Aristotelian Perspectives For Post-modern Reason (i)
Notes
[^1] I have reserved the term ‘post-modern’ and derivatives, hyphenated, simply to refer to the time coming after the modern period. I shall use the term ‘postmodern’ in reference to a given style of philosophy, with a tendency to the so-called weak thought, relativism and æstheticism. This type of thought is post-modern chronologically, but typically modern in content, for it is a reaction like so many others that have counterpointed the progress of the enlightened rationalist project (nominalist, relativist and romantic, nihilist, existentialist, vitalist and irrationalist currents, etc.). The terms ‘actual’ and ‘Actual Age’ are used to designate a certain content for post-modern time, a different content, of course, from the merely postmodern, a content inspired in the notions of act, actuality, and action. So, ‘Actual Age’ will be the name of a period, like ‘Modern Age’, or rather, far from any historicist interpretation, the name of a proposal to give content to the post-modern period, which may or may not be fulfilled.
[^2] I do not mean by this that this is the explanatory key of modernity. I eschew the very notion of explanatory key when we are confronted by such a complex and somewhat diffuse historical phenomenon.
[^3] The notion of prudence is closely linked in Aristotle to practical truth. Practical truth may be useful to us in the present debate to integrate the objective and constructive aspects of science. The study of practical truth complements then, that of prudence. For reasons of brevity, I cannot go into it here, but would refer the reader to the second part of this paper: ‘Aristotelian Perspectives for Post-modern Reason (II). Practical Truth and Creative Discovery’.
[^4] Here I only study the valuation of certainty in its link with practical thought and then only in some especially important authors. A more thorough treatment of this topic may be found in A. Marcos (forthcoming): Hacia una filosofía de la ciencia amplia. Tecnos, Madrid.
[^5] Husserl, E. (1976) Die Krisis der Europäischen Wissenschaften und die Transzendentale Phänomenologie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers).
[^6] Kolakowski, L. (1975) Husserl and the Search for Certitude (New Haven: Yale University Press).
[^7] Clarke, D. (1982) Descartes' Philosophy of Science (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
[^8] Author's translation from: Descartes, R. (1969) ‘Secondes Reponses’, in Oeuvres de Descartes Publiées par Charles Adams & Paul Tannery (Paris: Vrin), vol. IX-1, pp. 113-[^4]:
[^9] Author's translation from: Descartes, R. (1969) ‘Secondes Reponses’, in Oeuvres de Descartes Publiées par Charles Adams & Paul Tannery (Paris: Vrin), vol. IX-1, p. [^111]:
[^10] Author's translation from: Descartes, R. (1969) ‘Descartes à Mersenne, 5 octobre 1637’, in Oeuvres de Descartes Publiées par Charles Adams & Paul Tannery. (Paris: Vrin), vol. I, p. [^450]:
[^11] See Rossi, P. (1974) Francesco Bacone (Torino: Einaudi editore).
[^12] Quoted by Rossi op. cit., p. [^24]:
[^13] Author's translation from: Descartes, R. (1969) ‘Lettre-Preface aux Principes de la Philosophie’, in Oeuvres de Descartes Publiées par Charles Adams & Paul Tannery. (Paris: Vrin), vol. IX-2, p. [^14]:
[^14] Hume, D. (1964) 'Introduction to A Treatise of Human Nature', in Thomas Hill Green and Thomas Hodge Grose (eds.), David Hume: The Philosophical Works (Darmstadt, Germany: Scientia Verlag Aalen), vol. I, p. [^310]:
[^15] In this regard, see Hume’s essay That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science.
[^16] Hume, D (1964) A Treatise of Human Nature, [^2]:3.3., in Thomas Hill Green and Thomas Hodge Grose (eds.), David Hume: The Philosophical Works (Darmstadt, Germany: Scientia Verlag Aalen), vol. II, p. 195.
[^17] This interpretation, which I consider extremely valid, is clearly set out in Musgrave, A. (1993) Common Sense, Science and Scepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), chapter [^8]:
[^18] Popper, K (1972) Objective Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 94-[^95]: (My bold type.)
[^19] Cf. Aubenque, P. (1993) La prudence chez Aristote (Paris: P.U.F), appendix III.
[^20] Which confirms, by the way, that a post-modern conception of science obliges us to also reconsider practical philosophy, as we are doing here.
[^21] Jonas, H. (1984) The Imperative of Responsability: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Originally published as Jonas, H. (1979) Das Prinzip Verantwortung: Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation (Frankfurt am Main: Insel verlag).
[^22] Aubenque: op. cit., p. [^195]:
[^23] Regarding the line of development from Kant to Nietzsche, see Conill, J. (1997) El poder de la mentira (Madrid: Tecnos).
[^24] The third critique perhaps comes nearer to the idear of phronesis, with a reflexive judgement on reason, as Heidegger points out and Gadamer reiterates, but so far it has been impossible to follow this line. In this regard, see Chateau, J. (ed.) (1997) La vérité pratique (Paris: Vrin), p. 251 n. [^1]:
[^25] Kuhn, T. (1977) The essential tension: selected studies in scientific tradition and change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), p. [^331]:
[^26] Ethica Nicomachea (EN) 1140b 4 et seq.; see also 1140b 20 et seq. I take aristotelian texts in their english translation from Ross, W.D. and Smith, J.A. (eds.) (1908-1952) The Works of Aristotle Translated into English (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
[^27] On Aristotelian prudence, see Bodéüs, R. (1993) The Political Dimensions of Aristotle’s Ethics (Albany, NY: S.U.N.Y. Press), pp. 27-[^30]: An extensive monograph on EN VI may be seen in Chateau, J. (ed.) (1997) La vérité pratique, (Paris: Vrin). For the understanding of Book VI of EN, an indispensable work is Aubenque, P. (1963 [new edition, 1993]) La prudence chez Aristote, (Paris: P.U.F.). The chapter by Emilio Lledó on Aristotle’s practical philosophy, in Camps, V. (ed.) (1988) Historia de la ética (Barcelona: Crítica), is also very helpful.
[^28] EN 1140a 23-[^24]:
[^29] EN 1143b 10-[^13]:
[^30] EN 1141b [^21]:
[^31] EN 1141a 26-[^28]:
[^32] EN 1144a 1 et seq.
[^33] EN 1106b 36 et seq.
[^34] EN 1138b [^22]:25.
[^35] EN 1142a [^12]:21.
[^36] EN 1144a 35-[^36]:
[^37] See also EN X [^9]:
[^38] EN 1143b [^4]:
[^39] EN 1137b 18-[^19]:
[^40] Aristotle deals with equity in EN V [^10]:
[^41] EN 1137b 13-[^15]:
[^42] EN 1107a 27-[^31]:
[^43] EN 1142a 34 et seq.
[^44] EN 1139a 26 et seq.
[^45] Aubenque: op. cit., p. [^19]:
[^46] EE 1244b [^24]:26; EN 1178b 18-19.
[^47] EN 1178b 34 et seq.
[^48] EN 1139b 4-[^6]:
[^49] Nobody denies the existence of methods, in the plural, and standardized guidelines in science, as they exist, indeed, in any other human activity, however little developed, including the purely artistic ones. These methods, as Chateau (1997) suggests, are in the hands of prudence and out of its hands they were born (Aristotle said that the hand was the instrument of instruments). There are methods for gathering statistical data, for carrying out pharmaceutical controls and for designing experiments with particles or proteins. But these methods are plural, and are applied to very specific processes - they have not steered research from the beginning but have been the fruit of it, generated during research, and are subject to criticism, control and checking. What is denied here is the existence of the great universal, uniform, and logical scientific method. What is denied is the existence of a logic machine to produce or justify with certainty what science enounces. What is denied is the existence of a metamethod to generate, monitor and check the first-order methods and standardized procedures. What is denied most forcefully here is the identification of this supposed scientific method with human reason.
[^50] Popper, K. (1983) Realism and the aim of science (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield), pp. 5-[^6]:
[^51] The information in this paragraph is taken from a short autobiographical piece, ‘Concerning the Author’, in Buchler, J. (ed.) (1955) Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover), pp. 1-[^4]:
[^52] C.S. Peirce, C.S. (1955) ‘The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism’, in J. Buchler (ed.), Philosophical Writings of Peirce, (New York: Dover), p.[^53]: (My italics.)
[^53] In this regard, see Rescher, N. (1984) The Limits of Science (Berkeley: University of California Press), chap. [^7]:
[^54] Nobody has expressed more beautifully or more concisely what method is, along with track and wake, than Antonio Machado in his line ‘... se hace camino al andar...’ (‘The way is in the walking.’). Nor is it easy to find a more perspicacious expression of the fallibilist attitude than Machado’s coplas: ‘Confiamos/en que no será verdad/nada de lo que pensamos’ (‘We trust/that nothing we think/will be true.’) or, in another version, ‘Confiemos/en que no sea verdad/nada de los que creemos’ (Let us hope that nothing we believe may be true.’).
[^55] Popper, K. (1983) Realism and the aim of science (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield), p. [^85]:
[^56] Popper, K. (1983) Realism and the aim of science (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield), p. [^157]:
[^57] Peirce, C.S. (1955) ‘Some Consequences of Four Incapacities’, in J. Buchler (ed.), Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover), pp. 228-[^29]: (My italics).
[^58] See Peirce, C.S. (1955) ‘The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism’, in J. Buchler (ed.), Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover), pp. 42-[^59]:
[^59] When arguing against conventionalism, Popper states: ‘My conflict with the conventionalists is not one that can be ultimately settled by a detached theoretical discussion [p.81] [...] The only way to avoid conventionalism is by taking a decision: the decision not to apply its methods’ (Popper, K. (1962) The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson), p.81-2). In conventionalism, Popper seems to see a sort of legal fraud that cannot be attacked from pure logic. To answer conventionalism, Popper sets himself more in the terrain of moral attitude than in that of pure logic.
[^60] The Oxford English Dictionary defines attitude (sense 4, attitude of mind) as deliberately adopted, or habitual, mode of regarding the object of thought, while disposition (sense 2), in the same dictionary, is [...] the condition or feeling of being (favourably or unfavourably) disposed towards, while sense 4 of disposed is [...] in a (particular) mental condition or mood.
[^61] EN 1145a 8-[^10]:
[^62] EN 1141a 18-[^20]:
[^63] EN 1140b 30-[^31]:
[^64] EN 1142a 24-[^26]:
[^65] EN 1139b 33-[^34]: This question, cannot, however, be dealt with in such a simple manner. Many considerations would have to be added for a correct evaluation of Aristotle’s position. For example, there is a text (Metaphysics M, 10) in which the typical position concerning the object of science is reviewed, and it is recognized that there may also be some kind of science of the particular. To follow this train of thought would take us too far from the present context. I deal with this question in ‘Aristotelian Perspectives for Post-modern Reason (II). Practical Truth and Creative Discovery’.
[^66] Peirce, C.S. (1955) ‘Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism’, in J. Buchler (ed.), Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover), p. [^54]: This obviously does not mean that a moratorium can never be established, or that financing a given line of research cannot stop. Sometimes this partial and provisional block of a way of inquiry may be a perfectly rational decision, as long as it is subjected to criticism and review.
[^67] This is how it is interpreted, in my view erroneously, by Richard Rorty.
[^68] I shall be citing Jonas extensively to show that the links are neither forced nor merely circumstantial. As far as I know, these links between Jonas’ thought and Peirce’s have not been explored. To my mind they are important, as they form the profile of a new idea of reason that is indeed today’s. All the quotes from Hans Jonas are from his book: Jonas, H. (1984) The Imperative of Responsability: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
[^69] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^117]:
[^70] Jonas: op. cit. pp. 119-[^20]:
[^71] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^97]:
[^72] Jonas: op. cit. pp. 117-18 (Jonas’s italics and capitals). Hence, I believe, it is possible to speak on a rational basis, together with legitimacy of origin and exercise, of a legitimacy referring to the future, and which is lost as the politician strangles the possibilities of change, or which is won with the development of pluralism.
[^73] Jonas: op. cit. pp. 121-[^22]:
[^74] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^109]:
[^75] It must be remembered that Jonas wrote this at the end of the 70s.
[^76] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^127]:
[^77] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^107]:
[^78] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^130]:
[^79] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^130]:
[^80] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^89]:
[^81] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^130]:
[^82] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^85]:
[^83] EN 1139b 4-[^6]:
[^84] Jonas: op. cit. p. 85 (italics in the original).
[^85] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^88]:
[^86] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^85]:
[^87] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^88]:
[^88] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^87]:
[^89] Jonas: op. cit. p. [^101]: