In what sense can the sciences be said to constitute a (set of) specific cultural tradition(s) within broader culture? This is the proper way of posing the problem of the 'two cultures' today. For G. Bachelard the opposition between 'poem' and 'theorem' was fundamental, the elements of poetical imagination being radically different from the symbolical constructions of conceptual invention. In this article a sophisticated version of this point of view is proposed. The nowadays popular attempts to bridge all gaps between (...) the cultures by an appeal to creative imagination ('science as art', 'mathematics and poetry') are criticized. The real basis of considering research traditions nevertheless as cultural realities in a nontrivial sense is not to be found in a mediation between cognitive faculties, but has to be revealed by a comparative analysis of their respective products. In fact, science, as well as other cultural practices, is subject to variations of style (Granger, Hacking ...). Research styles are not in the first place due to external, sociological determinants, but to such factors as the necessity of individuating any idea in a work, the presence of changing images of science within each discipline, and the fundamental role of the not-yet-explicit, given the specific temporal structure of conceptual innovation with its „essential tension” (Kuhn) between the old and the new. (shrink)

This article proposes a more culturalist and variegated conception of the individual than that presented by individualization theorists. Inspired by the approach of the individual advocated by Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and John Meyers, it first outlines the general script of the individual-as-actor that informs modern individualism as well as the generic characteristics that are routinely attributed to persons such as agency and free will. It subsequently reconstructs three predominant interpretations of this general script, i.e. utilitarian, moral and expressive individualism. (...) For each variant, the intellectual genesis and overall definition of the institutionalization in specific societal domains and the dominant articulations in social theory are briefly presented. With this threefold distinction, the aim is to synthesize the extensive literature on individualism and to show the sociological strengths of approaching subjectivity in terms of institutionalized scripts. (shrink)

This paper continues Israel Scheffler's investigation of rituals as autographic/allographic. It concludes that the autographic/allographic distinction is more fruitfully applied to rituals as a gradual distinction, distinguishing rituals in terms of their autographic/allographic elements or aspects.

The incredible achievements of modern scientific theories lead most of us to embrace scientific realism: the view that our best theories offer us at least roughly accurate descriptions of otherwise inaccessible parts of the world like genes, atoms, and the big bang. In Exceeding Our Grasp, Stanford argues that careful attention to the history of scientific investigation invites a challenge to this view that is not well represented in contemporary debates about the nature of the scientific enterprise. The historical record (...) of scientific inquiry, Stanford suggests, is characterized by what he calls the problem of unconceived alternatives. Past scientists have routinely failed even to conceive of alternatives to their own theories and lines of theoretical investigation, alternatives that were both well-confirmed by the evidence available at the time and sufficiently serious as to be ultimately accepted by later scientific communities. Stanford supports this claim with a detailed investigation of the mid-to-late 19th century theories of inheritance and generation proposed in turn by Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and August Weismann. He goes on to argue that this historical pattern strongly suggests that there are equally well-confirmed and scientifically serious alternatives to our own best theories that remain currently unconceived. Moreover, this challenge is more serious than those rooted in either the so-called pessimistic induction or the underdetermination of theories by evidence, in part because existing realist responses to these latter challenges offer no relief from the problem of unconceived alternatives itself. Stanford concludes by investigating what positive account of the spectacularly successful edifice of modern theoretical science remains open to us if we accept that our best scientific theories are powerful conceptual tools for accomplishing our practical goals, but abandon the view that the descriptions of the world around us that they offer are therefore even probably or approximately true. (shrink)

The place of the emotions among the passions -- The analytic of the emotions I -- The analytic of the emotions II -- The dialectic of the emotions -- Pride, arrogance, and humility -- Shame, embarrassment, and guilt -- Envy -- Jealousy -- Anger -- Love -- Friendship -- Sympathy and empathy.

Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.

By the time of his death in 2006, Sir Peter Strawson was regarded as one of the world's most distinguished philosophers. Unavailable for many years,_ Scepticism and Naturalism_ is a profound reflection on two classic philosophical problems by a philosopher at the pinnacle of his career. Based on his acclaimed Woodbridge lectures delivered at Columbia University in 1983, Strawson begins with a discussion of scepticism, which he defines as questioning the adequacy of our grounds for holding various beliefs. He then (...) draws deftly on Hume and Wittgenstein to argue that we must distinguish between 'hard', scientific naturalism; or 'soft', humanistic naturalism. In the remaining chapters the author takes up several issues in which sceptical doubts play an important role, in particular the nature of transcendental arguments and including the objectivity of moral philosophy, the mental and the physical, and the existence of abstract entities. _Scepticism and Naturalism_ is essential reading for those seeking an introduction to the work of one of the twentieth century’s most important and original philosophers. This reissue includes a substantial new foreword by Quassim Cassam and a fascinating intellectual autobiography by Strawson, which together form an excellent introduction to his life and work. (shrink)

RésuméCette étude essaie de réunir quelques éléments en vue d'une interprétation plus complète du programme épistémologique contenu de façon extrêmement elliptique dans l'ouvrage post‐hume de Jean Cavaillès, publié en 1947 par G. Canguilhem et C. Ehresmann sous le titre Sur la logique et la théorie de la science . Afin d'arriver, plus particulière‐texte, où la «nécessité génératrice» d'une dialectique conceptuelle est évoquée, il faudra rappeler quelques aspects connus ainsi que quelques aspects moins connus du cheminement philosophique de Cavaillès.Cette reconstruction est (...) mise en œuvre de façon détaillée dans un travail de commentaire textuel qui devait permettre de dégager le sens des formules denses et souvent allusives de Cavaillés dans son dernier ouvrage1. Il n'est pas possible de résumer ici en quelques lignes le contenu d'un tel travail. Toutefois on peut indiquer quelques conclusions qui s'en dégagent pour l'interprétation globale de l'ouvrage en question. En premier lieu il faut reconnaître la nature même du problème traité ici par Cavaillès. En second lieu on caractérise le type de position prise envers ce problème ainsi défini et en tant qu'on peut le restreindre dans un premier moment à la philosophie des mathématiques. En troisième lieu on montre que se problème subit un changement d'éclairage par le fait que cette restriction doit être levée en prenant en considération le rapport entre expérience mathématique et expiérience physique. que nous serons obligés d'entrer un peu plus, et à titre d'exemple, dam le détail de l'exégèse). Finalement on peut essayer de préciser le programme d'une dialectique conceptuelle en quelques thèses ou titres schématiques qui concement les questions majeures de la théorie de la science selon Cavaillès2. (shrink)

Bevat het religieuze discours aanspraken die vergelijkbaar zijn met de aanspraken die in strict cognitieve contexten, zoals wetenschap, gemaakt worden? Is van het spreken over religieuze fenomenen, en van het religieuze spreken, in enige zin een rechtvaardiging mogelijk die men kan vergelijken met de manier waarop wetenschappelijke of alledaagse overtuigingen zich lenen tot rechtvaardiging? Hoe zou zo'n rechtvaardiging er moeten uitzien? De bijdragen in deze bundel cirkelen rond deze vragen. De hefboom wordt echter ook dieper aangezet. Is het element van (...) overtuiging (belief) of geloofsinhoud, dat aanwezig lijkt in de meeste vormen van religiositeit, de grond voor andere aspecten zoals de religieuze praktijk en houdingen? Of zijn andersom de praktijken en (vertrouwvolle) houdingen de grond waarop religieuze overtuigingen eerst kunnen bloeien? Naast werk van Vlaamse auteurs, werden ook vertaalde artikelen opgenomen van D.Z. Philips en Alvin Plantinga. Paul Cortois (1954) is doctor in de wijsbegeerte. Momenteel is hij verbonden aan het Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte (KU Leuven) en aan de Vakgroep Filosofie van de Universiteit Antwerpen (UFSIA). Walter Van Herck (1962) is doctor in de wijsbegeerte. Hij is verbonden aan de Vakgroep Filosofie van de Universiteit Antwerpen (UFSIA) en aan de Karel de Grote-Hogeschool Antwerpen. (shrink)

In this commemorative article the significance of Paul Feyerabend's work for philosophy of science in general is reviewed. Its unifying perspective is identified as the fight against any possible constraint on imagination (i.e. on the capacity of generating alternatives). This alternative-maximizing search was already central in Feyerabend's 'pre-anarchistic' studies. In fact, I claim that the really significant theses and arguments, as far as the intrinsic debate within the philosophy of science is concerned, were present in these earlier studies (criticism of (...) the conditions of consistency and meaning invariance, pragmatic theory of observation, incommensurability thesis ...). The context of the 'historical turn' is sketched in which these arguments were developed as aresponse to current views on science. But these arguments do possess an independent normative significance. As Feyerabend construes them however, this independence is uncertain, because it is the value of proliferating imaginative alternatives as such which partly conditionalizes the significance of these arguments (as it conditionalizes the very value of science itself). In this way the philosophy of the critical imagination could eventually turn the critical values against the philosophy of rational criticism itself. And indeed, (1)a certain combination of the tenets concerning consistency and meaning variance undermines the idea of crucial test, and (2) in Against Method xht panegyric of the imagination (couched in a new narrative of the history of science) is used as the main weapon to override any methodological account. Philosophy of science is now convicted of what is the only deadly sin — the murder of imagination. But science itself is also accused of the same crime: it has become not merely an ideology — which is nothing to worry about — but a totalitarian ideology, monopolizing epistemic and educational claims. I argue that, although the reintroduction within philosophy of science of such questions belonging to a philosophy of culture is called for as a complement for intrinsic approaches, the Feyerabendean way of treating those questions makes it impossible to state anything about the specificity of science within culture. On the other hand two 'master ideas' still seem apt to stimulate further discussion: (1) the critique of the consistency condition, backed by the attack on the thesis of the 'relative autonomy of facts', and (2) the defence of meaning variance, backed by the pragmatic theory of observation, and leading in turn to the idea of incommensurability. At the same time this idea of incommensurability could also play a role in a philosophy of the relation between science and culture (which remains to be developed). (shrink)

Cette étude présente un moment assez surprenant du développement de la pensée du jeune Cavaillès : celui d’une affinité avec la pensée métaphysique de Plotin, un Plotin vu, bien sûr, à travers le prisme de l’ouvrage d’Émile Bréhier sur cet auteur (1928). J’essaie de montrer que cette lecture permet de comprendre la vision sous-jacente d’écrits aussi divers que « Éducation morale et laïcité », « Au Barrès du Culte du moi », et, bien sûr, « La philosophie de Plotin », (...) tous publiés par Cavaillès en 1928. En entamant un commentaire littéral de quelques passages, on montre que ces écrits éclairent et sont réciproquement éclairés par quelques réflexions sur l’art et la musique, ainsi que par une lettre assez énigmatique que Cavaillès écrivait à son père en cette même année. Finalement est posée la question des traces que cette étape de la pensée de Cavaillès a pu laisser dans sa philosophie ultérieure – celle dite « du concept ». (shrink)

In this expository article, a presentation is given of A.C. Crombie's life work in the history of science, Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition. The History of Argument and Explanation in the Mathematical and Biomedical Sciences and Arts (1994). The importance of this work for the philosophy of science and epistemology is comparable to the more renowned work of the 1960's and '70s, but threatens to be paradoxically overlooked because of its gigantic proportions. (No thorough study of the (...) book appeared up to now.) Crombie's earlier work started from a provocative version of continuism in the debate about the rise of modern science, ascribing the origin of the experimental tradition to methodological forebears in the thirteenth century (Grosseteste). Rather than revivifying this quarrel now, Crombie has offered us an emergentist picture of the rise of six subsequent major styles of science (using grand units of analysis) from the Greeks up to Darwin. These styles of thinking are superimposed upon another in that the definite breakthrough of each next style is consequent upon the recognition of the proper limits of the full grown previous style. In a first group, Crombie assembles three major styles for revealing regularities in individual phenomena, i.e. where the consideration of the collective to which the phenomenon belongs is not required for recognizing the regularity. Here we have (S1) the ancient style of postulating principles and entities according to a more or less apriorical evidence type or in axiomatic fashion; (S2) the experimental tradition from Alhazen up to Newton, and (S3) the style of hypothetical modelling, combining the former two in the vein of the rational artist as an (ultimately, also cognitive) engineer. In a second group the styles dealing with regularities discoverable only in a collectivity of phenomena are dealt with. Here we have the (S4) probabilistic style superimposed on the classical picture of rationality made up by the achieved styles in the first group. Then (S5) the taxonomic style is ready to be combined, finally, with S4, in order to discover the statistical economy of living nature in (S6), the 'genetic' style, culminating in Darwin's history of nature (which was to be expected). On the other hand, the latter style is traced back to the 16th and 17th century project of a history of languages and culture, of knowledge, and of mankind (which is a more surprising connection made by Crombie). In a final section some philosophical remarks are made regarding Crombie's project; mainly with respect to the larger perspective, in Crombie's terms, of an 'intellectual anthropology', or alternatively, in terms of a 'comparative epistemology'. Also the absence of a real analysis of the very concept of style is noted. (shrink)

Wittgenstein wordt wel beschouwd als een tegenstander van het ‘cognitivisme’ in de godsdienstfilosofie. Ik probeer hier aan te tonen dat Wittgenstein ook een tegenwicht biedt tegen hedendaagse benaderingen in de cultuurwetenschappen. De hedendaagse culturele antropologie is gestoeld op een combinatie van evolutionaire en cognitieve psychologie. ‘Betekenis’ wordt daarin opgevat als een cognitief proces dat zijn belichaming vindt in ons brein, en daarmee privé is. Wittgenstein wijst echter op het publieke karakter van betekenis, en op een andere notie van belichaming, die (...) te maken heeft met dat publieke karakter alsook met betekenis als relevantie. (shrink)

We are happy to present the proceedings of the international symposium on Rationality and Religious Trust which were held at the University of Antwerp in this volume of Bijdragen. Rationality and religious trust is of course a topic that falls within the scope of the epistemology of religion. Contemporary epistemology of religion has been the scene of a vigorous debate about the nature of religious belief, or more precisely about the role of rationality and rational argument with respect to religious (...) belief. What is at stake in the debate, is the very way the concept of belief applies to the religious life. More specifically, the issue is about the place to be reserved for belief within the religious life at large, and again, about the role played especially by rational arguments in holding or not holding those beliefs. (shrink)

Whatever the precise analysis of the notion of an `internal point of view', to talk about `religious traditions' is to imply that traditions of a certain kind primarily deploy an internal point of view. But what can be said about the notion of an intellectual tradition that would at the same time also be, or be connected to, a religious tradition? To some, such notions appear to border on contradiction. In accordance with the Cartesian criticism of coutume et exemple, we (...) tend to think of an intellectual stance as the correlate of a detached view, with the rational remaining the enemy of the traditional. In that case, every application whatsoever of the predicate `intellectual' to a tradition would be flawed. According to a certain Enlightenment view, inspired by science, is it not of the very essence of the intellectual stance in general that one stand back at a critical distance from any tradition, especially one's own?In fact, historically oriented philosophers of science like Crombie, Kuhn, Laudan have reminded us of the fact that there is nothing disturbingly paradoxical in speaking of `intellectual traditions': to quote one of Kuhn's book titles, there is the "essential tension" that characterizes science in its development just as much as any other cultural tradition. This tension between the old and the new is the mark of traditions, including the ones defining the rationality or rationalities of science. We could say that Kuhn's `paradigms' already outlined the borders of specific `catholicities' for the specialized fields of scientific research traditions. If Kuhn ever had a point, it must be that science too can develop only within the framework of styles of reasoning, which is to say that it demands viewpoints that cannot be characterized as `external', at least not in an absolute, metaphysical sense of the word. (shrink)

In this expository article one of the contributions of Jean Cavailles to the philosophy of mathematics is presented: the analysis of ‘mathematical experience’. The place of Cavailles on the logico-philosophical scene of the 30s and 40s is sketched. I propose a partial interpretation of Cavailles's epistemological program of so-called ‘conceptual dialectics’: mathematical holism, duality principles, the notion of formal contents, and the specific temporal structure of conceptual dynamics. The structure of mathematical abstraction is analysed in terms of its complementary dimensions: (...) paradigmatic generalization (domain extension, descriptive definitions, creative role of the symbolism...) and thematic reflexivity of concepts (promotion of operations to objects of a higher type). (shrink)

The arrow of time has been invoked to bridge all gaps between the 'two cultures'. Would time also help to mediate between the sphere of cognition (epistemic meaning) and the sphere of Bedeutsamkeit (meaning-as-relevance) when taking ritual to be a strongly idiosyncratic representative of the latter? What is the role of time in the modes of meaning in the realm of scientific concepts in their most rigorous shape (the mathematical) on the one hand, in ritual on the other hand? Taking (...) an external point of view, surprising connections can be laid, especially when focussing on the relations of form and materiality or content in the respective fields. Ritual can be considered — according toits formal structure — as an embodiment of the notion of an algorithm. When looking at the temporal structure of the respective symbolic practices from an internal point of view however, their contrasting modes of creating meaning become irreducible. In particular, the algorithmic-sequential mode in ritual is a shell for another time, constitutive of a proper Bedeutsamkeit. This is analyzed in terms of the role of the past in ritualized meaning (and illustrated via the art of time in the Japanese tea ceremony). Whereas a paradoxical creation of a past as something lost and nevertheless to be recollected is constitutive for the meaning of the ritual gesture, the proper element of the concept is time's arrow always pointing forward, to the next stage. Here the past, while embodied in the scientist's gesture as trace of epistemic styles and traditions, at the same time has to be suppressed in the interest of the creation of the new. (shrink)

The concept of normal is so familiar that it can be hard to imagine contemporary life without it. Yet the term entered everyday speech only in the mid-twentieth century. Before that, it was solely a scientific term used primarily in medicine to refer to a general state of health and the orderly function of organs. But beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, normal broke out of scientific usage, becoming less precise and coming to mean a balanced condition to (...) be maintained and an ideal to be achieved. In Normality, Peter Cryle and Elizabeth Stephens offer an intellectual and cultural history of what it means to be normal. They explore the history of how communities settle on any one definition of the norm, along the way analyzing a fascinating series of case studies in fields as remote as anatomy, statistics, criminal anthropology, sociology, and eugenics. Cryle and Stephens argue that since the idea of normality is so central to contemporary disability, gender, race, and sexuality studies, scholars in these fields must first have a better understanding of the context for normality. This pioneering book moves beyond binaries to explore for the first time what it does—and doesn’t—mean to be normal. (shrink)