Natural Philosophy - Current Work in Natural Philosophy

Current Work in Natural Philosophy

Especially since the mid-20th-century European crisis, researchers have begun recognizing the importance of looking at nature from a broader, philosophical perspective rather than the narrow, positivist approach that relies implicitly on a hidden, unexamined philosophy. One line of thought grows from the thought of Edmund Husserl, especially as expressed in The Crisis of European Sciences. Students of his such as Jacob Klein and Hans Jonas pursued his ideas.

Brian David Ellis has categorized more recent efforts as the "New Essentialism." Nancy Cartwright, David Oderberg, and John Dupré are some of the more prominent thinkers who can arguably be classed as generally adopting this open approach to the natural world.

Read more about this topic:  Natural Philosophy

Famous quotes containing the words current, work, natural and/or philosophy:

    “It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in the memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a woman’s adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.”
    —Terri Apter (20th century)

    “Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit, in every work of art; since the author of it was not misled by anything short- lived or local, but abode by real and abiding traits.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “I have no doubt that soldiers well drilled are, as a class, peculiarly destitute of originality and independence.... It is impossible to give the soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “My position is a naturalistic one; I see philosophy not as an a priori propaedeutic or groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat—a boat which, to revert to Neurath’s figure as I so often do, we can rebuild only at sea while staying afloat in it. There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy.”
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)