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Abstracts
Professor Andrzej Bronk
Department of Methodology and Philosophy of Science
Faculty of Philosophy
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
Method as a distinguishing characteristic of science
Since Greek antiquity method and methodicalness have been seen as typical features of
scientific procedure and sometimes as the most important formal characteristics (next to
language) of science, responsible for the growth of scientific knowledge. If a discipline does
not have a method of its own, its scientific autonomy is suspected. A scientist is not only a
person with detailed knowledge of a particular field, but first and foremost a person with
competence and skill in a research method. It is believed that even if a methodical procedure
does not automatically guarantee arrival at the truth it can increase the effectiveness and
economy of search for truth.
The recurrent use of the notion of scientific method might suggest that – at least in
science – it has a precise meaning but this is not the case. Both its intension and its extension
are the subjects of lively discussion among philosophers. Contemporary contexts of the use of
the notion of scientific method are so different that it is almost impossible to find their
common denominator. Of great importance to methodological discussions of the notion of
scientific method has been the fact that both the notion of science and the notion of scientific
method itself have mostly been shaped after the example of (natural) sciences, which are seen
as the paradigm for scientific research. When the notion of science was also applied to the
humanities (litterae humaniores, Geisteswissenschaften), it supported a wider understanding
of science and scientific method. Ultimately it is the understanding of the nature of science
itself that is involved in the discussion of the scientific method and here – as is well known –
there is no general consent among philosophers as to what makes a given kind of cognition a
scientific procedure.
In order to present the debate on the notion of scientific method, to explicate its
various contemporary meanings, and to determine the importance of the scientific method for
scientific endeavor, I address the following issues: 1. The notion of method and the types of
methods, 2. The definition of scientific method, 3. The history of the notion of scientific
method, 4. The neo-positivistic notion of scientific method and its critique, 5. The nature of
scientific method, 6. Types of scientific methods.
Yannick Chin
LPHS - Archives Poincaré
Université Nancy 2 (France)
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Expérience perceptive : intuitions communes et explications scientifiques
Lorsque nous voyons un arbre, il est naturel pour nous de considérer que c'est l'arbre
que nous percevons, et pas autre chose comme un sense-datum, une idée ou quoi que ce soit
d'autres. Notre conception de l'expérience perceptive est en ce sens "naïve" : nous croyons
que l'arbre lui-même (dans le monde extérieur) est le véritable objet de notre expérience.
Pourquoi croyons-nous cela ? Simplement, parce que comme le fait remarquer P. F. Strawson,
"l'expérience sensible mature (en général) se présente, en termes kantiens, comme une
conscience immédiate de l'existence des choses en dehors de nous"1. En d'autres termes, dans
l'expérience perceptive, il nous semble que le monde lui-même nous est présent. Ainsi, c'est
un élément de notre conception intuitive de l'expérience perceptive que son caractère dépend
essentiellement de l'existence et de la nature des objets externes que nous percevons. Et, en
général, lorsque nous voulons décrire cette expérience, la meilleur façon pour nous de le faire
est de décrire l'objet même que nous percevons (ou que nous pensons percevoir).
Contre cette conception naïve de l'expérience perceptive, certaines personnes ont
soutenu que cette conception ne rendait pas justice aux faits scientifiques concernant la
perception. En effet, la science a montré que lorsque nous percevons les choses il y a une
chaîne compliquée d'événements physiques qui sont impliqués. Et, par conséquent, il est
tentant de concevoir l'expérience perceptive comme une conséquence causale de ces
événements physiques. Mais peut-être est-il possible de dire plus que cela : que ce que nous
percevons n'est pas, comme nous le pensons intuitivement, l'objet externe lui-même, mais
plutôt les effets qu'il produit en nous. Cette conclusion est-elle acceptable ? La science a-t-elle
prouvé que la conception du sens commun à propos de la perception est fausse ? Je tenterai de
montrer que ce n'est pas le cas. En fait j'essayerai de soutenir l'idée selon laquelle notre
manière intuitive de comprendre l'expérience perceptive (comme une manière d'être en
contact direct avec les objets externes) n'est pas contradictoire avec l'idée que cette expérience
dépend de processus physiques variés qui la causent. Ce que pense le sens commun au sujet
de la perception n'est pas incompatible avec ce que le discours scientifique est susceptible de
nous apprendre à son propos. Ainsi, s'il y a une séparation entre les descriptions du sens
commun et les explications scientifiques de la perception, cette séparation n'est pas telle que
les unes fourniraient des raisons de penser que les autres sont fausses ou négligeables.
(Englisch version) Perceptual Experience : Common Intuitions and Scientific
Explanations
When we see a tree, it is natural to consider that the object of our perception is a tree,
and not anything else like a sense-datum, an idea, or whatever. In that sense our conception of
perceptual experience is “naive”: we do believe the tree (in the external world) is the very
object of our experience. Why do we believe so? Simply because, as P.F. Strawson makes the
point, “mature sensible experience (in general) presents itself as, in Kantian phrase, an
immediate consciousness of the existence of things outside us”1. In other words, in perceptual
experience, the world itself seems to be presented to us. Thus, being essentially dependent on
the existence and nature of external objects that we perceive, is part of our intuitive
conception of perceptual experience. And generally speaking, when we wish to describe
perceptive experience, the best way to proceed is to describe the very object that we perceive
(or that we think we perceive).
1
Perception and its Objects in J. Dancy (ed.), Perceptual Knowledge, New York, Oxford University Press,
1988, p. 99.
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In reaction to this naive conception of perceptual experience, some philosophers have
argued that it doesn’t do justice to scientific facts about perception. Indeed, science has shown
that when we perceive things, a complicated chain of physical events are involved.
Consequently, one may be tempted to conceive perceptual experience as a causal consequence
of such physical events. But it may be possible to go further, and to argue that what we
perceive is not the external object, as we intuitively assume, but rather the effects that it
produces on us. Is such a conclusion tenable? Has science shown the falsity of the commonsense conception of perception ? I’ll try to argue that this is not the case. I will attempt to
support the idea that our intuitive way of understanding perceptual experience – i.e. as a way
of being in some direct contact with external objects – is not contradictory to the idea that
experience depends on various physical processes in a causal way. What common-sense tells
us about perception is not incompatible to what science can teach us about perception. There
is certainly a gap between common-sense descriptions and scientific explanations of
perception. But it doesn’t mean that each kind of discourse would provide one with reasons to
think that the other is false or negligible.
Katarzyna Gan-Krzywoszyńska
Institute of Philosophy
Department of Logic and of Methodology of Science
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań
LPHS-Archives Poincaré (UMR 7117 CNRS)
Université de Nancy2
On Natural Language: From Myth to Free Philosophy.
One of the fundamentals of Jules Vuillemin’s a priori classification of philosophical
systems is a radical cut between myth (mythical thought) connected with the problem of
Weltanschauung (world perspective) and free philosophy. Principles of philosophical systems
are directly connected with linguistic categories and with the primitive elementary sentences
by which they are expressed. According to Vuillemin, natural language as an open and
universal code of communication contains five exclusive classes of elementary sentences:
pure predication, substantial and accidental predication, circumstantial predication, judgments
of methods, and judgments of appearances. Every form of predication becomes an ontological
principle of a genuine philosophical system. Between classes of philosophical systems
Vuillemin singles out dogmatic systems such as: realism, conceptualism, nominalism of
things, nominalism of events and systems of examination: intuitionism and skepticism.
Systematic ontology, in Vuillemin’s sense, requires that (1) there must be given a minimal set
of indefinable concepts and indemonstrable principles and all elements of the world will be
derived from them, (2) this derivation should proceed according to legitimated rules, and (3)
rival ontologies should be explained away as mere appearances.
Dr hab. Adam Grzeliński
Institute of Philosophy Nicolaus Copernicus University Toruń
Chair of Cultural Studies WSG Bydgoszcz
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Between common sense and philosophical language. David Hume’s science of human
nature
The most outstanding British philosophers of the eighteenth century often claimed that what
they wrote was just a defense of common sense. The defense had different forms like
Berkeley’s immaterialism or Reid’s banishment of metaphysical speculations. One of the
philosophers who saw clearly the problem of the relation between technical, philosophical
language and everyday experience was David Hume. One cannot be misled by the
philosophical credo found in the opening sections of Treatise of Human Nature that we must
glean up our experiments in this science [of human nature] from a cautious observation of
human life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by men’s
behavior in company, in affairs, and in their pleasures. The phrase taken literally would
suggest that there is no difference between systematical philosophical explanation of human
nature and the natural experience of a vulgar. When we look closer at terminology used by
Hume, we quickly discover how precise it is and how far from the common language heard
around. That’s why Hume’s philosophy gives an opportunity to set up the problem: why is
the natural, native language of everyday experience not sufficient, why must such an
experience be given a philosophical explanation in abstract, technical language? Seen from
another angle the question could be formulated as follows: must a philosophical system
respect the commonsensical experience?
In the present paper I am trying to show two main scopes of the task undertaken by
David Hume. The first is a complex, thorough philosophical description of various aspects of
human nature. The other is providing a philosophical basis of the common sense. To attain the
task I am going to explain Hume’s meaning of the common sense itself and his notion of
philosophical system. Then I want to show how Hume demonstrated why man must believe in
the existence of the world and other selves (the belief being crucial for commonsensical
standpoint), furthermore, he found out that full explanation of such a belief is impossible on
the grounds of pure empirical method. Nevertheless, even if it is inexplicable in the
speculative philosophy, such existence of other people and of one’s own ego is a necessary
postulate in practical philosophy. Thus it is the human practice rather than the theory and
speculation which requires commonsensical belief in the reality of facts and existence.
Seeking the correct philosophical description of every day practice Hume describes
anew the relation of the passions and reason, and shows the impossibility of proving the
existence of God, of the world and of human soul. The latter case does not affect only the
metaphysics as such, but has special reference to social and political practice. Reason itself,
not respecting the common sense can be a source of various kinds of superstition. The proper
description of human nature was for Hume a cure for them. It should also be mentioned that
trying to reject superstitions Hume follows the path traced by Hobbes and Locke.
If Hume could paraphrase a very well-known Kantian saying, he would willingly
assert that common sense without philosophical explanation does not know anything whereas
the philosophical reason lacking the common sense is blind. But he would also be very
careful: not every explanation does justice to common sense. Some of them are even quite
pernicious for our social and political life.
Professor Gerhard Heinzmann, Department of Philosophy,
Laboratoire de Philosophie et d'Histoire des Sciences—Archives
H. Poincaré,
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UMR 7117 du CNRS
Nancy-University, France
Common sense in philosophy and science
Thesis: According to Wittgenstein, common sense in Philosophy is not only a
postulate concerning beliefs, but also and more deeply a form of common life. I
will argue in this paper for a similar thesis concerning common sense in
Science.
Anti-realists and realists often supported the thesis affirming that it was hopeless to
look for a relation between science and common sense theory because this relation has been
broken. Nevertheless, Strawson gives a strong argument against the opinion that there is a
common sense theory, which is in disagreement with a scientific theory. So, the very question
does not concern the distinction between the common sense theory (the theory about
phenomenal pictures) and the scientific theory but concerns the distinction between common
sense and scientific theory.
In other words, there is not an elementary or evident first level theory on what there is,
independent from all scientific activity, and which is only afterwards substantiated and
developed by scientific explanation. Rather, the scientific explanation concerns already the
articulation and the expansion of the common sense schema. This is the reason why the terms
“knowledge of” and “knowledge that” should be replaced by “object-competence” and “metacompetence”: these new terms underlie that there are not two different kinds of knowledge
but only two co-relational aspects.
This naturally does not imply that there could not exist common sense sentences,
which are true or false from a higher level or scientific point of view. Indeed, their truth or
falsehood was rather the expression of their adequacy regarding a choice of a scientific
system. Herewith truth in science became in principle hypothetical in character (Poincaré).
Such a position was denounced as a scientistic view. But I think one can effectively limit
arbitrary relativism by the adoption of a dialogical framework. In doing so, one can
distinguish a “primary” dialogical game where the practical skills of object-competence and
meta-competence are a source of knowledge without being knowledge. I exemplify this
model in elementary arithmetic.
Associate Professor Ihor Karivets’
Chair of Philosophy at L’viv Politechnic University
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On the nature of common and scientific knowledge.
Post(non)classical research.
In the paper we would like to suggest that common and scientific knowledge derive
from the thirst to know, which is based on the principle of pleasure. People are ruled by the
principle of pleasure in their everyday life. We compare common and scientific knowledge
and make conclusion that both of them have something in common. They are both limited,
incomplete, repeated, experienced, practical. We can say that the destiny of man is
enlightened ignorance. An ordinary man seeks compensation for his own ignorance in the
every day repeatition of known facts, habits, stereotypes and schemes of cognition. Also, we
emphasize that common and scientific knowledge are not completely reflexive, therefore they
contain non-reflexive elements.
Aristotele said that human is a creature who thirsts for knowledge even without
realizing it. The aspiration to know the world makes the man dependent on the knowledge and
then cognition becomes a drug. As it is known from psychoanalysis, the man is ruled in
his/her life by the principle of pleasure. When the scientist discovers laws of nature or
something new, he/she gets satisfaction from it. When an ordinary man discovers for
himself/herself new countries or drinks his/her first glass of wine, then by getting new
impressions and emotions, he/she also gets satisfaction from it.
So we can make a preliminary conclusion that common and scientific knowledge are
based on the the principle of pleasure, which evokes in man a thirst to know the world. That is
why, the so-called pure theoretical knowledge is impossible, because it is also based on the
thirst for truth (Plato said that Eros pushes a man to cognition; Eros is the cause of such a
thirst). The common ground of the common and scientific knowledge is the principle of
pleasure. There is no division between them in this aspect, because both depend on the wish
to know.
Igor Ly
LPHS-Archives Poincaré (UMR 7117 CNRS)
Université de Nancy2
« Espace commun et espace géométrique dans la philosophie de Poincaré »
« Common space and geometrical space in Poincaré's philosophy »
Au sein de ses écrits philosophiques relatifs à l’origine de la notion mathématique
d’espace, Poincaré distingue ce qu’il appelle « l’espace sensible » – qui n’est en rien spatial –
de l’espace géométrique, le premier étant précisément à l’origine du second. Ce point est fort
connu. Si l’on prend par ailleurs en considération les nombreuses affirmations par lesquelles
Poincaré oppose le sens commun et la connaissance scientifique, et en particulier la
composante mathématique de celle-ci, on peut se demander quel statut peut être assigné au
sein de sa philosophie à ce que nous appellerons l’espace commun, c’est-à-dire aux notions
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spatiales non mathématiques, associées notamment aux termes spatiaux des langues usuelles
comme ceux de « lieu », de « direction », de « distance », etc. Il ne fait en effet guère de doute
que nous possédons de telles notions qui préexistent à l’élaboration mathématique de la
géométrie. Poincaré rend-il compte de cela et réserve-t-il une place à cet espace commun ?
L’objet de notre communication est de montrer que l’on peut donner une réponse
positive à cette question. Pour ce faire, nous examinerons deux articles de Poincaré consacrés
à la géométrie, dans lesquels apparaît explicitement la mention d’un « espace grossier » qui ne
saurait s’identifier ni à l’espace sensible ni à l’espace géométrique. Nous tâcherons de
montrer que cet espace correspond à l’espace commun et qu’il joue un rôle – parfois implicite
– dans la façon dont Poincaré conçoit l’élaboration de la notion mathématique d’espace à
partir de l’espace sensible.
Un tel examen éclaire cette conception en permettant notamment de distinguer de
façon précise ce qui relève de catégories spécifiquement mathématiques au sein de
l’élaboration de la notion d’espace géométrique. Ce sont ainsi des éléments de réponse à la
question de savoir ce qui distingue, selon Poincaré, la connaissance commune de la
connaissance mathématique que nous espérons dégager de cette étude.
Sébastien Réhault
LPHS-Archives Poincaré (UMR 7117 CNRS)
Université de Nancy2
Aesthetic properties in a physical world
If one adopts the view called physicalism, roughly speaking the view that only science
can tell the truth about what the world is like, then a lot of what commonly counts as
knowledge falls short. In fact all propositions containing non physical predicates, although
very useful and meaningful in human life, become literally false : the qualities and properties
which they denote can’t really exist. Among the many predicates used by common sense that
cannot be construed in a realist way from a physicalist point of view, we find aesthetic
predicates such as « beautiful », « ugly », « delicate » or « garish ». The way such predicates
are commonly used suggests that the properties they denote are really within things and not
only expressions of feelings or other mental states. But that can’t be the case if one endorses
an ontology that only admits physical properties and entities. One must eliminate that kind of
properties from the fabric of the world or construe them as projections of mental states,
themselves reducible to physical processes. As a consequence our ordinary aesthetic practice
and the normativity that attaches with it looks quite irrational, because none of our aesthetic
attributions can be objectively true. Common aesthetic discussions will inevitably be replaced
by psychological explanations, themselves replaced by physical explanations.
My aim is to defend aesthetic realism and the possibility of aesthetic knowledge
against physicalism : aesthetic properties are real and our ordinary aesthetic attributions can
bear on an independent reality when made in appropriate conditions. I argue that all attempts
to eliminate or reduce aesthetic properties are untenable, leading to absurdities or
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unconvincing explanations, and that correct aesthetic attributions grasp fundamental aspects
of the world. But in no way do I argue for a Platonic view of aesthetic properties : they do not
constitute a realm detached from the physical world. Neither do I argue for a strong antirealist
conception of science, namely the view that the scientific conception of the world must be
construed in a strictly instrumental way. The link between the physical and the aesthetic levels
of reality will be understood in terms of supervenience and human dispositions. The
supervenience thesis is essential to make aesthetic realism plausible: it does preserve the
irreducibility of the aesthetics properties while conforming to the intuition that physical
properties have a kind of ontological priority to non physical properties. I also discuss the
thesis endorsed by Eddy Zemach that physical explanations take aesthetic considerations into
account and that physicalism can’t deny the cognitive function of aesthetic attributions
without contradiction.
The purpose of this investigation is of course not to survey all the questions that arise
from the dualism of common knowledge and scientific knowledge. But the case of aesthetic
properties can be seen as paradigmatic, for aesthetic knowledge actually exhibits all the
defects of common knowledge in their pure form. So if anti-physicalism succeeds here, it
should succeed elsewhere. While modest in scope, the results of this reflection should benefit
other fields of common knowledge containing non physical information about the world.
Dr Fabien Schang
Do they refer to the same “thing”? On the identity of logical constants
For ‘a man in the street’ it is commonsensical both that either it is raining or not, on the one
hand, and that it cannot rain and not rain at the same time, on the other hand. In contrast, for
the ‘man in the university’ the above statements fail in some non-classical logical systems,
especially intuitionist and paraconsistent logic. Who is right? Both, and neither… as long as
the following data are not clearly defined: truth, falsity, negation, i.e. logical constants in a
formal system
(1) As against the actual widespread view, it will be noticed that the rejection of the law of
excluded middle (hereafter: LEM) and the law of non-contradiction (hereafter; LNC)
is not so obvious even for a non-classical logician. After all, did intuitionists really
challenge the principle or “law” of excluded middle as such, or a similar but not
identical formula? The same question can be addressed to paraconsistentists
concerning the “principle” of non-contradiction. Quine nad Slatyer argued that
paraconsistentists do not know the meaning of negation when they reject LNC; in
contrast Béziau and Restall reply that the pure properties of negations are not
constrained to the sole truth-conditions for the classical negation. Now, do LEM and
LNC rule anything else than classical negation, that is, contradictory propositional
relations?
(2) In order to settle the problem, three-valued logics will be used while reinstating some
more complex versions of LEM and LNC within a modal logic of truth, by the way,
intuitionist logic can be viewed either as a weak extension of or as a deviation from
classical logic. But how can one and the same logic include and be included in another
logic? Is it still the same object? Think about the metaphysical problem of cross -
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identity for individual constants through possible worlds; the same does here, as the
logical problem of cross-identity for logical constants through possible systems.
(3) The aim of this talk is not to argue definitely for or against logical pluralism, but to
ask questions about the identity of logical systems and their formulas. Should we
employ a syntactic or semantic criterion for this purpose? Such a problem is
meaningful unless it is impossible to ensure the meaning of logical constants; as a
particular but crucial case in point, we’ll consider the putative ‘pure’properties of
logical negation and relate it with the notion of dichotomy, or complementation. Is
there just one logical and, if not, what makes a distinction between the several ones?
Dr habil. Anne-Françoise Schmid
(INSA de Lyon et Archives Poincaré)
La question du sens commun en épistémologie des théories et en épistémologie des modèles
On connaissait bien les problématiques des rapports entre les sciences et le sens commun dans
l’épistémologie dont le concept central était la théorie, rapport à la fois de « coupure » (la
science critique les objets du sens commun) et de continuité (la science, comme le sens
commun, admet son rapport au réel sans le problématiser). Les « objets » y sont
« théoriques », au sens où les traits pertinents sont construits en fonction d’une théorie
(mécanique, électricité, etc…). Avec la modélisation, les objets deviennent de plus en plus
concrets et proches du sens commun : l’environnement, l’eau, le cancer, selon l’énumération
de l’ancien président de la République Française. Plus un objet est concret, plus il demande
des stratégies interdisciplinaires, et devient complexe. Qu’en est-il dans ce nouveau contexte
du rapport de la science au sens commun ? Où se situent les frontières entre le commun et le
complexe ? Ce sont elles qui détermineront les rapports des stratégies modélisatrices et du
sens commun, maintenant souvent informé. On en tirera quelques conséquences sur la
question de l’identité et des critères de la science face au sens commun.
Dr Marek Pepliński
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology Gdańsk University
Chair of Philosophy WSG Bydgoszcz
Is there one unique set of epistemic desiderata?
Let us call, as William Alston does, the features of beliefs that are positively valuable from
epistemic point of view “epistemic desiderata”. There are some candidates for epistemic
desiderata; the set of such desiderata could contain such things as being true, being justified
(in different meanings of that term), being instances of knowledge, being based on adequate
evidence, being reliably formed, being instances of wisdom etc. First, Im m going to examine
Alston’s proposition to alter the meaning of this term. Next, I want to consider the claim that
there is only one set of such positively valuable features of belief or features that are
epistemically valuable in general and argue that it is false.
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Professor Roger Pouivet
Nancy-Université, Université Nancy 2, LPHS Archives Poincaré, (CNRS, UMR 7117)
Epistemic Circles, Common Sense, and Epistemic Virtues
According to Thomas Reid, one principle of common sense is:
. . . that the natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error, are
not fallacious. If any man should demand a proof of this, it is impossible to
satisfy him. For suppose it should be mathematically demonstrated, this
would signify nothing in this case; because, to judge of a demonstration, a
man must trust his faculties, and take for granted the very thing in question.
(An Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, VI, 5).
This paper comments on Reid’s claim, focusing on the notion of epistemic circularity implicit
in it. Contrary to what Foundationalists and Skeptics think, epistemic circularity can be
“benign”, and not a bad thing from the epistemological point of view. In a certain sense,
benign epistemic circularity and common sense are one and the same. The reliability and
trustworthiness of our faculties are common sense intuitions that permit knowledge, rather
than posing obstacles to scientific knowledge. It may be asked, “What is common to scientific
and common knowledge?” Not their objects or their methods, which are admittedly quite
different. Yet, Gaston Bachelard, for example, was wrong to think that there is a great gap
between them. They both depend on the same human faculties, and upon the best use of these
faculties, which characterize our intellectual life and represent the highest development of our
human nature. Such a life may be called an “epistemically virtuous life”.
Dr Monika Walczak
Department of Methodology and Philosophy of Science
Faculty of Philosophy
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
Science and Common Sense in the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)
T
The paper discusses relations (similarities and differences) between science and
common sense in the context of the philosophy of a Canadian philosopher and theologian
Bernard Lonergan, especially in his Opus vitae: Insight: A Study of Human Understanding
(London 1957, the Critical Edition: Toronto 1992). Lonergan's philosophy is located at the
crossroads of different philosophical traditions: thomism, transcendentalism of I. Kant,
phenomenology and existentialism. It is interpreted as a form of transcendental thomism, or as
a version of phenomenology (self-appropriation phenomenology). The main subject matter of
Lonergan's philosophy is knowing, a cognitional activity of a particular knowing subject. His
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basic thrust is toward "methodology". He tries to understand how the human mind works,
and/or should work in the act of knowing and the process of building up a body of knowledge.
Lonergan's transcendental method is seen as epistemology with the ambition of giving
methodological and metaphysical grounds for philosophy, theology and contemporary science
and culture. Lonergan tries to answer the question about the conditions of the possibility of
knowledge and about the role of the human subject in the acquisition of knowledge that
claims to be concerned with reality. He looks for answers in a phenomenological analysis of
the human subject in the entire range of his/her conscious and intentional life.
Science (mathematics and the natural sciences) is treated by Lonergan as a
paradigmatic pattern of knowing. Although the dynamic structure of knowing (experiencing,
understanding, judging) and generating knowledge is immanent and recurrently operative in
every human cognitional activity, it is science – with its method – which is most effective in
achieving valuable epistemic results in investigating the world. The dynamic structure of
knowing is also operative in common sense (common sense knowing), but its range of
interests and its aims are more diverse than in science. The most important difference between
science and common sense consists in the degree of realization of the intellectual pattern of
experience. The scientist as such – more than other people – develops a habit (a disposition)
of discriminating between his/her purely epistemic (intellectual) activities and the many other,
"existential" concerns that invade and mix with the operations of the mind. The scientist is
interested in being an objective knower and in a self-appropriation, i.e. the process of getting
oneself into the intellectual pattern of experience in order to attain a detached, disinterested,
unrestricted desire to know. The desire to know manifests itself in dissatisfaction with the
actual state of knowledge and the raising of new questions.
To discuss Lonergan's position I address the following issues: (1) Lonergan's
intellectual biography, (2) a general account of his philosophy, (3) his characteristics of
science, (4) his position on common sense, and (5) his views on relations between science and
common sense.
Professor Jan Hertrich -Woleński
Institute of Philosophy
(Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
Does ‘common’ mean the same in ‘common sense’, ‘common knowledge’ and ‘common
law’ ?
The adjective “common” plays an important role in jurisprudence and philosophy. As far as
the matter concerns philosophical issues, we have Scottish philosophy of common sense
(Thomas Reid) and G.E. Moore’s famous essay “In Defence of Common Sense”. British as
well as American legal system is usually called “common law” and contrasted with
continental legal culture. For my talk it is not particularly important that common law is
made by courts and precedents and continental law develops mainly by issuing statutes. I am
interested in the meaning of “common” in “common law” and “common sense”. A typical
legal explanation is that common law consists of rules shared by a community (lex
communis). However, we have also the term “sensus communis” used by ancient and
medieval philosophers. If we look for principles of legal interpretation embodied by common
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law, we can say that they appeal to elementary rational principles of justice and rationality
assumed to be common to all people. Moore argued that some strange idealistic philosophical
views can be refuted by using evident common belief. It is a temptation to interpret
philosophical “common sense” as “ordinary”. This seems incorrect. We should rather think
about “common sense” as natural rationality of humans.
Associate Professor dr hab. Renata Ziemińska
Institute of Philosophy Szczecin University
Common Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge: Difference and Interdependence
Common and scientific knowledge are two kinds of human knowledge (justified true
beliefs). Scientific knowledge, approximately, is knowledge with specific features: new in the
world, gained by using established methods, rationally justified on a basis of empirical data
and in a system of other accepted beliefs (systematic), expressed in inter-subjective and
precise language, and self-improving (critical and fallible).
Common knowledge contains all information we encounter in everyday life and
reasonably accept as our beliefs (the standards of reasonability are not very demanding; hurry
and emotions are tolerated). It probably (if the condition of truth is fulfilled) encloses most of
our everyday beliefs about the world, maybe some popular religious, moral and esthetical
beliefs, some practical knowledge how to earn money or get food, how to communicate and
make decisions etc. The common beliefs are practical and useful but difficult to express in
exact language.
Scientific knowledge is different from common knowledge (language, justification,
method). But the strict demarcation is a problem. Many philosophers say that science has no
method, no superiority over other kinds of knowledge and that the demarcation is artificial.
We must admit that science is small part of human life and culture and that practical
knowledge is more fundamental for everyday survival and happiness. But we also see that
scientific practices are better than any set of non-scientific practices for reliable and effective
predictions.
There is a dynamic interdependence between those two kinds of human knowledge.
First, scientific knowledge is dependent on common knowledge both as source and everyday
support. Second, scientific knowledge is more effective and reliable and in this sense superior
to common knowledge. Scientific knowledge provides intellectual enrichment and leads to
technological advances. Third, applied and popularized scientific knowledge is taught at
schools and partly incorporated into common knowledge. But, fourth, common sense must
still supervise science to avoid effects like environmental degradation. Common knowledge
usually supervises our activities, so it also supervises scientific practices.