For many years, the debate on the relationship between science and philosophy has been centred on the idea, that can be traced back to Hume, that only science deals with meaningful problems, as only scientific hypotheses are testable, i.e. can be subjected to verification or falsification. This doctrine has been revived this century by Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" and by philosophers of the Wien Circle. According to the latter, philosophical issues are either completely devoid of sense or, at most, manifestations of emotions. Although science philosophers such as Popper, Lakatos and Feyerabend would not completely agree with this idea, this view is still the predominant one among scientists, even those who are not involved in the philosophy of science. This book sets out to present the case that this separation between science and philosophy is unwarranted. The big philosophical problems have been thought to be as the same nature of the scientific ones at least up to the Eighteen century. In the England of Darwin, biology, physics and cosmology were seen as scientific problems which were relevant not only to philosophy but also to theology. In the present book the author suggests that there is only one rational way to access objective knowledge, and that this is by the scientific method. This method is broadly defined as a way to investigate the world outside and inside us by a continuous feedback with the external reality. As is widely recognised, the scientific method allows for any kind of hypothesis to be made with the only requirement being that they must start from and return to experience. It is argued that philosophical issues can be addressed in the same way. The classical themes, such as our origin, our destiny or the meaning of our life must be tackled by starting with the data of experience and constructing hypotheses in agreement with it. According to this view, philosophy is defined as the set of scientific propositions which are relevant to the classical problems mentioned above, which have been the focus of philosophy and theology for centuries, indeed from the beginning of the culture of modern man. In constructing the case for his argument, the author reviews data from biological science, which is his main field of professional interest, and shows how many biological propositions have relevance to the old fundamental philosophical problems. The first chapter is devoted to a brief review of the relationship between science and philosophy throughout history, how the foundations of knowledge evolved, and a presentation of scientific methodology, which alone can bring us near to the truth. The fact that knowledge evolved from the selection by nature of appropriate responses in small animals to the environment is the main reason for which our brain can at least partially match reality. This could be the solution to the old problem of the correspondence between our thought and the world, the basis of what Leibniz called "pre-established Harmony". We have some access to reality because reality itself fabricated our brain and our perception faculties, which our interaction with the external word depends on. Chapters 2 to 8 examine different biological fields, directly showing how they interact with our Weltanschauung, i.e. that they provide us with a lot of data and ideas on which we can build our outlook on the world. Briefly, chapter 2 deals with the current description of the basic life phenomena at the cellular level, which can satisfactorily be described at the molecular level according to chemical and physical laws. Chapter 3 concentrates on the concept of evolution as a unifying theory which permeates all investigation of the living: this includes the appearance of the genus Homo in the last million years. Chapter 4 tackles the problems of the relationship between genes and behaviour, examining whether recent claims of sociobiologists hold true: particular emphasis is given to the recent investigative approach to altruism, whose appearance and development they believe to have explained. Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 highlight different biological data related to the problem of mind and self-consciousness. Over the last twenty years a new research field, that of cognitive science, has developed, replacing the doctrine of behaviourism which was prevalent up to thirty years ago. Cognitive science aims to study consciousness scientifically, and chapter 5 introduces this concept. Chapter 6 investigates the approach to human thought taken by artificial intelligence. Chapter 7 lists some data on damage to the high cortical functions occurring in many pathological settings and leading to modifications on intelligent and moral behaviour. Chapter 8 is about language, its birth and evolution in humans and its existence in non human primates. The third part is a discussion of the data reviewed in part 2. In chapter 9 it is shown that by approaching philosophical problems using the scientific method we can avoid Hume's curse, that is the invitation to burn books which do not deal with mathematical or empirical issues. If philosophy is a set of propositions acquired according to scientific rules, they cannot be excluded from those which are meaningful: it therefore follows that we can speak about them. Having established the possibility of speaking about philosophical issues, chapter 10 is devoted to a discussion of the classical Paley's argument, according to which the order which pervades the entire biological world needs an explanation: current data strongly supports the view that the order inside this world is controlled by physical laws, but what about the order as a whole? Chapter 11 discusses the explanations put forth for the mind/soul/self problem by neuroscientists, philosophers, computer scientists, and others: all these explanations are not really satisfactory from a scientific point of view because this problem still eludes us. Chapter 12 examines the issue of free will and the case against it raised by determinists, examining the argument that, if everything can be explained by physical laws, the existence of free will is problematic, as suggested more than 20 centuries ago by Epicurus in his "Letter to Menoeceus". Finally, chapter 13 investigates whether the adoption of the scientific method itself is arbitrary and whether it restricts us to a narrow world outlook, as sometimes suggested by the atypical science philosopher, Paul Feyerabend. Summarising, the book's main thesis is that the classical philosophical themes are extremely interesting, scientifically addressable and vital to human life, as demonstrated by the debates arising from the data gathered in the framework of biological sciences.
Affermare che la Filosofia sia un sottoinsieme della Scienza, o più precisamente che l'insieme delle proposizioni filosofiche debba essere compreso all'interno dell'insieme delle proposizioni scientifiche, cioè ancorate alla realtà empirica, potrebbe apparire eretico sia ai filosofi che agli scienziati. Tuttavia questo è quanto il presente libro sostiene con due diversi tipi di argomentazioni. Il primo consiste nell'adottare un'accezione ampia di Scienza del tipo di quella in vigore presso gli antichi Greci (scienza come conoscenza, senza ulteriori distinzioni) e nel definire come Filosofia l'insieme delle proposizioni di interesse "vitale" per l'uomo. Il secondo è di mostrare di fatto quante di queste proposizioni vitali per l'uomo siano presenti nel settore della Scienza che va sotto il nome di Biologia. L'autore esamina tutto ciò che la Biologia ci dice sui fenomeni viventi e su come si sono formati nel corso dell'evoluzione, sulla relazione tra geni e personalità, sulla coscienza, il linguaggio e gli altri aspetti che hanno a che fare con la specificità della natura umana. In tal modo, secondo l'autore, le motivazioni di due grandi movimenti filosofici del XX secolo, quello neopositivista e quello esistenzialista, trovano una certa conciliazione. Le esigenze dell'esistenzialismo sono la radice del bisogno dell'uomo a far filosofia, mentre l'aderenza alla realtà empirica richiesta dal neopositivismo costituisce il prerequisito con cui le problematiche filosofiche vanno affrontate.
Intersezioni. Questioni biologiche di rilevanza filosofica
2000
Abstract
For many years, the debate on the relationship between science and philosophy has been centred on the idea, that can be traced back to Hume, that only science deals with meaningful problems, as only scientific hypotheses are testable, i.e. can be subjected to verification or falsification. This doctrine has been revived this century by Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" and by philosophers of the Wien Circle. According to the latter, philosophical issues are either completely devoid of sense or, at most, manifestations of emotions. Although science philosophers such as Popper, Lakatos and Feyerabend would not completely agree with this idea, this view is still the predominant one among scientists, even those who are not involved in the philosophy of science. This book sets out to present the case that this separation between science and philosophy is unwarranted. The big philosophical problems have been thought to be as the same nature of the scientific ones at least up to the Eighteen century. In the England of Darwin, biology, physics and cosmology were seen as scientific problems which were relevant not only to philosophy but also to theology. In the present book the author suggests that there is only one rational way to access objective knowledge, and that this is by the scientific method. This method is broadly defined as a way to investigate the world outside and inside us by a continuous feedback with the external reality. As is widely recognised, the scientific method allows for any kind of hypothesis to be made with the only requirement being that they must start from and return to experience. It is argued that philosophical issues can be addressed in the same way. The classical themes, such as our origin, our destiny or the meaning of our life must be tackled by starting with the data of experience and constructing hypotheses in agreement with it. According to this view, philosophy is defined as the set of scientific propositions which are relevant to the classical problems mentioned above, which have been the focus of philosophy and theology for centuries, indeed from the beginning of the culture of modern man. In constructing the case for his argument, the author reviews data from biological science, which is his main field of professional interest, and shows how many biological propositions have relevance to the old fundamental philosophical problems. The first chapter is devoted to a brief review of the relationship between science and philosophy throughout history, how the foundations of knowledge evolved, and a presentation of scientific methodology, which alone can bring us near to the truth. The fact that knowledge evolved from the selection by nature of appropriate responses in small animals to the environment is the main reason for which our brain can at least partially match reality. This could be the solution to the old problem of the correspondence between our thought and the world, the basis of what Leibniz called "pre-established Harmony". We have some access to reality because reality itself fabricated our brain and our perception faculties, which our interaction with the external word depends on. Chapters 2 to 8 examine different biological fields, directly showing how they interact with our Weltanschauung, i.e. that they provide us with a lot of data and ideas on which we can build our outlook on the world. Briefly, chapter 2 deals with the current description of the basic life phenomena at the cellular level, which can satisfactorily be described at the molecular level according to chemical and physical laws. Chapter 3 concentrates on the concept of evolution as a unifying theory which permeates all investigation of the living: this includes the appearance of the genus Homo in the last million years. Chapter 4 tackles the problems of the relationship between genes and behaviour, examining whether recent claims of sociobiologists hold true: particular emphasis is given to the recent investigative approach to altruism, whose appearance and development they believe to have explained. Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 highlight different biological data related to the problem of mind and self-consciousness. Over the last twenty years a new research field, that of cognitive science, has developed, replacing the doctrine of behaviourism which was prevalent up to thirty years ago. Cognitive science aims to study consciousness scientifically, and chapter 5 introduces this concept. Chapter 6 investigates the approach to human thought taken by artificial intelligence. Chapter 7 lists some data on damage to the high cortical functions occurring in many pathological settings and leading to modifications on intelligent and moral behaviour. Chapter 8 is about language, its birth and evolution in humans and its existence in non human primates. The third part is a discussion of the data reviewed in part 2. In chapter 9 it is shown that by approaching philosophical problems using the scientific method we can avoid Hume's curse, that is the invitation to burn books which do not deal with mathematical or empirical issues. If philosophy is a set of propositions acquired according to scientific rules, they cannot be excluded from those which are meaningful: it therefore follows that we can speak about them. Having established the possibility of speaking about philosophical issues, chapter 10 is devoted to a discussion of the classical Paley's argument, according to which the order which pervades the entire biological world needs an explanation: current data strongly supports the view that the order inside this world is controlled by physical laws, but what about the order as a whole? Chapter 11 discusses the explanations put forth for the mind/soul/self problem by neuroscientists, philosophers, computer scientists, and others: all these explanations are not really satisfactory from a scientific point of view because this problem still eludes us. Chapter 12 examines the issue of free will and the case against it raised by determinists, examining the argument that, if everything can be explained by physical laws, the existence of free will is problematic, as suggested more than 20 centuries ago by Epicurus in his "Letter to Menoeceus". Finally, chapter 13 investigates whether the adoption of the scientific method itself is arbitrary and whether it restricts us to a narrow world outlook, as sometimes suggested by the atypical science philosopher, Paul Feyerabend. Summarising, the book's main thesis is that the classical philosophical themes are extremely interesting, scientifically addressable and vital to human life, as demonstrated by the debates arising from the data gathered in the framework of biological sciences.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
