes also the very constructions he uses as constituents of further structures: thus, he is able to exemplify ontological categories involving causal relations. The final result of Hegel's Logic should then be a model of Hegel s Logic itself, or at least of its basic methods. The second part of the work focuses on the relation of Hegel's Logic to the other parts of Hegel's System. My interpretation tries to avoid, firstly, the extreme of taking Hegel's System as a grand metaphysical attempt to deduce what exists through abstract thinking, and secondly, the extreme of seeing Hegel's System as mere diluted Kantianism or a second-order investigation of theories concerning objects instead of actual objects. I suggest a third manner of reading Hegel's System, based on extending the constructivism of Hegel's Logic to the whole of his philosophical System. According to this interpretation, transitions between parts of Hegel's System should not be understood as proofs of any sort, but as constructions of one structure or its model from another structure. Hence, these transitions involve at least, and especially within the Philosophy of Nature, modelling of one type of object or phenomenon through characteristics of an object or phenomenon of another type, and in the best case, and especially within the Philosophy of Spirit, transformations of an object or phenomenon of one type into an object or phenomenon of another type. Thus, the transitions and descriptions within Hegel's System concern actual objects and not mere theories, but they still involve no fallacious deductions.

Arvoja näkyvissä : Kaunokirjallisuuden etiikka Ludwig Wittgensteinin filosofian valossa

The goal of this dissertation was to study whether it is possible and meaningful to apply Ludwig Wittgenstein s distinction between saying (Sagen) and showing (Zeigen) to ethically oriented literary criticism. The following questions were used as the primary guidelines: 1. Is it possible, in the context of literary criticism, to put in practice Wittgenstein s ethical conceptions, which are quite theoretical and metaphysical by nature? 2. If so, what practical literary devices do authors use if they want to demonstrate their ethical values within the frame of a fictional work? 3. Does philosophy offer useful ethical consepts that open us new and interesting readings in fiction? The philosophical background of Wittgenstein s distinction is clarified in chapter I. This clarification is based on his main works, Tractatus logico-philosophicus and Philosophishe Untersuchungen, the published correspondence between Wittgenstein and Paul Engelmann, and selected Wittgenstein research and papers. Analyzing ethics and it s expression in Georg Trakl s poetry further elucidates Wittgenstein s concept of showing. The concept that a literary work is an act of an author was used as a starting point. The presumption was that analyzing this act of an author will reveal how ethical values can be demonstrated in literature. Categorizing an author s act at different levels of literary expression provides the structure of this study. In chapters IV - XIII literary devices useful for demonstrating ethics are examined and explained using examples from the works of Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, Nikolay Leskov, Ludwig Uhland, Eino Leino, Pentti Haanpää and Maria Jotuni. The concepts and views of researchers and writers such as Mihail Bahtin, Peter Juhl, E. D. Hirsch, Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen are used. The concepts outlined in previous chapters are then applied in three case studies: Aeschylus s Oresteia trilogy, J-L. Runeberg s poem Sven Dufva and Sofi Oksanen s novel Puhdistus (Purge). On the whole, Wittgenstein s idea that ethical values can be demonstrated (shown) by means of literature is revealed as a fruitful point of departure for a more exact ethical reading, offering a new perspective on literary works.

La cuestión de los fundamentos en la ética de Lonergan

Resumen: En este artículo se explica cómo a partir del método trascendental de Lonergan surge una comprensión de la ética cómo ética existencial, la cual nos invita a dejar a un lado las categorías metafísicas-abstractas y reflexionar éticamente usando categorías que surjan de los actos de nuestra conciencia. La conciencia moral se presenta distintiva en cuanto a la decisión, inclusiva en cuanto que integra los niveles del entender y del juzgar y elevada en cuanto que está abierta a la posibilidad de una integración superior, puesto que la noción trascendental de valor puede ser enriquecida intrínsecamente con la experiencia religiosa de estar enamorado de un modo irrestricto.La explicitación de los fundamentos a partir del método trascendental permite tener en cuenta la realidad del hombre como ser histórico en devenir e integra la experiencia moral y religiosa a la comprensión del actuar ético. De este modo la reflexión ética surge a partir de la historia vividaen la cual se manifiesta el hacerse a sí mismo de los sujetos y la auto-constitución de lavida moral de una comunidad o de un pueblo.

Alcance y límites de la potencia humana

Resumen: La visión sobre el modo de ser del hombre condiciona, de un modo u otro, su actuar en el mundo. En general, es éste un punto de partida compartido por las distintas corrientes filosóficas al momento de dar respuesta al ejercicio del potencial humano, si bien pueden distanciarse drásticamente al sustentar el pasaje ser-obrar. En este sentido, entre las formas más alejadas entre sí cabe reparar, por una parte, en una concepción que recurre a la justificación de una metafísica realista que reconoce la dialéctica de la participación y, por otra, en una concepción que se declara anti-metafísica al disolver el ser en su negación, en la nada, para exaltar la voluntad de poder del hombre. Si bien este trabajo se desarrollará en el marco de la primera concepción, desde el estudio de la causación del acto de ser en Tomás de Aquino, habré de recurrir a la segunda concepción, en particular al nihilismo nietzscheano, solamente como planteo del estado de la cuestión, buscando remover críticamente una objeción recurrente en la historia del pensamiento sobre el alcance y límites de la operación humana.

Alcance y límites de la interpretación analógica

Resumen: El objetivo principal de esta investigación es definir cuál es el alcance y cuáles son los límites del uso de la analogía en el Derecho. Para el efecto, se comienza estudiando el concepto, las clases y la justificación de la analogía (capítulos I a III), primero desde un punto de vista netamente teórico y metafísico, y luego con un enfoque práctico jurídico. El capítulo IV revisa qué funciones tiene y para qué no sirve la analogía en el Derecho. A continuación se delimita cuándo es posible acudir al recurso analógico, señalando cuáles son los requisitos necesarios para que la analogía opere (capítulo V) y a qué objetos jurídicos puede aplicarse la analogía (capítulo VI). El capítulo VII estudia la diversa fortaleza intrínseca de los diferentes tipos de analogía que pueden darse en el Derecho. Tomando en cuenta todos estos antecedentes, el capítulo VIII termina definiendo ya concretamente cuáles son los casos en que la analogía en el Derecho (tanto la “analogía legis”, como la “analogía iuris”) es eficaz jurídicamente, y qué motivos podrían hacer que su aplicación resulte impedida o limitada.

La sabiduría desde el “Quaerens intellectum” en Anselmo de Canterbury

Resumen: La prueba de la existencia de Dios, sacada de su sola idea, fue, y es aún, una de esas experiencias metafísicas de las que se puede decir que nacen eternas, porque alcanzan el último término de uno de los caminos por donde el espíritu humano puede encauzarse. La presencia de Dios en el alma vivifica la fórmula que da san Anselmo y el análisis que hace de ella no tiene otro fin que llevar a la clara luz de la inteligencia una presencia realmente, pero oscuramente, sentida. Situados, dice, entre la fe y la visión, considera que “la inteligencia que alcanzamos en esta vida es intermedia”; los modos de aproximación difieren, pero sus términos no.

Sapientia, 1999, Vol. LIV, nº 205 (número completo)

Contenido: La encíclica Fides et ratio de Juan Pablo II / La Dirección – Die Gegenwart del Themis bei Parmenides un der entzug der bestimmung im Heideggers Lichtung / Stefan Winter – El tiempo como medida de la primera esfera en la Física de Aristóteles / Marcelo L. Imperiale – St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas on the presence of elements in compounds / Steven Baldner – Santo Tomás de Aquino, psicólogo / Ignacio Andereggen – Aquinas on creation and the metaphysical foundation of science / William E. Carroll – Las fuentes jurídicas romanas en Santo Tomás de Aquino / Alfredo Gustavo Di Pietro – La causalidad humana en la filosofía de la historia de Giambattista Vico / Juan Francisco Franck – Questions disputées de la politique chrétienne de Jacques Maritain / Yves Floucat – Die tektonik des submodernen Denkens im Schein ihrer Kunst / Heribert Boeder – El concepto de tolerancia / Alejandro G. Vigo – Modern science and time: an evaluation / Leo J. Elders – Tecnociencia y crisis ambiental / Héctor J. Padrón – The importante of order in theological discusión / Timothy L. Smith – La metafísica a pesar de Heidegger / Mario Enrique Sacchi – Notas y comentarios – Bibliografía

Nuevos fundamentos de una ética ambiental para el desarrollo sustentable

Resumen: El presente trabajo aborda la temática del análisis de nuevos fundamentos de una ética ambiental para el desarrollo sustentable. Se comienza por la discusión de las limitaciones de planteos éticos precedentes mostrando la herencia moderna y las posturas metafísicas que las fundan. Esto llevará a un análisis básico de las nociones de “hombre” y de “mundo”. Examinaremos luego la necesidad de una revaloración de la metafísica tradicional para encontrar nuevas expresiones de sus verdades, que justifique un nuevo hombre cuya concepción de sí y de su la relación entre el Ser y los seres, derive en nuevas posturas y cursos de acción más adecuados con relación al medio ambiente.

Los fundamentos teóricos de la ley natural

Resumen: El comentario sobre los fundamentos teóricos trata de la distinción entre un acceso práctico a la ley natural mediante la captación evidente e inmediata de los primeros principios (referidos a los valores fundamentales) por la razón en su función práctica (razón práctica), y la fundamentación teórica y metafísica del contenido de la ley natural con sus primeros principios, realizado ulteriormente por la razón en su función teórica (razón teórica o especulativa). Se aborda de esta manera la patencia de esos valores fundamentales como punto de partida o primera ratio del proceso que realiza la razón práctica y su justificación racional en el plano metafísico como última ratio que realiza la razón teórica o especulativa.

Educación y democracia

Resumen: Actualmente hay cierto consenso en la preferencia de la democracia sobre otros sistemas de gobierno; sin embargo, a la hora de cuestionarnos sobre su fundamento filosófico el consenso es más difícil de lograr. En la democracia se valora la participación activa de los ciudadanos y su derecho a una opinión libre, por lo cual algunos planteos consideran que el sistema democrático es incompatible con la defensa de verdades y valores absolutos. Ejemplo de ello es el planteo de Kelsen, quien sostiene que la democracia solo puede fundamentarse sobre una filosofía relativista. Sin embargo, posiciones como estas tropiezan con dificultades y contradicciones de orden lógico, gnoseológico, metafísico, antropológico, psicológico, ético y social. Acarrean consecuencias negativas también en el ámbito educativo. Para responder a estos planteos proponemos volver sobre algunas enseñanzas de Sócrates y repensar la relación entre democracia y educación, verdad y libertad.

Contingencia o justicia trascendental : Luhman o Höffe?

Resumen: El autor expone los argumentos centrales desarrollados tanto por Höffe como por Luhmann respecto de los fundamentos de un orden normativo institucional que garanticen una justicia política y no-metafísica. Así, presenta las contribuciones de ambos pensadores; explica -en la primera sección- la ética luhmaniana, y más adelante describe la crítica de Höffe al positivismo luhmanniano. Finalmente, el autor rescata las contribuciones de Luhmann y Höffe y las ubica como las más relevantes de las últimas décadas en materia de filosofía del derecho alemán.