Etape znanstvene kozmologije

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O vplivu filozofskih konceptov na razvoj znanstvenih teorij

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La función política de la mentira moderna.

Sin resumen

La función política de la mentira moderna.

Sin resumen

The tribunal of philosophy and its norms: History and philosophy in Georges Canguilhem's historical epistemology

In this article I assess Georges Canguilhem's historical epistemology with both theoretical and historical questions in mind. From a theoretical point of view, I am concerned with the role that history can play in the understanding and evaluation of philosophical concepts. From a historical point of view, I regard historical epistemology, as developed by Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem, as a conception and practice which came out of the project, elaborated in France from the 1920s to the 1940s, of combining history of science and philosophy. I analyse in particular Canguilhem's epistemology in his theory and practive of history of science. What he called 'normative history' is the focus of my analysis. I evaluate the question of the nature and provenience of the norm employed in normative history, and I compare it with the norm as discussed by Canguilhem in _Le normal et le pathologique_. While I am critical of Canguilhem's treatment of history, I conclude that his philosophical suggestion to analyse the formation of scientific concepts 'from below' represents a useful model for history and philosophy of science, and that it can be very profitably extended to philosophical concepts

Russia’s Place in the World. Pyotr Chaadaev and the Slavophils

The purpose of this publication is to present the work by an outstanding French historian of science Alexander Koyré who was deeply interested in the Russian philosophy of history to the Russian-speaking public. The paper, written about a hundred years ago, traces the evolution of Pyotr Chaadayev’s philosophical-historical thought in the context of his polemics against Slavophiles. It was the first serious theoretical dispute about the place of Russia in world history, which largely set the pattern for subsequent disputes on this topic that continue to this day. Chaadayev wrote his Philosophical Letters in French, using the categorical apparatus of German philosophy, particularly the ideas of Schelling, with whom he was personally acquainted. Nevertheless, Koyré contests the usual characterization of Chaadayev as a refined Westernist, showing that he accepted some of Ivan Kireevsky’s and other Slavophiles’ basic statements and attitudes, including the religious ones, but interpreted them in a completely different way, after his own fashion. Chaadayev sees the reasons for the backwardness of Russian civilization in the overwhelming dominance of ascetic Christianity, on the one hand, and in the plasticity of the folk character of the Slavs, in the absence of autonomous life and ancient cultural heritage, on the other. Russian civilization belongs neither to the Eastern, closed in itself, nor to the Western expansionist type. It has its own special way of historical development. After the publication of the first Philosophical Letter in the journal Telescope in 1836, Nicholas I, by the highest decree, declared Chaadayev insane and ordered him to be placed under house arrest. The philosopher responded with Apologia of a Madman. Koyré’ disputes the widespread view that Chaadayev’s historiosophic views underwent a significant change in this work, not to mention the renunciation of his sharply critical assessment of the history of Russian civilization as a kind of gap in the intellectual world order. This disadvantage, however, could turn into a springboard for a historical breakthrough towards broad welfare. In a country where the people are accustomed to blind obedience, it requires only the will of the ruler, the coming of the new Peter the Great

Had the planet mars not existed: Kepler's equant model and its physical consequences

We examine the equant model for the motion of planets, which has been the starting point of Kepler's investigations before he modified it because of Mars observations. We show that, up to first order in eccentricity, this model implies for each orbit a velocity which satisfies Kepler's second law and Hamilton's hodograph, and a centripetal acceleration with an inverse square dependence on the distance to the sun. If this dependence is assumed to be universal, Kepler's third law follows immediately. This elementary execice in kinematics for undergraduates emphasizes the proximity of the equant model coming from Ancient Greece with our present knowledge. It adds to its historical interest a didactical relevance concerning, in particular, the discussion of the Aristotelian or Newtonian conception of motion

Religion and Political Form: Carl Schmitt’s Genealogy of Politics as Critique of Habermas’s Post-secular Discourse

Jürgen Habermas's post-secular account is rapidly attracting attention in many fields as a theoretical framework through which to reconsider the role of religion in contemporary societies. This work seeks to go beyond Habermas's conceptualisation by placing the post-secular discourse within a broader genealogy of the relationships between space, religion, and politics. Drawing on the work of Carl Schmitt, the aim of this article is to contrast the artificial separation between private and public, religious and secular, state and church, and the logic of inclusion/exclusion on which modernity was established. Revisiting this genealogy is also crucial to illustrating, in light of Schmitt's political theory, the problems underlying Habermas's proposal, emphasising its hidden homogenising and universalist logic in an attempt to offer an alternative reflection on the contribution of religious and cultural pluralism within Western democracies