Context: This conceptual paper tries to tackle the advantages and the limitations that might arise from including second-order science into global climate change sciences, a research area that traditionally focuses on first-order approaches and that is currently attracting a lot of media and public attention. Problem: The high profile of climate change research seems to provoke a certain dilemma for scientists: despite the slowly increasing realization within the sciences that our knowledge is temporary, tentative, uncertain, and far from stable, the (...) public expectations towards science and scientific knowledge are still the opposite: that scientific results should prove to be objective, reliable, and authoritative. As a way to handle the uncertainty, scientists tend to produce “varieties of scenarios” instead of clear statements, as well as reports that articulate different scientific opinions about the causes and dynamics of change for this specific field of research. (shrink)

Upshot: For communicating second-order science, von Foerster’s ethical imperative provides a viable starting point. Proceeding from this, we plead in favour of emphasising the common grounds of diverging scientific opinions and of various approaches in second-order science instead of focussing on the differences. This will provide a basis for communication and stimulate scientific self-reflection.

Изложено понимание рассуждения как метода рационального познания, рассмотрены его разновидности: аргументативные, интерпретативные, прогностические, квалификационные и вычислительные. Для аспирантов и соискателей.

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has sold more than one million copies since its publication in 1962, is one of the most cited academic books of all time, and continues to be read and studied today. This volume of new essays evaluates the significance of Kuhn's classic book in its changing historical context, including its initial reception and its lasting effects. The essays explore the range of ideas which Kuhn made popular with his influential philosophy of science, including (...) paradigms, normal science, paradigm changes, scientific revolutions, and incommensurability; and they also look at less-studied themes in his work, including scientific measurement, science education, and science textbooks. Drawing on the latest scholarship as well as unpublished material in the Thomas Kuhn Archives at MIT, this volume offers a comprehensive way into Kuhn's philosophy and demonstrates the continuing relevance of his ideas for our understanding of science. (shrink)

In Nicolaus Cusanus on Faith and the Intellect: A Case Study in 15th-Century Fides-Ratio Controversy, K.M. Ziebart presents an account of the Cusan epistemology as a fascinating late-medieval attempt to definitively harmonize faith and reason.

This paper offers a review of the catalogue composed by Myriam Vogelaar of one of the largest and most important collections of Fight Books and fencing manuals in the field of Historical European Martial Arts Studies (HEMAS). The Mokken Collection is named after Wiebe Mokken, the man who meticulously built it up over the past decades in Amsterdam. The book also highlights the glaring lack of contemporary knowlegde about other major historical fencing-related collections, like Gotti’s spectacular private collection held at (...) the Museo dell Arte Marziale in Brescia, Italy. Others, such as the Corble collection at the KU Leuven Libraries, recently published their catalogue on line. This catalogue thus constitutes an important milestone for this exciting and still relatively new subdomain in the field of European cultural studies, by making accessible one of the most important collections of source materials dedicated to it. (shrink)

At the beginning of the study of physical phenomena, the idea of "force" was widely used to explain the non-stationarity of observed phenomena, such as the movement of bodies. However, as mechanics and physical theories developed, the force notions gained own formal definitions and names, without the use of the term "force". So, the concept of kinetic energy arose instead of "vis viva", and "current" instead of "current strength" ets. Additionally, a number of new physical theories have been formulated without (...) the use of force concept. As a result, different types of forces have gradually been replaced by other more important concepts, such as energy and action, which are closely linked to fundamental physical principles. It is interesting to note that the general trend in the development of civilizations has been a shift from unrestricted power (expressed in the thesis "might makes right") to its subordination and incorporation into a legal framework. This is similar to the evolution of physics, which has seen the notion of force become eliminated or subordinated to more general principles and laws. (shrink)

_Care of the Self: Ancient Problematizations of Life and Contemporary Thought_, by Lívia Flachbartová, Pavol Sucharek, and Vladislav Suvák, focus on different manifestations of “taking care of the self” present in ancient and contemporary thought.

Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been attacked for many reasons. Key analytic terms, most importantly “paradigm,” were widely regarded as poorly defined. To many readers Structure seemed to suggest that the process of theory change is irrational, or at least non-rational. And even his characterization of normal science seemed to some readers to paint a very unflattering picture of scientists as excessively dogmatic and uncritical. More recently, Lorraine Daston has argued that the notion of “structure” that figures in the (...) title of the book, as well as in the analysis of the history of science discussed throughout the book, is “dusty and dated”. Historians of science tend to focus on the particular, in recognition that the sorts of events they study are unique. My aim in this paper is to defend Kuhn’s appeal to the notion of structure. First, I argue that Structure of Scientific Revolutions is not primarily a contribution to the history of science, despite the fact that it cites many historical sources and articles in the history of science. Consequently, it is a mistake to regard Kuhn’s appeal to the notion of structure as a case of badly written history of science. Second, I argue that insofar as the book is a contribution to philosophy, the sort of thing Kuhn means by “structure” is perfectly respectable, and is often presupposed in many philosophical studies, especially in general philosophy of science. Third, I defend Kuhn’s analysis of science, especially the enterprise of identifying the structure of scientific revolutions. (shrink)

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth’s unduly neglected monograph New and Old Methods of Ethics (1877) advances a highly sophisticated and mathematized account of social well-being in the utilitarian tradition of his 19th-century contemporaries. This article illustrates how his usage of the ‘calculus of variations’ was combined with findings from empirical psychology and economic theory to construct a consequentialist axiological framework. A conclusion is drawn that Edgeworth is a methodological predecessor to several important methods, ideas, and issues that continue to be discussed in (...) contemporary social well-being studies. (shrink)