This article examines Cohen’s “transcendental method”, Windelband’s “critical method”, the neo-Kantian distinctions between natural science and the humanities (i. e., human or cultural sciences), and Weber’s account of ideal-typical explanations. The Marburg and the Southwest Schools of neo-Kantianism have in common that their respective philosophies of science focused on method, but they substantially differ in their approaches. Cohen advanced the “transcendental method”, which was taken up and transformed by Natorp and Cassirer; later, it became influential in neo-Kantian approaches to 20th (...) century physics. Windelband distinguished between facts and values, linking the former to the “genetic” method of history and the latter to the “critical” method of philosophy; and between the “nomothetic” and “idiographic” methods of the empirical sciences, a distinction further elaborated by Rickert. The distinction does not give rise to a sharp discrimination but is rather what Weber would later call an ideal type. All these approaches contribute in different ways to understanding the structure of scientific knowledge, focusing on different aspects of the general path of the empirical sciences between rationalism and empiricism. (shrink)

The paper presents a detailed interpretation of Edgar Wind’s Experiment and Metaphysics, a unique work on the philosophy of physics which broke with the Neo-Kantian tradition under the influence of American pragmatism. Taking up Cassirer’s interpretation of physics, Wind develops a holistic theory of the experiment and a constructivist account of empirical facts. Based on the concept of embodiment which plays a key role in Wind’s later writings on art history, he argues, however, that the outcomes of measurements are contingent. (...) He then proposes an anti-Kantian conception of a metaphysics of nature. For him, nature is an unknown totality which manifests itself in discrepancies between theories and experiment, and hence the theory formation of physics can increasingly approximate the structure of nature. It is shown that this view is ambiguous between a transcendental, metaphysical realism in Kant’s sense and an internal realism in Putnam’s sense. Wind’s central claim is that twentieth century physics offers new options for resolving Kant’s cosmological antinomies. In particular, he connected quantum indeterminism with the possibility of human freedom, a connection that Cassirer sharply opposed. (shrink)

desde tiempos inmemorables el hombre ha cuestionado el mundo que lo rodea y el porqué de los fenómenos que diariamente observa en la naturaleza, al igual que se ha interesado por estudiar el comportamiento humano y la explicación de las interacciones humanas. En la búsqueda por explicar lo que le rodea, el hombre ha propuesto hipótesis que con el paso del tiempo se han podido verificar o falsear, ese conjunto de conocimientos que se ha logrado confirmar o refutar es lo (...) que se conoce como ciencia y el conjunto de pasos que se siguen para poder confirmarlos es lo que se conoce como método científico. Este artículo busca hacer un análisis de las distintas definiciones de ciencia que se han conocido provenientes de pensadores y filósofos a lo largo de la historia; se realiza un análisis de la categorización de métodos científicos aplicados para la generación de conocimiento y cómo la filosofía aporta para la generación de este. (shrink)