In the 19th century, the conflict thesis was forged to explain the science-religion relationship. This thesis presents religion as an obstacle to the development of science. Andrew White publishes a book that is at the origin of this thesis and Charles S. Peirce writes a review of this book in which he shows that there is nothing in religion that opposes scientific progress, but points to four human characteristics that offer difficulties in the face of radical novelties. It is interesting (...) to note how while the conflict thesis was forged, one of the greatest thinkers already shows the weakness of this thesis. (shrink)

Edgar Allan Poe’s standing as a literary figure, who drew on (and sometimes dabbled in) the scientific debates of his time, makes him an intriguing character for any exploration of the historical interrelationship between science, literature and philosophy. His sprawling ‘prose-poem’ Eureka (1848), in particular, has sometimes been scrutinized for anticipations of later scientific developments. By contrast, the present paper argues that it should be understood as a contribution to the raging debates about scientific methodology at the time. This methodological (...) interest, which is echoed in Poe’s ‘tales of ratiocination’, gives rise to a proposed new mode of—broadly abductive—inference, which Poe attributes to the hybrid figure of the ‘poet-mathematician’. Without creative imagination and intuition, Science would necessarily remain incomplete, evenby its own standards. This concern with imaginative (abductive) inference ties in nicely with his coherentism, which grants pride of place to the twin virtues of Simplicity and Consistency, which must constrain imagination lest it degenerate into mere fancy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I consider Chauncey Wright's metaphor of the universe as so much “cosmic weather” and then Tim Ingold's characterization of the terrestrial zone of human existence taking shape as a “weather world.” I also attempt to connect the metaphor at the root of Wright's cosmology with the nuanced account of the weather world at the center of Ingold's anthropology. The upshot is a thoroughly pragmatic understanding of the lifeworld of human beings.

This paper suggests that it is largely a want of notional distinctions which fosters the “explanatory gap” that has beset the study of consciousness since T. Nagel’s revival of the topic. Modifying Ned Block’s controversial claim that we should countenance a “phenomenal-consciousness” which exists in its own right, we argue that there is a way to recuperate the intuitions he appeals to without engaging in an onerous reification of the facet in question. By renewing with the full type/token/tone trichotomy developed (...) by C. S. Peirce, we think the distinctness Block calls attention to can be seen as stemming not from any separate module lurking within the mind, but rather from our ability to prescind qualities from occurrences. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta un enfoque del problema de la relación entre abducción y percepción en la filosofía de C. S. Peirce, tratando de mostrar la percepción y la abducción, o hipótesis, como procesos creativos capaces de introducir una novedad en el conocimiento. En primer lugar se muestra cómo cada conocimiento, incluso el lógico, está fundamentado en la experiencia de la percepción, y cómo esta presupone una continuidad cosmológica entre la mente y el mundo para poder funcionar. Sucesivamente se pone en (...) evidencia cómo la hipótesis no es nada más que aquel procedimiento que reconoce, como un relámpago, esta continuidad cosmológica de experiencia entre la mente y el mundo. Finalmente, la abducción se configura como un razonamiento que, libremente, obstruye y modifica el flujo continuo de. (shrink)