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Dialogue and Universalism

Part 2

Volume 22, Issue 4, 2012
Civilization and Science

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Displaying: 1-12 of 12 documents


1. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Małgorzata Czarnocka

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i. science in civilizations—ways to understand science

2. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Kuniko Miyanaga

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The presentation is focused on the idea that culture promotes a hierarchy of values and language as its major part imposes a certain style of reasoning. For this reason, learning English is confrontational to the Japanese and even causes a kind of culture shock. Still, they need to learn English to maintain a leading position in the global economic community. What is most confrontational about English for the Japanese is its analytical reasoning. Firstly, English has two levels of articulation, concrete and abstract, which enables the analytical style of reasoning in a scientific sense. Abstraction in this sense is remote to most Japanese. Secondly, this style also presses the speaker to separate the external from the internal: This causes a psychological difficulty to the Japanese who ideologically hold that the external is a harmonious extension of the internal. The presentation is made in concrete examples taken from my original research on their difficulties and compromises. Possible solutions are suggested.
3. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Mariola Kuszyk-Bytniewska

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In the modern era rationality, intersubjectivity and objectivity are primarily conceived as epistemological categories. They characterize knowledge or subjects ofknowledge, or even the function of knowledge—cognition. Epistemocentrism (in P. Bourdieu’s view a typical feature of modern thinking) supported by epistemological fundamentalism is nothing else but a limitation of this category’s meaning. Epistemocentrism was useful in the past but is now anachronic in view of the modern functions of knowledge in societies and the progress in social sciences. Today the sciences and their contribution to society are not what they once were. This calls for a revision of epistemocentrism and the filling of the “epistemological gap” which emerged in result of the collapse of epistemological fundamentalism. I think that there is room today for a new “philosophical partition of reality” emancipated from the Cartesian despotism of ego cogito, and a recovery of the intuitional insights into social life typical of ancient thinkers like Aristotle. In the present paper I strive to show that epistemocentrism is anepistemological obstacle in the social sciences and the source of its crises.
4. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Krzysztof Kościuszko

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David Bloor’s thesis claiming that the construction of the progressive vision of mathematical history is something artificial, because it does not take into account the civilizing and social discontinuities and variations. The author shows that the opposite declaration is equally true. He namely claims that the history emphasizing only incommensurabilities, differences and variations is something artificial.
5. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Zbigniew Król

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This paper presents sources pertinent to the transmission of Euclid’s Elements in Western medieval civilization. Some important observations follow from the pure description of the sources concerning the development of mathematics, e.g., the text of the Elements was supplemented with new axioms, proofs and theorems as if an “a priori skeleton” lost in Dark Ages was reconstructed and rediscovered during the late Middle Ages. Such historical facts indicate the aprioricity of mathematics.
6. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Marek Suwara

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Following the well known inverted spectrum argument by John Locke we examine the necessity of the first person experience in creating scientific knowledge, in particular, in physics. It is found that Locke’s argument is irrelevant for creating objective knowledge as the necessary things we need to do physics are: ability to perform measurements in terms of comparing certain quantities, ability to create theoretical ideas (in dependence inter alia on cultural principles, changing in the course of history), and the brain structure enabling the former two.

ii. science, technology and the contemporary human world

7. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Józef L. Krakowiak

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Any debate about the aim of university is a question of its place within the cultural and social whole of a given time, tradition and dominant ideology. In the first place this will feature concern about its autonomy from the state, Church, parties, capital, etc. The debate will go on to include the relationship between science and the education of citizens, science and industry and science versus capital. The dispute has included the participation of philosophy and theology or social sciences in preparing university candidates, which is still an issue ignored in Poland, and in broadening their horizons.The bone of contention between the positivist philosophy of facts and the humanistic deliberations on values is the understanding of culture and responsibility, that is, a dispute about a model of a graduate and a citizen: a narrow specialist, or a rational, integral man. Is the mastery of specialist knowledge more important than the skill of universal way of thinking and responsible collective action? Therefore, we are posing a question regarding a model of university as a community of people: what form of relations between the teacher and a student should be preferred in order to teach how to live reasonably in the contemporary and future societies? What do faculties strive to achieve? Is the target to be met competitiveness, as measured by a “calculable” profit, decorated with the stars of knowledge or, rather, is it disobedience in thinking by its typical graduates?
8. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Stanisław Czerniak

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The essay aims to reconstruct Gernot Böhme’s “end of the Baconian age” concept in the context of the main theses of the “finalization in science” idea which he developed in the 1970s and 80s. Böhme has since retreated from some parts of his theorem, arguing their invalidity in light of the “twilight” of the Baconian era in science begun by Francis Bacon’s methodological and philosophical program. Böhme polemizes with Bacon’s claim that the evolution of empirical science automatically enhances civilizational progress, and lists some contemporary negative sides of scientific progress which he criticizes from the position of philosophy of science by suggesting its cognitive “alternatives”.
9. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Konrad Waloszczyk

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The author presents a schematic outline of two approaches in contemporary philosophy of technology, the first of which is rather pessimistic, with technological progress seen as a rising force which subjugates humans and, to use Martin Heidegger’s words, “hampers, oppresses and drags them along in its tracks.” Also underscored is the failing relation between scientific and technological progress and moral development. The second approach, presented in reference to the thoughts of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, interprets scientific and technological progress as the creation of tools enabling the unity of mankind and further evolution. The author supports Teilhard’s view, which he sees as a better motivation to build a better world.

iii. religion and science

10. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Marian Hillar

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The origin of religion has fascinated philosophers and evolutionary scientists alike. This article reviews several mechanisms which might have led humans to various forms of religious beliefs. Modern studies and archaeological records suggest that religion may promote cooperation through development of symbolic behavior.
11. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Włodzimierz Ługowski

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Introducing the issue of the beginnings of life into the realm of scientific research posed a danger for the valid structures of knowledge. For a couple of tens of years, scientists have dealt with this issue ignoring the “touchy” problem of its “extrascientific” (i.e. philosophical, or even worse, “political”) groundings and its consequences for the Weltanschauung. In the face of new challenges, this strategy proved to be erroneous.
12. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 22 > Issue: 4
Marian Hillar

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Creationism is an ancient worldview that was incorporated into ancient religious doctrines and survived in the western world due to its domination by religious institution such as the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Slowly, with the development of democratic political systems and science, the church lost its power of dominance over intellectual enterprises, and evolution became accepted by the majority as the inherent process in nature. Nevertheless, creationism is still very much alive among various fundamentalist churches and their organizations in the United States. This article discusses the premises of the creationist movement, its varieties, and confronts it with the basic premises, characteristics, and modus operandi of the scientific enterprise.