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The notion of laws of nature such as we use in today’s science began with the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century. In its infancy it was linked to the notion that these laws were ordained by the Almighty Creator of the physical universe. The first law of nature to be discovered in…
Vico’s New Science has often been identified as “a science of humanity.” As such it leads its readers to an exploration of what it means to be human, that is to say, to a journey into the self. We shall see that Vico considered self-knowledge essential for the road to wisdom, even more so than…
The following is an excerpted chapter from van Huyssteen’s, Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology. The Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh 2004(Wm. Eerdmans 2006) Introduction In earlier chapters my research into evolutionary epistemology (Chapter Two) and paleoanthropology (Chapter Four) yielded not only challenging, but also converging results on the issue…
Having provided for the readers a very broad and general overview of Vico’s poetic philosophy I would now like to focus via a weekly column on some of its most important aspects, first and foremost the Vichian idea of providence which, as announced in the commentary on The New Science’s frontispiece, informs the whole of…
Absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it reveals the depth of your heart’s fondness. Lately I realized just how partial I’ve been to my PC, which for reasons no tech support person can yet divine has taken to launching into long reveries in the middle of my work. Out of the blue, the…
Laws, as we understand the term in everyday parlance, are constraints to which all the members of a group or nation are subject. Restrictions on individual actions and behavior have existed in all cultures and societies, if not always with rigidity, at least as custom. When stated and written down more formally, these become the…
Beyond the various shades of determinism in physical phenomena, there is another level that governs our lives and also affects the physical world in subtle ways. This is the world of thoughts and ideas which have their origins in the human brain. This is very different from the world of atoms and molecules, of quarks…
1) The Seamless Garment of Knowledge Transdiciplinarity, rigorously speaking, is a term which conveys that knowledge in the ultimate sense transcends the restricted and compartmentalized scope of our many individualized disciplines and highly specialized sciences. We aim to scale such a summit of knowledge only partially when we allow ourselves to realize the interdisciplinary potential…
INTRODUCTION The renowned Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan was born Bernard Joseph Francis Lonergan on December 17, 1904 in Buckingham, Quebec, Canada. He was of Irish descent. Lonergan joined the Jesuit order in 1922. His comprehensive range of writings includes theology, philosophy, education, science, mathematics, economics, culture, and history. He is recognized as a…
From Lecture XVIII, “Philosophy” What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. The Continental schools of philosophy have too often overlooked the fact that man’s thinking is organically connected with his conduct. It seems to me to be the chief glory of English and Scottish thinkers to have kept the organic connection in…