Parte de libro
Fact-constructivism and the science wars
Registro en:
978-3-8260-7577-3
Autor
Ferreiro, Héctor Alberto
Institución
Resumen
Resumen: Analytic philosophers generally reject the claim that we do not know how things
are in themselves, but only how they appear to us. The hostility of analytic philosophers
towards constructivist approaches to knowledge is particularly strong when
constructivism radicalizes its skeptical claims by extending them to the natural sciences.
The antagonism between analytic philosophy and constructivism escalated
in the 1990's to become what has been called since then the >Science Wars<. The prelude
to that escalation was the attempt by several analytic philosophers to stop in
1992 Cambridge University from granting the French philosopher Jacques Derrida
an Honorary Doctorate. Among whom signed the petition against Derrida were
key figures of analytic philosophy such as Willard Van Orman Quine and David
Armstrong. Cambridge University put the motion to vote; since the protesters were
outnumbered, Derrida was granted the Honorary Doctorate. Two years later, in
1994, Paul Gross, a biologist from the University of Virginia, and Norman Levitt,
a mathematician from Rutgers University, wrote Higher Superstition: The Academic
Left and Its Quarrels With Science. In this book, Gross and Levitt attacked scientific
antirealism as well as radical skepticism and relativism in epistemology and philosophy
of science. 1 Gross and Levitt pinpointed the philosophies of Niettsche and
Heidegger as the main sources for what they called >cultural constructivism< and
considered Jean-Fran<;:ois Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida as well as
Paul Feyerabend and the supporters of the strong program of sociology of science
as its most paradigmatic representatives.