This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...) and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience. (shrink)

The paper discusses the topic of scientific objectivity and how it can be achieved by revealing the views of both leading 20-th century thinkers – Max Weber and Sir Karl Popper. Weber’s conception of ‘value-free science’ is discussed in the first part of the paper. My argument here is put forward according to which the conditions in Germany after WWI and the tendency to politicization of the ‘German science’ served as one of the reasons why Weber concerned himself with investigating (...) scientific objectivity, both in scientific research and in teaching science in universities. The second part reveals Karl Popper’s ideas on the topic of objectivity in science with special emphasis on scientific criticism and rational discussion as the basis of Popper’s solution of the problem. Comparisons between the ‘Weberian’ and the ‘Popperian’ conceptions of scientific objectivity are drawn. (shrink)

Maraming paraan ang pagsusuri sa problema ng pulitika sa Pilipinas. Para sa mga moralista at ideyalista, halimbawa, maaari itong tingnan gamit ang perspektibo ng sistema ng pagpapahalaga at moralidad; para sa mga materyalista naman, maaari din itong himayin gamit ang perspektibo ng pagka-di-pantay-pantay ng kayamanan at kapangyarihan ng ating mga mamamayan; o hindi kaya para sa mga eksperto sa sistema at istraktura, maaari din itong dalumatin gamit ang perspektibo ng ating marupok na burukrasya. Susubukan ng papel na ito na pag-aralan (...) ang paksa sa pamamagitan ng pagsusuri sa konsepto ng pamumuno na hinihiling ng ating demokratikong sistema at sa kaparehong konseptong umiiiral naman sa kamalayan ng ating mga kababayan. Gagamitin ng pagsusuring ito, bilang teoretikal na balangkas, ang isang uri ng antropolohikal na teorya at pamamaraan na kilala bilang “kognitibong antropolohiya”. (shrink)

Článek rekapituluje ideová východiska Alfreda Schütze, který se na půdě metodologie společenských věd snaží o syntézu příspěvků Edmunda Husserla a Maxe Webera. Přestože v raném období Schütz blízce následuje Husserlův fenomenologický přístup, projevuje se již zde v první řadě důraz na empirický charakter zkoumání, který navazuje na weberovskou linii argumentace a staví se i proti názorům dalšího ze Schützových velkých učitelů, Ludwiga von Misese. Článek postupně analyzuje klíčové znaky Schützovy vlastní metody a ukazuje klíčové postavení, které hraje při našem vědeckém (...) i každodenním rozumění světu, v němž žijeme, typizace a anonymizace. Z fenomenologických východisek se tak dostáváme k problematice Weberových ideálních typů a v závěru i na půdu Rakouské ekonomie reprezentované von Misesem, jehož některá neudržitelná východiska se Schütz snaží modifikovat. (shrink)

This study examined the challenges for supervisors and managers of managing sick leave within a New Zealand university. We used a qualitative research design, interviewing 20 university staff across the academic and service divisions who had managerial roles. We applied Habermas’ distinctions of technical instrumental, practical relational, and emancipatory critical transformative interests, and his twofold distinction of system and lifeworld to our analysis. The primary findings suggest that while the technical instrumental discourses were dominant within the university bureaucracy, managers drew (...) upon practical relational and emancipatory critical transformative discourses to justify the considerable discretion they exercised in managing sick leave. Far from being incidental, these humanistic elements are as much a part of the bureaucracy as the rational elements and are fundamental to the system’s equilibrium. (shrink)

What is the future of religion ? Some expect the resurgence and ultimate triumph of this or that fundamentalism . Some expect the religious phenomenon itself to weaken and die, a casualty to the science of our day. Others, observing the history of religion, expect that it will continue to evolve, inextricably connected to and yet clearly distinct from its past. If such an evolution occurs, what will religions of the future be like?

Weber’s conception of politics has long been interpreted in relativistic and “agonistic” terms. Such interpretations neglect Weber’s notion of “objectivity” as well as the complex links between politics as “community,” on the one hand, and as “value sphere,” on the other. Seen against this backdrop, Berufpolitik becomes a balancing act in which the pursuit of subjective values is objectively constrained not only by the ethic of responsibility, but more generally by the political imperative to safeguard the preconditions for communal order (...) and, in late modernity, of liberal freedoms. Without them, neither the objective “clarity” generated by science nor the subjective political commitments based on “clear vision” would be possible. (shrink)

I would like to begin my thesis with a general overview of a book on African sage philosophy (1990) written by the prominent African philosopher Henry Odera Oruka (1944-1995), My reading of this book on philosophic sagacity needs to be equipped by two underlying backgrounds of philosophic sagacity. The first background is a perspective of the intercultural philosophy. The second one explains of philosophic sagacity in the African setting.