Philosophy and Modern Science: Key Concepts and History
Unit 1: The Philosophy
Origin
Greek thinkers gave way when the myth gave way to the logos, moving from mythological explanations to a rational explanation of reality, distancing themselves from nonacademic authorities and legendary traditions.
What is it?
Etymological definition: Philo-sophia, wanting to know. Philos = who wants; sophos = wise.
Classical definition: Science of first principles, and the reasons and causes of the last, and universal science (such as first principles and ultimate causes and reasons relate to reality in full).
Features
- Home of issues (problem statement).
- Universalist (general, important, and fundamental).
- Criticism (evaluative analysis of the responses to the problems).
- Clarifying (comprehensive analysis).
- Practice (by value liberating for men).
Functions
- Rationality.
- Universality and radical.
- Clarification (not tangle).
- Criticism (or dogmatism or skepticism).
- System (bringing together the understanding of the various partial and fragmentary knowledge).
Character
a) Universal and inter-disciplinary, and their development.
b) Intra-disciplinary:
a) Their relationships with other disciplines (i.e., interdisciplinary): science, religion, literature, art, etc.
b) Its philosophical disciplines (namely intradisciplinary): Metaphysics (ontology, cosmology, natural theology), Logic, Epistemology (as part of Epistemology), Philosophical Anthropology, Ethics, Aesthetics, etc.
Historical Development
- Starts with reflection, rational and radical, on reality and knowledge of the universe.
- Human nature continues to be researched.
- Critical thinking capabilities and limitations of sensitivity, understanding, and human reason.
- Studied language mediation between knowledge and reality.
- This course:
- a) Know philosophical in its theoretical and practical rationality.
- b) Personal and social reality of human beings.
- c) Moral action and political activity.
- d) Coexistence of citizens in a democracy.
Unit 2: Modern Science
Specific Traits
- The mathematization of nature.
- The influence of socio-political and economic sciences.
Critical Review of Theoretical Reason
Research on the scope and limits of the various human faculties of objective knowledge.
Skepticism: Metaphysical attitude that, in different degrees and with varying degrees of rationality, denies the possibility of a theoretical goal of reality.
Kant’s Attitude
a) In the face of skepticism and empiricism, Kant denies the possibility of theoretical knowledge for both the objective truth.
b) Against dogmatism and rationalism, Kant states the possibility beyond all limits, giving theoretical reason a potentially infinite jurisdiction.
c) To recognize the conditions that define what we consider as objective and true knowledge, by universal and necessary.
Empiricism (Hume)
Claims the source of knowledge is sensory experience through the senses; reason itself has no content. Induction (cases bequeath to universal for all) is the favorite method. Limitation: no security to have all possible cases. Chance: empiricism says that “all our reasonings concerning causes and effects arise from more than usual.” The affirmation that every phenomenon has to be an effect of a cause is a “stunt” of the mind (mental association of events outside of thought) that may not occur in nature.
Pragmatism (Derived from Empiricism) (James, Dewey)
Defends beliefs about reality, even if theoretically unjustifiable from a rational point of view, if it can be pragmatically justified (useful).
Positivism and Neopositivism (19th and 20th Centuries)
Acknowledged supporters of the natural sciences as the only possible theoretical knowledge. Truth corresponds with the facts of the world.