Some twenty different background approaches, or schemata, permeate the social sciences. Most of their exponents regard their choice as excluding the rest. This paper is concerned to show that all such conflict is merely disputatious since virtually all the schemata require one another. Taking the individual's need to act as starting-point, certain restrictions limiting his freedom of action are identified as factors of the overt societal situation. These, however, fail to explain all aspects of his powerlessness, to account for which (...) he then seeks such deeper constraints as unseen powers or human conspiracies. Social scientists for their part develop theories or interpretations of the societal situation. The paper turns to the first of three groups of interpretations, concentrating on one constituent of the group, functionalism, which is a mirror-image of another constituent, 'conflict theory'. The complementarity of these two is claimed to apply to virtually all the schemata considered. (The second and third groups are deferred to the sequel.) The Appendix deals with the way in which explanatory factors can be combined. Having removed the unreal contentions associated with various schemata, the way is clear to treatment of the one substantive issue among them - to do with holism - in the sequel. (shrink)

This paper is a critique of a project, outlined by Laudan et al. (1986) recently in this journal, for empirically testing philosophical models of change in science by comparing them against the historical record of actual scientific practice. While the basic idea of testing such models of change in the arena of science is itself an appealing one, serious questions can be raised about the suitability of seeking confirmation or disconfirmation for large numbers of specific theses drawn from a massive (...) list of claims abstracted from the writings of a few philosophers of science. The present paper discusses what one might reasonably expect from a model of change in science and then compares some clusters of theses from Laudan et al. with developments in recent theoretical physics. The results suggest that such straightforward testing of theses may be largely inconclusive. (shrink)

In this article I explore how philosophical thinking about God, reason, humanity and history has shaped ideas of Europe, focusing on Hegel. For Hegel, Europe is the civilization that, by way of Christianity, has advanced the spirit of freedom which originated in Greece. Hegel is a Eurocentrist whose work indicates how Eurocentrism as a broader discourse has shaped received conceptions of Europe. I then distinguish ‘external’ and ‘internal’ ways of approaching ideas of Europe and defend the former approach, on which (...) Europe’s self-understanding is not a phenomenon purely internal to Europe, but has always been shaped by Europe’s relations with non-European cultures. I note Egypt’s influence on the ancient Greeks and the role of Europe’s colonization of America, and suggest that European civilization could be rejuvenated by more open acknowledgement of these relations with others. (shrink)

Radom je želja osvijestiti da je integralno mišljenje imanentno postmoderno, odnosno da je upravo takav pristup, tj. integralni aperspektivizam, preduvjet konstruktivnog postmodernizma. Ukratko su iznesene temeljne značajke postmodernizma: konstruktivizam, kontekstualizam, multiperspektivizam i aperspektivizam, koje su i ključne sastavnice svakog integralnog pristupa zbiljnosti. Posebna je pažnja usmjerena na aperspektivizam, tako da je u tom kontekstu, nasuprot krajnjeg pluralizma i relativizma nihilističkog i destruktivnog postmodernizma, kao bitna značajka integralna pristupa, odnosno konstruktivnog postmodernizma, istaknuto kritičko vrednovanje, rangiranje i sl., čime se integrira mnoštvo (...) perspektiva unutar njihove funkcionalne valjanosti. U konačnici, navedeno je da upravo u postmoderni izniču antropološki preduvjeti takvom neisključivom i kontekstu prilagodljivom, integralnom, pristupu zbiljnosti, dok je pažnja, ovom prilikom, usmjerena na kognitivnu razvojnu liniju, odnosno na postformalnu razinu kognicije. (shrink)