Nowadays, it seems that all disciplines have to pretend being “scientific” in order to ensure their credibility. But the “social sciences”, which aim at a better knowledge of the Human regarding what makes him its own kind, are they really sciences? Pretending to be so, do they not expose themselves to be qualified as “non-scientific” by the most critical minds in their time, just as did Karl Popper about psychoanalyses and theses on the psychological selfishness? In turn, is it possible (...) to pretend that the “social sciences” are not sciences while stating that their dignity requires them to ask for another paradigm, a much more subtle one? The present contribution will try to answer to these questions. It will start with the proposal to replace the inappropriate name of “social sciences” by another one, much more respectful of the methods which should be theirs, which would be “disciplines of the subject”. (shrink)

The Walmart Company is one of the favorite punching bags of market critics. They accuse this firm of underpaying employees, dealing unfairly with customers, exploiting suppliers, and bankrupting small competitors. Various political jurisdictions have banned this firm from their environs, either implicitly or explicitly. The present article offers a more nuanced position on the behemoth from Arkansas. Although it has some flaws, there is an overwhelming case to be made in its behalf as an employer, competitor, purchaser, benefactor of customers.

This paper proposes a theological grounding for the possibility of metaphysics. After a brief critique of the seeming contemporary revival of analytic philosophy as characterized by linguisticism, the two main sections give a Christological and ultimately Mariological foundation for the possibility of metaphysics. The Christological section starts with the role of the second person of the Trinity in creation, and subsequently points to the hypostatic union as ensuring that creation is therefore accessible to the human mind. It also implies that (...) reality is fundamentally of a personal nature, and that personal knowledge can be relatively unproblematically acquired by other persons. The Mariological section starts from Plato’s Diotima as a prefigurement of Mary, and subsequently portrays Mary as the perfect metaphysician, guaranteeing the possibility of metaphysics as an enterprise of natural reason. Doing justice to the critique of an at times overly naive pre-modern metaphysics can then be done by advocating a Christological and Mariological turn for the Copernican revolution, e.g. fully taking into account the historicity of being and thinking. In conclusion, Mary as the handmaid of the Lord is analogous to metaphysics as the handmaid of theology, in a relationship of a loving daughter, mother and bride. (shrink)

Associate Professor | Director and President Department of Philosophy | Molinari Institute 6080 Haley Center, Auburn University Auburn AL 36849 USA email: [email protected] URL: praxeology.net..