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In this paper I present the position of two philosophers associated with the hermeneutic tradition, Gianni Vattimo and Charles Taylor, about the status of scientific knowledge in our contemporary world. Through a brief exposition of the fundamental features of their respective ontologies and epistemologies, I seek to offer a critical comparison. In the conclusion, I defend the superiority of Taylor's formulation, inasmuch it allows to put in question the primacy of the natural science model without abandoning a realist conception of the world and of the category of truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, different scenarios in which the concept of "probable" is faced in Aristotle's work on physics are developed and deepened. This concept, indeed, plays a central and diversified role in Aristotle's physics, even though it is inserted into an idea of physics as science in a strong sense. Generally speaking, the idea of the probable is applied at three different levels: 1) a methodological level where it is linked to the value of truth, whose recognition is given to the predecessors' doxai and endoxai; 2) it is related to the contingent nature of the object that is becoming; 3) it is related to the deep awareness of the limit of human knowledge. In this paper, these three levels are detected and analyzed in order to show how, in physical field, Aristotle seems to "move" within the limits of a "probable reconstruction", but his physics remain always episteme in the highest and strictest meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A radical form of postmodernity is presented with reference to Nietzsche's ideas with respect to truth, knowledge, sciences, progress, democracy, and ethical values in general. Thereafter is presented Foucault's archaeology of knowledge. This brings us forward to the notion of genealogy, which is a defining idea for the postmodern conception of critique. However, it is emphasised that a critique can address the generativity of mathematical rationality by considering mathematics-based fabrications. Finally, imagination is presented as yet another feature of a critical enterprise. It is illustrated how such a three dimensional critical enterprise is relevant for both mathematics and mathematics education. In this way the paper suggests moving beyond the postmodern outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends scientific realism from the pessimistic meta-induction from past reference failure. It allows that a descriptive theory of reference implies that scientific terms characteristically fail of determinate reference. But it argues that a descriptive theory of reference also implies an equivalence between scientific theories and quantificational claims in the style of Ramsey. Since these quantificational claims do not use any of the referentially suspect scientific terms, they can be approximately true even when those terms fail to refer determinately. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper studies the relationship between science and philosophy in the works of Carlos Vaz Ferreira. The idea of "search of truth" is the key to understand the role played by both science and philosophy in human knowledge, and their respective scopes and limits. According to Vaz Ferreira, science and philosophy are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary; moreover, they do not exhaust the wealth of ways that humans have of acciesing reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructivism is the idea that we construct our own world rather than it being determined by an outside reality. Its most consistent form, Radical Constructivism (RC), claims that we cannot transcend our experiences. Thus it doesn't make sense to say that our constructions gradually approach the structure of an external reality. The mind is necessarily an epistemological solipsist, in contrast to being an ontological solipsist who maintains that this is all there is, namely a single mind within which the only world exists. RC recognizes the impossibility of the claim that the world does not exist. Yet, RC has the potential to go much further. I claim that RC provides the foundation of a new world-view in which we can overcome hard scientific problems. Thus, the paper is urging us to carry RC further, not just on philosophical grounds, but also into the domain of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, different scenarios in which the concept of "probable" is faced in Aristotle's work on physics are developed and deepened. This concept, indeed, plays a central and diversified role in Aristotle's physics, even though it is inserted into an idea of physics as science in a strong sense. Generally speaking, the idea of the probable is applied at three different levels: 1) a methodological level where it is linked to the value of truth, whose recognition is given to the predecessors' doxai and endoxai; 2) it is related to the contingent nature of the object that is becoming; 3) it is related to the deep awareness of the limit of human knowledge. In this paper, these three levels are detected and analyzed in order to show how, in physical field, Aristotle seems to "move" within the limits of a "probable reconstruction", but his physics remain always episteme in the highest and strictest meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]