What is a problematic?: Dossier: Bachelard and the Concept of Problematic

Dossier: Bachelard and the Concept of Problematic

Dossier bachelard and the concept of problematic What is a problematic? Patrice maniglier Gaston Bachelard’s 1949 book, Le Rationalisme appliqué (RA; best translated as Reason Applied), is essential to an understanding of his work, and Bachelard is essential to an understanding of twentieth-century French philosophy. That this book has never been translated into English shows […]

What does Bachelard mean by rationalisme appliqué?: Dossier: Bachelard and the Concept of Problematic

Dossier: Bachelard and the Concept of Problematic

What does Bachelard mean by rationalisme appliqué? Mary tiles While Bachelard’s Rationalisme appliqué can readily be translated as Applied Rationalism, neither the French nor the English are very revealing of the position being advocated. In particular one would be led very far astray if one were to think of rationalism as a philosophical position which […]

Corrationalism and the problematic: Dossier: Bachelard and the Concept of Problematic

Dossier: Bachelard and the Concept of Problematic

Corrationalism and the problematic Gaston bachelard If the fear of being accused of psychologism were not so keenly felt by epistemologists they would no doubt pay more attention to the problem of the acquisition of ideas.* They would then notice that to each new idea there remains attached a perspective of acquisition, an approach structure […]

Georges Canguilhem, 1904-1995

NEWS Georges Canguilhem, 1904-1995 Georges Canguilhem, who died on 11 September 1995 at the age of ninety-one, was France’s pre-eminent historian and philosopher of the sciences. A figure of immense authority and prestige, he was regarded with great affection by his many disciples. Born into a very modest family living in the southwest, Canguilhem was […]

Feminist Epistemology: An Impossible Project?

Feminist Epistemology: An Impossible Project? Margareta Halberg This paper takes up the recent epistemological turn in feminist theory and some of the problems thereby raised. The fundamental aim of feminist theories in general is to analyze (and change) gender relations. It may be argued that the term ‘epistemology’ in feminist discourse should not be defined […]

Is Bhaskar’s Realism Realistic?

Is Bhaskar’s Realism Realistic? A/an Chalmers In this paper I begin by briefly outlining what I consider to be the key features of Roy Bhaskar’s realist account of laws of nature. l I regard his account to be the best available. However, I do not think his case can be established as conclusively as is […]

Beyond Objectivism and Relativism

Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Ingvar Johansson One very important line of division in todayt s philosophy is between those who want to go beyond the dualism between objectivism and relativism and those who still think this dualism is a live option. On this issue t I side with Richard Rortyts view in Philosophy and the […]

Scientific and Social Problems and Perspectives of Alternative Medicine: Analysis of a Dutch Controversy

Scientific and Social Problems and Perspectives of Alternative Medicine: Analysis of a Dutch Controversy by Joseph Keu/artz, Chung/in Kwa and Hans Radder Introduction Ever since the mid-1970s, the Western world has seen growing public and polltical interest in alternative medicine. The main reason has been a feellng of dissatisfaction with regular, science-based medicine, which gained […]

Marksism: The Shape of Things to Come?

EDITORIAL Marksism: The Shape of Things to Come? Following the success of the first Radical Philosophy special number (RP34 on Women, Gender and Philosophy), and as an extension of our long-standing interest in the subject, we are devoting this issue to the theme of Science, History and Philosophy. As Peter Osborne explained in the last […]

Ideological Commitments in the Philosophy of Science: With a Comment on Ravetz by Edgley

Ideological Commitments in the Philosophy of Science Jerry Ravetz To outward appearances the academic discipline of ‘the philosophy of science’ has in recent times been an austere and abstract study. Its concerns have been with one major problem, to the near exclusion of all others. The truthclaims of completed scientific knowledge have been considered to […]

Newton at the Crossroads

Newton at the Crossroads Simon Schaffer ‘The label on a system of ideas is distinguished from that on other articles, amongst other things, by the fact that it deceives not only the buyer, but often the seller as well.’ (Marx, Capital, Volume II) Soris Hessen and his audience In this essay I attempt a re-evaluation […]

In Search of a Method: Hegel, Marx and Realism

In Search of a Method: Hegel, Marx and Realism John Alien The development in recent years of a realist philosphy of science has provoked considerable interest within Marxist social science (1). Its attraction lies in the potential it holds for the construction of a philosophical antidote to posi tivism and conventionalism. In a short space […]

A Critical Note on Bhaskar and Systems Theory

A Critical Note on Bhaskar and Systems Theory* G. Carchedi Von Bertalanffy’s article ‘The Theory of Open Systems in ~hysics and Biology’, published in 1950 [1], is widely regarded as having started the systems-thinking movement. In the words of F.E. Emery, scientific interest was mobilized by von Bertalanffy’s ‘rigorous distinction between open and closed systems’ […]

What is Scientific Ideology?: With an Introduction by Mike Shortland

Introduction to (ieorges Canguilhem Mike Short/and Take away Canguilhem and you will no longer understand much about Althusser, Althusserianism and a whole series of discussions which have taken place among French Marxists; you will no longer grasp what is specific to sociologists such as Bourdieu, Castel, Passerson and what marks them so strongly within sociology; […]

Realism and Social Science: Some Comments on Roy Bhaskar's 'The Possibility of Naturalism'

Realism and Social Science Some Comments on Roy Bhaskar’s ‘The Possibility of Naturalism’ Ted Benton 1 Introduction An increasing body of philosophical work l is now available which (a) presents a ‘realist’ alternative to the hitherto predominant ‘positivist’ and ‘conventionalist’ currents in the philosophy of science and (b) attempts to use this realist account of […]

Scientific Explanation and Human Emancipation

Scientific Explanation and Human Emancipation Roy Bhaskar 1. Introduction What connections, if any, exist between explanations in the human sciences and the project of human emancipation? I want to addr~ss this issue in the light of the transcendental realist reconstruction of science (2) and the critical naturalism which that reconstruction enables (3). My main target […]

Revolution and Discontinuity

rather than sweep them away in a torrent of technical jargon. On the other hand, there can be no general recipe for clarity and good style, if only because the personal flair of the writer will always, and rightly, be a contributory factor, and because the nature of the material under consideration must to some […]

How to Defend Society Against Science

and of universal hUmanism, but by shortsighted against incompr~hensible neglect of the workers’ education, against authoritarian relatonships particular interests of the ruling apparatus of within the League of Communists, against the intropower. It is very characteristic that parallel duction of censorship and bureaucratic pressures with the development of the campa~gn against us for self-censorship, against […]