Liberal Naturalism and Hermeneutics

Liberal Naturalism and Hermeneutics: Why Ethnography is not Ethnology

Přednáška profesora Kevina M. Cahilla z Bergenu bude přednesena v anglickém jazyce. Koná se ve středu 24. 10. od 17:30 v učebně 225V v Hlavní budově FF UK.

For many years, John Dupre has offered powerful arguments for an anti-reductionist, pluralist naturalism in the Philosophy of Science. Dupre has grounded his position in the fact that reductionist positions, especially physicalism, are simply unsupported by scientific practice and findings. In a recent paper, Dupre has taken his pluralist naturalism one step further, arguing against what Wittgenstein seems to claim at Philosophical Investigations §18, namely that there is an in principle difference between the language of science and ordinary language. Dupre argues against this that there is no sharp difference between the natural and the social sciences, and, moreover, that there is no in-principle difference between the languages of the natural and social sciences on the one hand and ordinary language on the other. Also in a recent paper, Philosopher of Science Julie Zahle has defended a version of naturalism similar in many ways to that of Dupre. She has argued, for example, that there is no in-principle difference between the use of Participant Observation in ethnography and ethology. By drawing on aspects of ordinary language that Dupre and Zahle neglect, I will argue here that they both Dupre and Zahle miss a philosophically important, even though not metaphysical, distinction between the natural and social sciences, a distinction that can be seen in the way each of them mischaracterizes ordinary language.

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