If one scientist were to sit at a table full of philosophers it might seem at first that the scientist had the upper hand purely by virtue of their self confidence. The philosophers’ humility might be no match for the all encompassing certainty of science.
Peter Atkins, Professor of Chemistry and author of A Scientist’s Exploration of the Great Questions of Existence, stood up before an audience of several hundred and proudly declared that science would eventually answer every question relating to the physical world, even perhaps, to morality. Science is the only way to answer a question, he said, as all science is based upon evidence and observation. He then gayly dismissed the existence of anything for which there was no empirical evidence. On the nature of love and the soul, these ideas had to be phrased in more scientific terms.
It transpired that poor Peter had been addressing a vipers nest of mystics, romantics and other literary nuts. Following his talk, Atkins was bombarded with a hail of metaphysical questions for which he had to repeatedly concede, science had no answer for, yet.
By contrast, philosopher and historian Anthony Kenny described the task he had been set by the Oxford University Press to write a successor to Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy with sincere modesty. “Russell’s history was biased and idiosyncratic, I suppose that’s what qualifies me too,” he said.
Kenny’s consideration of the entire history of Western philosophy, unlike the paradigm bashing methods of science, has taken utmost care not to throw the philosophical baby out with the holy bath water. He showed great willing to reappraise the quirky logic of Platonius, and enthusiastically preserved the founding principles of the otherwise antiquated Aquinas.
He touched also on the classic paradoxes that have troubled great minds from age to age: featuring the examples of Fraeger ‘s Arithmetic vs Logic conundrum. And he was positively rude about the flowery rhetoric of Derida. Without rewriting history, Kenny’s book brings this essential subject up to speed.
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