Interactionism and the non obviousness of scientific theories
| Abstract | Levine's discussion of Rethinking Religion (1990) and "Crisis of Conscience, Riddle of Identity" (1993) includes some rash charges, some useful comments, and some profound misunderstandings. The latter, especially, reveal areas where we need to clarify and further defend our claims. In the second section we shall discuss the epistemological and methodological issues that Levine raises. Then we shall turn in the third section to theoretical and substantive matters. In fact, Levine remains almost completely silent on substantive matters (except to say that our claims are "obvious" and "trite.") Levine claims, in effect, (1) that religion is outside of the scope of scientific analysis, (2) that our competence approach to theorizing is not necessary for generating the theoretical claims that we make, and (3) that the substantive consequences of those theoretical claims are obvious and trivial. We unequivocally reject the first and third claims and, Levine's profound misunderstandings about the competence approach to theorizing notwithstanding, completely agree with the second. Identifying the confusions in Levine's discussion that inform item (3) will clarify our position. We turn first, though, to matters of epistemology and method (as these bear on items (1) and (2)). | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,664 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesC. L. Hardin (1991). Reply to Levine's 'Cool Red'. Philosophical Psychology 4:41-50.
Gereon Wolters (2009). The Epistemological Roots of Ecclesiastical Claims to Knowledge. Axiomathes 19 (4).
Nicholas Wolterstorff (1998). Reply to Levine. Religious Studies 34 (1):17-23.
David Papineau (2009). The Poverty of Analysis. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1):1-30.
Neil Campbell Manson (2002). Consciousness-Dependence and the Explanatory Gap. Inquiry 45 (4):521-540.
David Braddon-Mitchell (2005). The Subsumption of Reference. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (1):157-178.
Joseph M. Levine (1999). The Autonomy of History: Truth and Method From Erasmus to Gibbon. University of Chicago Press.
Robert N. Mccauley (1986). Problem Solving in Science and the Competence Approach to Theorizing in Linguistics. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 16 (3):299–312.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads14 ( #83,035 of 549,007 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,261 of 549,007 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
