Paweł Bytniewski
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Pl. Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, Poland
Email: pbytniewski@tlen.pl
ALTHUSSER AND FOUCAULT—TWO EPISTEMOLOGIES OF READING
ABSTRACT
The philosophical reconstruction of texts, utterances, discourses, sciences—in this way we can formulate the task set in Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault’s works. Both the philosophers determine this task non-identically, although their paths often intersect with each other. Anyway, this kind of work includes a condition essential to meet the requirement of the purity of epistemological intentions. In the task of this kind a way of readings texts must be set it, namely the way which would allow to epistemologically criticize the matter of discourse-subject. The satisfaction of this condition would give the whole enterprise a character of a productive conception, enriching our knowledge on the way of speaking about the truths known in the history of thought. What is the “culture of the word” in which Althusser and Foucault have developed proposals for the epistemologically valid theory of reading? What is the richness of research programmes which have become the matrix of these reconstructions, and what is its concern to this culture? Critics, refutations or another way of special treatment? What the reform of the relation between significant and signifié they offer? These problems are considered in the paper.
Keywords: Althusser, Foucault, the culture of word, simptomal lecture, discourse.
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Małgorzata Czarnocka
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
Email: mczarnoc@ifispan.waw
SCIENCE CONSTITUTED BY INTERESTS. ON JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ CONCEPTION
ABSTRACT
I reconstruct and analyse Jürgen Habermas’ conception of three interests and subordinated to them three types of sciences; this conception has been presented mainly in his Knowledge and Interests (1968) and in the New Introduction to the fourth German edition of the Theory and Practice (1971). The present validity of the conception is due to its two properties. First, it includes a non-standard, alternative to today’s dominated view on the nature and role of science. Second, it is a currently rare theory of science founded anthropologically, with evolutionary theories threads, however, weakened in comparison with the consistent Darwinism by introducing the spiritual sphere, transcending biologicality.
Keywords: Jürgen Habermas, cognitive interest, the role of science.
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Konrad Waloszczyk
Affiliation: Higher School of Firefighting, ul. Słowackiego 52/54, 01–629 Warsaw, Poland.
Email: konradw@upcpoczta.pl
RELIGION AND SCIENCE IN THE PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN WORKS (1881–1955)
ABSTRACT
The aim of the article is a concise presentation of the main traits of the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin thought with special attention to the relationship between religion and science. There is a widely accepted opinion in commentaries to Teilhard that he has done with a far going reconciliation of these domains of culture. He has shown them up as two meridians which do not merge but are bound to converge as they approach the pole. The article also contains a reply to the critique of the Teilhardian thought put forward by some philosophers and biologists: Bertrand Russell, Peter Medawar, Richard Dawkins, Władysław Kunicki–Golfinger and Zdzisława Piątek. Their contention is that a higher consciousness is not superior to the lower, and that evolution has no direction. But how can they explain that people often love to know for its own sake? And why more cerebrated and more conscious creatures appeared in evolution not randomly and not before but always after less conscious ones? Furthermore a question has been raised whether the Teilhard’s system is in some way falsifiable. The answer has been suggested that the remarkable scientific and technological progress and the greatest in the human history wave of globalization, which all took place after his death (1955), seem to confirm his ideas.
Keywords: cosmogenesis, evolution, consciousness, noosphere, religion, science, technology.
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Rafał Michalski
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Nicholas Copernicus University, Fosa Staromiejska 1 a, 87-100 Toruń, Poland
E-mail: metasis@umk.pl
THE CONCEPT OF THE SPATIALIZED SUBJECT IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARNOLD GEHLEN
ABSTRACT
The article considers the problem of subjectivity in the light of Arnold Gehlen’s philosophical anthropology and theory of institutions. The main objective of the prsened analysis is a constructive reconstruction of the theory of subjectification, present in the work of the German anthropologist in the form of a heterogeneous, often directly unrelated motifs. Describing the successive stages of subjectification, we will show that this process occurs in a “phenomenal space” of human embodiment subordinated to the requirements of action (1), and requires a support from external institutional devices. Other discussed development stages are: the sensorimotor control and regulation of drives (2), habitualization and ritualisation of human behavior (3) and institutionalization (4). The result of these processes is, according to Gehlen, the formation of character (hexis) (5) and awareness (6).
Keywords: Arnold Gehlen, philosophical anthropology, spatialized subject, imagination, language, institution, discipline, habitualization, ritualisation, consciousness.
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Jakub Gomułka
Affiliation: Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Crocow, ul. Kanonicza 9, 31-002 Crocow, Poland.
Email: jakub.gomulka@upjp2.edu.pl
COUNTERINTUITIVE OR INCONSISTENT THEORY OF INTENTIONALITY?
A DISPUTE BETWEEN DENNETT AND SEARLE
ABSTRACT
The paper compares the conceptions of intentionality held by the two leading figures in the contemporary philosophy of mind: John Searle and Daniel Dennett. I explain the relation between Searle’s theories in philosophy of language and his theory of intentionality and his idea of three kinds of intentionality. Then I present Dennett’s theory of intentionality as an adaptive feature and his idea of intentional stances. I underline the fact that, using Searle’s vocabulary, according to Dennett no creature or artifact possesses intrinsic intentionality — all we deal with is just derived intentionality: the intentionality the observer attributes to a being in order to form a better prediction of the being’s behavior. The consequence of this standpoint is highly counterintuitive: Dennett must (and in fact does) accept a claim that the observer’s own intentionality is also only attributed to one by some other observers in order to form better prediction of one’s behavior. This claim is rejected by Searle as an obvious absurd. I argue that Searle’s standpoint is founded on the Cartesian grounds and point to the similarity between his critique of Dennett and Husserl’s critique of naturalism. Since Searle claims his conception to be naturalistic, his theory is inconsistent.
Keywords: intentionality, naturalism, artificial intelligence, syntactic machine, John R. Searle, Daniel C. Dennett.
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Barbara Trybulec
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Pl. Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, Poland
Email: barbara.trybulec@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl
WHAT DOES MICROSOFT THINK ABOUT? SOME CONTROVERSIES OVER THE GROUP AGENCY
ABSTRACT
The extended mind thesis is sometimes used in the argumentation for the group agency. Those who are ready to explain the behavior of some groups in terms of their intentional states argue that the system composed of many individuals can constitute an agent which is in many respects analogous to the individual cognitive subject. In the paper I argue that the choice between the individualistic and holistic perspectives with regard to the explanation of group behavior is determined by the chosen research problems. By indicating selected positions towards group intentional states I evaluate how far we can draw an analogy between individual and group agency.
Keywords: group agency, mental state, emergence, reductionism
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Jarosław Mrozek
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Journalism, University of Gdansk, ul. Bażyńskiego 4, 80-952 Gdansk, Poland.
Email: filjam@ug.edu.pl
IS THERE A RETREAT FROM NATURALISM IN PHYSICS?
ABSTRACT
Naturalism claims that everything that exists is Nature. There does not exist any other reality, apart from the natural one. Naturalists require that all phenomena have to be explained only by their natural causes. Natural causes are the ones that are accessible for scientific cognition. Science (physics) tries to describe this reality basing on observation and experiment as the foundation of creating theoretical constructs (theories) pertaining to natural phenomena. Mark Steiner, in his book entitled The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem, puts forward a surprising thesis that contemporary physicists in their work retreat from the naturalist vision of science because—as the author states—the real scientific activity does not comply with their basic methodological and philosophical convictions (with naturalism). To support his thesis he points to numerous cases of significant discoveries in the newest history of physics in which the decisive role was played by human imagination and not experimental facts. This way of discovering laws in contemporary physics is—in his view—antinaturalist in the sense that it relies more on human invention, on manipulating formal structures by the use of mathematical analogies than on the methods of classical empiricism. Such an approach—in his opinion—privileges a human and not naturalist (empirical) point of view. Steiner regards that it indicates a turn towards an anthropocentric viewpoint in the methodology of physics. In my view it is an over-interpretation of “natural” cognitive procedures existing in contemporary science and relying on the use of a well-known scheme: problem—hypothesis—criticism—problem modification. Moreover, Steiner’s suggestions do not match facts concerning the development of the newest cosmology in which scientific development is stimulated by using sophisticated observations.
Keywords: Mathematics, physics, structure, analogy, naturalism, anthropocentrism.
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Rafał Antoni Kupczak
PhD, a graduate of the University of Silesia in Katowice and the Academy Ignatianum in Cracow, currently an independent researcher.
Email: rafalkupczak@wp.pl
A VIEW ON THE PROBLEM OF ANTHROPOGENESIS IN THE LIGHT OF THE DISCUSSION ON THE RESULTS OF THE COMPARATIVE RESEARCH OF APES TOOL ABILITIES
ABSTRACT
The question of the origin of human tool competence is one of the key mysteries of anthropogenesis. In recent years experiments have been carried out to verify the competence in the production of stone tools by apes. Interpretations of the results of the experiments are the source of a serious controversy both in the assessment of the tool competence of apes as well as in their extrapolation of these skills to determine the sources utilities competence of our ancestors.
Keywords: anthropogenesis, hominids tool making, primates tool making, experiments with the production of stone tools.
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Krzysztof Abriszewski
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Nicholas Copernicus University, Fosa Staromiejska 1 a, 87-100 Toruń, Poland
Email: krzabr@umk.pl
US – SUBJECTS OF SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED KNOWLEDGE. REINTERPRETATIONS AND EXPANSIONS OF PETER BERGER AND THOMAS LUCKMANN’S SOCIAL PHENOMENOLOGY
ABSTRACT
In the article I attempt to realize three tasks. First, I elaborate Peter Berger’s and Thomas Luckmann’s social ontology of knowledge, mainly by referring to the concepts of everyday lifeworld, knowledge, objectification, justification, and symbolic universe. Second, I offer two interpretations of the notion of everyday lifeworld: the first using the metaphor of a cocoon or a room, and the second using the notion of a rhizome or a metaphor of a network. Third, I argue for the extending of Berger—Luckmnann’s position with Anthony Giddens’ theory of modernity and Slavoj Žižek’s theory of ideology. Such an expanded perspective derived from phenomenological social theory would enable us—I argue—to undertake the problem-posed by Michel Foucault in his What Is Enlightenment? — of analysing ourselves as subjects of knowledge.
Keywords: knowledge, social ontology of knowledge, everyday lifeworld, justification, symbolic universe, modernity, abstract systems, rhizome, ideology, desire.
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Andrzej W. Nowak
Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland
Email: andrzej.w.nowak@gmail.com
DOES RWANDA EXIST? AXIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE ONTOLOGICAL TURN IN SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY STUDIES
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to show consequences of the ontological turn in studies on science and technology. In article the author uses as a conceptual tool the concept of ontological imagination, which is a radicalization of the sociological imagination (C. W. Mills). Author analyzes three ways of interpreting the genocide in Rwanda. To avoid the relativistic deadlock he proposes a shift from the epistemocentric to ontological approach method. This shift may be defined as “ontological policies” and “ontonorms” (A. Mol). In result, ontological dimensions of axiological choices are revealed.
Keywords: ontological turn, ontological policies, social imagination, ontological imagination.
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Mirosław Chałubiński
Affiliation: Institute of Sociology, The University of Zielona Góra, Al. Wojska Polskiego 69, 65-762 Zielona Góra, Poland.
E-mail: mirek_chalubinski@onet.pl
LESZEK KOŁAKOWSKI – AN UNKNOWN CONSTRUCTIVIST
ABSTRACT
The paper presents Leszek Kołakowski’s philosophy by comparing it not only with different constructivist threads in epistemology (among others, Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism and methodological anarchism), but also with Marxist revisionism (Stanisław Brzozowski, Antonio Gramsci, György Lukács). The epistemologies emphasizing an active role of the subject in cognition are here taken into account. Their common attribute is frequently scepticism and agnosticism. The paper also shows some ideological-political implications of Kołakowski’s research in the period of the Warsaw School of History of Ideas in 1955–1968.
Keywords: Leszek Kołakowski, Richard Rorty, constructivism, active role of the cognitive subject, The Warsaw School of History of Ideas, anti-fundamentalist philosophy of science, sociology of knowledge, revisionism.
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Krzysztof Chodasewicz
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
Email: kchodasewicz@o2.pl
NATURAL SELECTION, EVOLUTION OF CULTURE, DAWKINS’S PARADOX
ABSTRACT
The article analyses the concept of memetic evolution of culture, especially the concept of natural selection assumed by it. The article shows that the replicatorinteractor conception of natural selection created by Richard Dawkins requires that the memetic hypothesis includes conditions that are extremely difficult (if not impossible) to meet. This leads to a paradox: from one hand, Dawkins is the father of the concept of Darwinian evolution of culture, from the other hand, he assumes the concept of selection impeding research on this (hypothetical) phenomenon. It is more proper to think about the Darwinian evolution of culture taking as a starting point of the standard approach of natural selection (by Lewontin, Maynard Smith and Endler). I do not state if the Darwinian evolution of culture actually takes place. I examine instead the conceptual framework of reflecting on this subject. Moreover, I consider the related issue: can culture—if it indeed evolves in a Darwinian way—be considered a form of life? I do not state if culture is alive, but analyse the preliminary problems founding a reflection on this subject.
Keywords: natural selection, Dawkins, replicator-interactor approach to natural selection, memetics, definition of life.
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Marcin Urbaniak
Affiliation: AGH University of Science and Technology, ul. Antoniego Gramatyka 8A, Cracow, Poland
Email: murbaniak78@gmail.com
PHYLOGENETIC JUSTIFICATION OF COMPREHENSION PHENOMENON AND PROCEDURAL AND DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE
ABSTRACT
The article attempts to justify the phenomenon of comprehension—functioning generally in Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s hermeneutics—from the perspective of naturalistically oriented philosophy. As a consequence, a naturalistic perspective is proposed — presented by Dennett, Lorenz, Wuketits, Vollmer—on the phenomenon of knowledge and the notion of knowledge functioning in the analytic tradition. More precisely, the basic aim of this article is a critical analysis of the thesis saying that even though the way of being called “comprehension” is the source of explanation by theoretical and practical knowledge, the explanation and understanding capacities are onto-cognitive structures with a phylogenetic basis. These structures emerged in the process of evolution. As a result of above reflection there is thesis: declarative knowing-that and procedural knowing-how have also their sources in the phylogenetic process. This work also attempts to clarify the notion of knowledge from a naturalistic point of view, as an alternative to the conception of knowledge presented in Plato’s Theaetetus.
Keywords: comprehension, explanation, know-how, know-that, phylogenetics, evolution, adaptation.
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Ignacy S. Fiut
Affiliation: AGH University of Science and Technology, al. Adama Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Cracow, Poland.
Email: isf1949@o2.pl
LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE IN EVOLUTIONARY TERMS ACCORDING TO TADEUSZ GARBOWSKI
ABSTRACT
The work presents a reconstruction of Tadeusz Garbowski’s evolutionary theory of knowledge and conception of knowledge as a form of life. This Cracow philosopher introduced them in two works: The Life and Knowledge (1903), and Cognition as a biological agent (1910). According to him, human knowledge, unlike animal knowledge, is conscious. Its functioning is based on a subconscious predisposition to its acquisition, which expresses man’s “cognitive instinct”. Knowledge as a result of continuous learning is primarily an adaptive value to the natural, social and cultural conditions of life. The truth of knowledge lies in the fact that it can properly and creatively adapt to the environmental conditions. The criterion of its truth expresses the degree of experiencing successful specimens of species of living beings. On a human level criterion of its truth is a “practical utility” which gives every individual and society as a whole a decent life.
Keywords: Tadeusz Garbowski, the evolution of knowledge, biological basis of cognition, adaptive concept of truth.
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Silvia Bonacchi
Affiliation: University of Warsaw, Department of Applied Linguistics, ul. Szturmowa 4, 02-678 Warsaw, Poland.
Email: s.bonacchi@uw.edu.pl
GESTALT AS A SPECIALIZED TERM: ITS CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION IN PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
ABSTRACT
In the present paper the author attempts to reconstruct the process of terminologization of the expression Gestalt in the philosophical and psychological debates which laid the way for the emergence of the Berlin School of Gestalt Theory. Gestalt (English translations are: “form,” “shape,” “configuration,” “aspect”) is a German word, which is already documented in Old High German (gistalt) as meaning “appearance, way of appearing.” From the end of the 18th century onward, the word had a very interesting semantic enrichment and found uses in the arts and sciences, since it started to be used in specific domains (literature, philosophy, psychology) to designate an organic whole. In the first few decades of the 20th century, it became a specialized term − a terminus technicus in philosophical and psychological thought − as Gestalt psychology and Gestalt theory emerged as a new scientific and philosophical orientation. The exact conceptual definitions of Gestalt, Gestalt qualities and Gestalt perception were heatedly discussed in the philosophical and psychological debates that raged in the first two decades of the 20th Century after the publication of the famous paper by Christian von Ehrenfels — On Gestalt Qualities (1890) — and it was developed in various psychological schools (the Berlin School, the Graz School) and philosophical orientations (phenomenology, neokantism), till the formulation in 1923 of the Gestalt laws by Max Wertheimer. In the concluding part of the paper, the author attempts to trace the development of the Gestalt approach after the Second World War.
Keywords: Gestalt theory, terminologization, crisis of science, holism.
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Danilo Facca
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
Email: dfacca@ifispan.waw.pl
THE ARISTOTELIAN NOTION OF FORM AND ITS APPLICATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
ABSTRACT
The papers analyses the Aristotelian concept of form (eidos, morphe) which is a basis of Aristotle’s philosophy. Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s conception of forms was for Aristotle a starting point for elaborating his own theory of forms. This theory provided Aristotle with a theoretical equipment applied in all the fields of scientific inquiry. So his concept of form proved to be all-pervasive. The article also deals with some recent debates, concerning the questions of sense and intellectual cognition, the problem of identity, the mind-body problem.
Keywords: Aristotle, form, correspondence theory of truth, idealism, realism
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Stanisław Czerniak
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: stanislaw.l.czerniak@wp.pl
CATEGORIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN GESTALT THEORY AND CLASSICAL 20TH—CENTURY PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
ABSTRACT
In his paper the author reconstructs the categorial relations between Gestalt psychology and theory and classical 20th-century philosophical anthropology (Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner). In the first part, entitled Inspirations, it is analysed how the views of a key 20th–century Gestalt theorist Wolfgang Köhler influenced Scheler, the author of The Human Place in the Cosmos. In part two, Parallels, the author investigates the categorial similarities between Plessner’s philosophical anthropology with its category of “eccentric position” and Gestalt theory.
Keywords: Gestalt theory, philosophical anthropology, intelligence, spirit, the whole, field, form, sensation, perception, eccentric position
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Anna Michalska
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
Email: michalskanna@gmail.com
GESTALT AND SCIENCE. KUHN’S MODEL OF SCIENTIFIC CHANGE IN THE LIGHT OF GESTALT THEORY
ABSTRACT
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn advances a controversial claim that the scientific change is a form of Gestalt switch. As I point out, he did it apparently without having a full understanding of what Gestalt theory was, and used the concept of Gestalt rather metaphorically. Interestingly, however, Kuhn’s model of scientific change as sketched in The Copernican Revolution and developed in his subsequent works satisfies the desiderata of Gestalt theory. In the paper, I demonstrate that considering the Kuhnian model through the lens of Gestalt theory helps uncover its full potential and overcome certain difficulties connected to it.
Keywords: Gestalt theory, Thomas Kuhn, scientific revolution, scientific change.
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Jagna Brudzińska
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland; University of Cologne, Germany.
Email: jagna.brudzinska@uni-koeln.de
TYPE AS THE DYNAMIC STRUCTURE OF EXPERIENCE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF GENETIC PHENOMENOLOGY
ABSTRACT
The article focuses on Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy as an intentionalgenetic theory of experience. I inquire into the elementary forms and principle of the organisation of subjective experiences and investigate the concepts of type and typizing apperception in the context of pre-predicative constitution. I attempt to show how far type, conceived as a concrete and acquired coherence of homogenous experiences, determines the process of interest-awakening even before higher predicative procedures, such as discursive and reflexive thinking, take place. Following such a path, phenomenology comes closer to the philosophy of life, as well as to the Gestalt theory.
Keywords: genetic phenomenology, intentionality, type, typizing apperception.
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Przemysław Parszutowicz
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland; Gdańsk University of Technology, ul. Traugutta 79, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland.
Email: pparszutowicz@ifispan.waw.pl
ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY OF SYMBOLIC FORMS AND GESTALT THEORY
ABSTRACT
The concept of “symbolic pregnancy” is in the opinion of many scholars one of the key concepts in Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. Without a proper understanding of its conceptual frame Cassirer’s philosophy lacks a consistent foundation. The concept “symbolic pregnancy” offers a mechanism of the distinction of symbolic forms. The newest investigations (also on unpublished or less known, neglected writings of the philosopher) has shown that the key-notion of “symbolic pregnancy” has its roots in Gestalt Theory (Gestalt Psychology). In this school Cassirer saw the most important example of a general tendency in scientific thought, according to which the primacy of the notion of “function” had to override the primacy of the notion of “substance”, the idea of “integrated whole” the notion of “primary elements”.
Keywords: Cassirer, symbolic pregnancy, symbolic form, Gestalt Theory.
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Stanisław Czerniak
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: stanislaw.l.czerniak@wp.pl
HANS-JÖRG RHEINBERGER ON NATURE AND CULTURE
ABSTRACT
The author focuses on the leading themes of H-J. Rheinberger’s 2015 published book Natur und Kultur im Spiegel des Wissens (Nature and Culture in the Mirror of Knowledge). He mainly concentrates on the German science philosopher’s views regarding the status of contemporary natural sciences and the humanities, the fading of to-date boundaries between both fields, and especially the role the culture concept is beginning to play in today`s experimental biology.
Keywords: historical epistemology, nature, culture, natural sciences, humanities, hybrid disciplines, experimental systems, experimentation cultures.
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Sławomir Leciejewski
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Szamarzewskiego 89c, 60-568 Poznan, Poland
Email: slaaw@amu.edu.pl
VISUALIZATION AND RECORDING TECHNIQUES IN NATURAL SCIENCES IN HANS-JÖRG RHEINBERGER VIEW
ABSTRACT
In my comment to fragments of Historical Epistemology, devoted to the problem of visualization and recording techniques in natural sciences, I refer to Peter Galison’s theses presented in his book Image and Logic: a Material Culture of Microphysics in order to analyse critically Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s claims in the context of modern experimental practice engaging computers. I answer for the question whether the theses included in the Historical Epistemology concerning visualization and recording are acceptable when they are confronted with the computer style of scientific research prevailing in experimental research since the 80-ties of the 20th century.
Keywords: historical epistemology, visualization, style of scientific research.
