From the “rational soul†to an unbridled “trust in reasonâ€
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5952/52-3-59Keywords:
(Trust in) Reason, (Ir)rationaslism, conceptual knowledge, concept-transcending knowledge, continuity postulate, natural science idealAbstract
A long-standing legacy holds that reason is the hall-mark of the human soul or mind. Whereas Greek thinking struggled with the dualism of form and matter, medieval philosophy and theology wrestled with an attempt to synthesize the Greek views (of Plato and Aristotle), with the biblical view, but got entangled in serious difficulties.The rise of the modern era added an explicit trust in reason to this tradition (non deceiving clear and distinct thinking in Descartes), combined with the motive oflogical creation. According to Kant understanding creates its laws (a priori) not out of nature, but prescribes them to nature. The transition to historicism and the linguistic turn relativised Kant’s claim to universal validity – each person or society constructs its own life-world. Briefly highlighting the intrinsic inconsistency of positivism is followed by lifting out the acknowledgment that the trust in reason is not rational itself (Popper) and that one has to believe in something before one can justify something else (Stegmüller). In conclusion a brief example is given of such an assumption with reference to the a priori continuity postulate of (neo-) Darwinism –nature does not make jumps (natura non facit saltum).Downloads
Published
2012-01-26
Issue
Section
Articles | Artikels
License
Copyright of all NGTT material belongs to the Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust (PDWN Trust). The PDWN Trust is a trust fund established in 1932 with the aim of promoting quality theological research and publications.
The PDWN Trust pledges to maintain a legitimate scholarly record of the author's work and to defend the author's article against plagiarism and copyright infringement.
The PDWN Trust is committed to full Open Source publishing. This means that all articles published in NGTT will gradually be made freely available online. Authors maintain the right to:
- Share and self-archive their work.
- Make printed copies of their article for educational use.
- Present their article at a meeting or conference and distribute printed copies of the article
- Adapt and expand their published journal article to make it suitable for their thesis or dissertation.
- Republish the article (ensuring that the original article is cited as published in NGTT).
For any questions or queries in this regard, please contact the Editor.