Can humanity learn to become civilized? The crisis of science without civilization

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 29-44

  Maxwell, Nicholas ^a  

^a NONE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33845481088     PISSN: 02643758     EISSN: 14685930     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-5930.00138     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. A. Huxley (1980) The Human Situation (St. Albans, Triad/Panther Books), pp. 21-22.
2. M. Holdgate (1996) From Care to Action (London, Earthscan), pp. 1-10.
3. The best overall account of the Enlightenment that I know of is still: P. Gay (1973) The Enlightenment: An interpretation (London, Wildwood House).
4. For the importance of Francis Bacon for the Enlightenment see Gay, vol. 1, pp. 11-12 and p. 322.
5. Mill, Marx, Durkheim and Weber were all in thrall to the traditional Enlightenment.
6. I. Berlin (1999) The Roots of Romanticism (London, Chatto and Windus);
7. I. Berlin (1980) Against the Current (London, Hogarth Press), pp. 1-24.
8. A. Gascardi (1999) Consequences of Enlightenment (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).
9. A. Sokal and J. Bricmont (1998) Intellectual Impostures (London, Profile Books);
10. P. Gross et al. (1996), (Eds.) The Flight from Science and Reason (New York, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences);
11. N. Koertge (Ed.), (1998) A House Built on Sand: Exposing postmodernist myths about science (Oxford, Oxford University Press).
12. The philosophes of the Enlightenment tended to assume that the triumph of Newtonian science over Cartesian science meant also the triumph of Newtonian inductivist methodology over Cartesian rationalism. They tended to espouse the extreme empiricism of Bacon and Locke, rejecting the rationalism of Descartes. But it is perhaps oversimplistic to interpret all the philosophes as upholding one or other version of standard empiricism. Kant hardly fits into such a picture. More to the point, d’Alembert asserted that “The universe, if we may be permitted to say so, would only be one fact and one great truth for whoever knew how to embrace it from a single point of view”; J. d’Alembert (1963) Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (New York, Bobbs-Merrill), p. 29, (originally published in 1751). This is perhaps compatible with, but hardly conforms to the spirit of standard empiricism.
13. Karl Popper: Science, only observation and experiment may decide upon the acceptance or rejection of scientific statements, including laws and theories”;
14. K. Popper (1963) Conjectures and Refutations (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul), p. 54.
15. N. Maxwell (1998) The Comprehensibility of the Universe (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 38-45.
16. It is worth noting that Newton upheld a conception of natural philosophy (natural science) that is, in important respects, more sophisticated than standard empiricism, presupposed by so many twentieth century scientists and philosophers of science. Newton formulates three of his four rules of reasoning in such a way that it is clear that these rules make assumptions about the nature of the universe. Thus rule 1 asserts: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” And Newton adds: “To this purpose the philosophers say that nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.” See I. Newton (1962) Principia (Berkeley, University of California Press), vol. 2, p. 398. Newton understood that persistently preferring simple theories means that Nature herself is being persistently assumed to be simple (which violates standard empiricism).
17. For a much more detailed refutation of standard empiricism, bare and dressed, see Maxwell, Principia (Berkeley, University of California Press)., chs. 1-2.
18. For a much more detailed exposition and defence of aim-oriented empiricism, and an account of the way aim-oriented empiricism solves long-standing problems in the philosophy of science such as problems of simplicity, induction and verisimilitude, see Maxwell, Principia (Berkeley, University of California Press)., chs. 1 and 3-6.
19. Popper Principia (Berkeley, University of California Press)., chs. 1 and 3-6.
20. K. Popper (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London, Hutchinson).
21. “inter-subjective testing is merely a very important aspect of the more general idea of inter-subjective criticism, or in other words, of the idea of mutual rational control by critical discussion”, Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery., p. 44, n *1.
22. K. Popper (1963) Conjectures and Refutations (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul), pp. 193-200;
23. K. Popper (1976) Unended Quest (Glasgow, Fontana), pp. 115-6;
24. K. Popper (1972) Objective Knowledge (Oxford, Oxford University Press), p. 119-243.
25. N. Maxwell (1984) From Knowledge to Wisdom (Oxford, Blackwell), especially chs. 5 and 8.
26. Maxwell (1984) From Knowledge to Wisdom (Oxford, Blackwell)., ch. 6.
27. See also Maxwell, N.: (1976) What’s Wrong With Science? Towards a people’s rational science of delight and compassion (Frome, Bran’s Head Books), pp. 9 + 260; (1980) Science, reason, knowledge and wisdom: a critique of specialism, Inquiry, 23, pp. 19-81; (1984) From knowledge to wisdom: guiding choices in scientific research, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 4, pp. 316-34; (1985) From knowledge to wisdom: the need for an intellectual revolution, Science, Technology and Society Newsletter, 21, pp. 55-63;(1986) The Fate of the Enlightenment: reply to Kekes, Inquiry, 29, pp. 79-82; (1987) Wanted: a new way of thinking, New Scientist, 14 May, p. 63; (1991) How can we build a better world?: in J. Mittelstrass (Ed.) Einheit der Wissenschaften: Internationales Kolloquium der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 25-27 June 1990 (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter), pp. 388-427; (1992) What kind of inquiry can best help us create a good world?, Science, Technology and Human Values, 17, pp. 205-27; (1992) What the task of creating civilization has to learn from the success of modern science: towards a new enlightenment, Reflections on Higher Education, 4, pp. 47-69; (1993) Can academic inquiry help humanity become civilized?, Philosophy Today, 13, May, pp. 1-3; (1997) Science and the environment: a new enlightenment, Science and Public Affairs, Spring, pp. 50-56.
28. H. Tischler (1996) Introduction to Sociology (Orlando, Harcourt Brace), p. 4.
29. J. Macionis and K. Plummer (1997) Sociology: A global introduction (New York, Prentice Hall), p. 4.
30. G. Lenski et al. (1995) Human Societies: An introduction to macrosociology (New York, McGraw-Hill), p. 5.
31. P. Abott and C. Wallace (1990) An introduction to sociology: feminist perspectives (London, Routledge), p. 1-3.
32. G. Ryle (1949) The Concept of Mind (London, Hutchinson), ch. 2.
33. N. Maxwell (1984) From Knowledge to Wisdom (Oxford, Blackwell), pp. 174-181.
34. K. Popper (1969) The Open Society and Its Enemies (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul), vol. 1, ch. 9;
35. K. Popper (1974) The Poverty of Historicism (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul), pp. 64-92.
36. Maxwell (1984) The Poverty of Historicism (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul)., pp. 189-198.
37. I. Berlin (1999) The Roots of Romanticism (London, Chatto and Windus);
38. R. D. Laing (1965) The Divided Self (Harmondsworth, Penguin);
39. H. Marcuse (1964) One Dimensional Man (Boston, Beacon Press);
40. T. Roszak (1973) Where the Wasteland Ends (London, Faber and Faber);
41. M. Berman (1981) The Reenchanchantment of the World (Ithaca, Cornell University Press);
42. B. Schwartz (1987) The Battle for Human Nature (New York, W. W. Norton);
43. P. Feyerabend (1978) Against Method (London, Verso) and (1987) Farewell to Reason (London, Verso);
44. B. Appleyard (1992) Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man (London, Picador).
45. Maxwell (1984) Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man (London, Picador)., pp. 63-4, pp. 85-91 and pp. 117-118, for further discussion of this issue.
46. N. Maxwell (1976) What’s Wrong With Science? (Frome, Bran’s Head Books), especially chs. 1 and 8-10.
47. D. Bloor (1976) Knowledge and Social Imagery (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul);
48. B. Barnes and D. Bloor (1981) Relativism, rationalism and the sociology of knowledge: in M. Hollis and S. Lukes (Eds.) Rationality and Relativism (Oxford, Blackwell), pp. 21-47;
49. B. Latour (1987) Science in Action (Milton Keynes, Open University Press);
50. Feyerabend (1978) Science in Action (Milton Keynes, Open University Press). and (1987) These authors might protest that they do not deny scientific knowledge, method, progress or rationality as such, but deny, merely, that the sociology of knowledge can legitimately appeal to such things, or deny extravagant claims made on behalf of these things. See, however, the sparkling criticism by Sokal and Bricmont, ch. 4.
51. N. Maxwell (1998) The Comprehensibility of the Universe (Oxford, Oxford University Press), especially chs 1–6.
52. N. Rescher (personal communication);
53. J. Durant (1997) Beyond the scope of science, Science and Public Affairs, Spring, pp. 56–57.
54. S. Harding (1986) The Feminist Question in Science (Milton Keynes, Open University Press).