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Philosophy and Synoptic Understanding
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16751 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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9 / 1989 |
2,625 Words |
| Author
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Patrick A. Heelan
Patrick A. Heelan teaches philosophy of science at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook and is the author of
Quantum Mechanics and objectivity: The Physical Philosophy of
Werner Heisenberg and Space-Perception and the Philosophy of
Science. |
SCIENCE, LANGUAGE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION
Morton A. Kaplan
New York: Paragon Press, 1989
revised edition 250 pp., $14.95
Morton Kaplan's book Science, Language, and the Human Condition is unusual for a philosophical work today, because it finds a contemporary way of addressing the question of the connectedness of all that is accessible to human culture. Its tenor is such as to revive philosophy's ancient goal of preparing the citizen for civic life. From this ancient purpose sprang philosophy, etymologically, the love of wisdom, or what Kaplan calls synoptic knowledge. Wisdom, though no longer what professional philosophy--or science, for that matter--seeks, is nevertheless what Kaplan tries to recover for philosophy. It is what we all yearn for, some despairingly, some hopefully--whether from science or from religion, from the pronouncements of scientists such as Feynman, Hawking, or Chargaff, or their acolytes such as Carl Sagan or Capra, or from religion, traditional or New Age. It was this mission that philosophy originally addressed, then abandoned in modern times, and is now recovering through the work of critical and integrative philosophers such as (to mention a few) Stephen Toulmin, Robert Neville, Stanley Cavell, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Morton Kaplan.
Imagine students--or better, visitors from the workaday world--in search of knowledge about any matter of importance. Where would they go? The university is the recognized place in our culture where knowledge is gained and proclaimed. So the visitors wander from class to class to find out what is taught in psychology, economics,
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