The Three Crises: Science, History, and Plurality

Modern religions are confronted by three crises: the scientific evolution, the historical revolution, and the pluralistic revolution. The development of each of these diverse revolutions in Western intellectual history has posed serious challenges to traditional conceptions of religious authority. This paper seeks to briefly elucidate the nature of each of these revolutions and their significance for religious traditions. While the specific challenges posed are separate, the revolutions share common traits. Additionally, it is not enough for a religious tradition to deal with only one of the crises; to proceed into the next stage of religious reflection, it must deal with them all.     

Philosophy,Logic, Science,History

Analytic philosophy is sometimes said to have particularly close connections to logic and to science, and no particularly interesting or close relation to its own history. It is argued here that although the connections to logic and science have been important in the development of analytic philosophy, these connections do not come close to characterizing the nature of analytic philosophy, either as a body of doctrines or as a philosophical method. We will do better to understand analytic philosophy—and its relationship to continental philosophy—if we see it as a historically constructed collection of texts, which define its key problems and concerns. It is true, however, that analytic philosophy has paid little attention to the history of the subject. This is both its strength—since it allows for a distinctive kind of creativity—and its weakness—since ignoring history can encourage a philosophical variety of “normal science.”     

Language,Thought, and the History of Science

Topoi - Language and thought are intimately related: philosophers have long debated how a given language may condition the oral and written expression of thought. The language chosen to communicate...     

Philosophy of Science and History3 of Science: A Non Troubling Interaction

Cassandra Pinnick and George Gale (Journal for General Phisophy of Science 31, 109–125) examined the post-Lakatos period of historical cum philosophical case studies and concluded that a new methodology is required. Lakatos' proposed ‘history₂’ (the theory- and value-laden reconstruction of history₁, the set of historical events) was criticised. Recently a group of scholars have been pursuing a methodology which could be described as history ₃, a history₁ account of the interaction between the significant scientific papers published during the time period in question and their scientific audience. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Risky Subjectivity: Antigone,Action, and Universal Trespass

In this paper, I draw on the mutually implicated structures of tragedy and self-formation found in Hegel’s use of Sophocles’ Antigone in the Phenomenology. By emphasizing the apparent distinction between particular and universal in Hegel’s reading of the tragedies in Antigone, I propose that a tragedy of action (which particularizes a universal) is inescapable for subjectivity understood as socially constituted and always already socially engaged. I consider universal/particular relations in three communities: Hegel’s Greek polis, his community of conscience, and my reading of certain feminist communities. The position I propose establishes a ground from which to approach subjects, and implies that all subjects may be understood as the result of relations embodying potential tragedy. This speaks to contemporary concerns about marginalization, identity articulation, and relations of recognition.

Power,Subjectivity, and Agency: Between Arendt and Foucault

The author argues for bringing the work of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt into dialogue with respect to the links between power, subjectivity, and agency.Although one might assume that Foucault and Arendt come from such radically different philosophical starting points that such a dialogue would be impossible, the author argues that there is actually a good deal of common ground to be found between these two thinkers. Moreover, the author suggests that Foucault's and Arendt's divergent views about the role that power plays in the constitution of subjectivity and agency should be seen as complementary rather than opposed.     

Imagining Reproduction in Science and History

Reproduction is at the core of many aspects of human existence. It is intrinsic in our biology and in the broad social constructs in which we all reside. The introduction to this special issue is designed to reflect on some of the differences between the humanities/arts and the sciences on the subject of Reproduction now and in the past. The intellectual/cultural distance between humanists and reproductive biologists is vast, yet communication between the Two Cultures has much to offer in guiding future research, pedagogy, and social policy. The challenges to communication include differences in methodology, professional protocols, specialization, and the increasing speed with which reproductive technology advances. The solutions require a new kind of student who can learn and adapt the approaches from both sides of the disciplinary divide to create new ways of understanding how our current and future concepts of reproduction may be informed by the past. This co-authored introduction reviews the range of interests represented in the essays and represents first steps of a dialogue between a humanist and a reproductive biologist who chart some of the possibilities on what the future of the subject might hold.     

人类基因组研究与遗传学的历史教训

第１８届国际遗传学大会达成的八点共识对于人类基因组的研究及其应用具有重要意义,也指明了在遗传学及其应用问题上不同文化之间如何解决它们之间分歧的最佳途径。纳粹德国的优生实践和前苏联李森科学派的兴衰都给我们留下了不可忘记的教训。围绕中国母婴保健法的争论反映了科学、伦理和政策的交叉。我们的基因组研究和遗传服务是为了增进个人的健康和促进家庭的幸福,而不能也不应以减少残疾人口为目标。在基因组研究和遗传服务中