Against postmodernism and the "new" philosophy of science
Nietzsche's image of science in the light of art
pp. 27-45
in: Dimitri Ginev, Robert S. Cohen (eds), Issues and images in the philosophy of science, Berlin, Springer, 1997Abstract
In what follows I offer a polemical - and inevitably elliptical - review of the current state of the philosophy of science and argue for a radically hermeneutic philosophy of science, following Nietzsche's recognition that although science represents the fulfilment of the modern project of a self-grounding ground, the problem of science as such cannot be posed on its own ground. Yet I am aware that some readers will find the following closer to a sociology of science and knowledge as an argument for the recognition of historical factors (though I focus on no specifically social categories and employ no sociological concepts) than to a critique of the philosophy of science. I have neither the competence for nor the intention of offering either such a sociology of knowledge or a history of science. What I will do is to challenge the kind of conceptualizing fetishism - an Aristotelian legacy -that would make such distinctions to the detriment of the critical scope proper to philosophic thought.
