Has there been a Copernican Revolution in philosophy?

If contemporary science points to inadequacies in present-day modes of thinking, we can ask: What will be the shape of the new manner of understanding required by our future? I believe that artists are the harbingers of the future mentality required both by science and by the imperatives of living in our precarious times. For centuries, artists have struggled to create ways of seeing and knowing that often appeared to be at odds with the burgeoning science of our era. I believe that we now truly stand in need, not only as scientists but as a civilization, of the artist's cognitive capacities. In them, when rightly developed, might the two streams of our cognitive inheritance commingle?" -Arthur Zajonc, Goethe's Way of Science.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mathematics, physics, and philosophy all were fundamentally transformed. In the nineteenth century mathematics was again transformed and in the twentieth century physics was as well. Philosophy has not been similarly transformed but has remained deeply Kantian, as is shown in particular for the case of mathematical logic. We need a revolution in philosophy.

2000

I will not wax millenial. But we are nearing the end of a century. It is conceivable that its most important philosophical event will take place between now and December 31. But it is unlikely. So we are at a point where we can, not unreasonably, look back and assess the philosophical events of our century. Any philosophically respectable century has its moments; a point, or points, at which ways of thinking about problems, and about philosophy itself, change radically. Such a moment might fairly be called revolutionary, if one does not puff up that term unduly. Two revolutions in a century would be a lot. I will describe what I think is the crucial revolutionary moment in our century. I need to acknowledge that the view I will present is personal, or at least far from received wisdom. Some of you may find it biased. First, I do not think that the revolution means that philosophy is, or should be, at an end, that we are somehow in a period of 'post-philosophy', or that the idea of a philosophical problem is somehow passé. The revolution I am going to describe left us with some genuine, and severe, philosophical problems. At the end of my talk I will describe them, and hint, but no more, at a way with them-a way I do not know to be adequate, since it has not yet been tried fully. Second, it will occur to some of you that my revolution is suspiciously Anglophone, so, perhaps, parochial. If 'Anglophone' includes enough of Vienna and Berlin, and enough work written in German, then my revolution is, indeed, Anglophone. Given the political events of our century, it is not surprising that that should be so. In any event, such is life. If I thought the action were elsewhere, I would be there. The revolution I have in mind can be dated as occurring between 1930 and 1960 (interrupted by the war). That is a period that opened with the start of Wittgenstein's lecturing at Cambridge (roughly coincident with his new approach to philosophy), and ending with J. L. Austin's deatha period I am construing as broad enough to capture two other key revolutionary figures, Hilary Putnam and Noam Chomsky. (Stuart Hampshire, in his memoriam, said of Austin, "He could not have adopted a special tone of voice, or attitude of mind, for philosophical questions." That attitude encapsulates the revolution.) A more serious worry for me than those mentioned above is that some of my colleagues may think that the real important revolution in the twentieth century happened somewhat earlier than that. And they would be apt to mention Russell, and Wittgenstein before his change of approach, as at its centre. Now, I agree that those figures were at the centre of an important revolution. I will say a few more words about it later. But, as I see things, that was a nineteenth century revolution-indeed, that century's most important one-begun by Frege in 1879. My twentieth century revolution is, in large part, though not just, a reaction against just the features of this earlier one that most exercised Russell and early Wittgenstein. Some, of course, will find that reaction unfounded. That is a controversy into which I plan to enter in what follows.

Philosophy is a discipline which lies in a field beyond science and is in this respect comparable to art. Therefore the topic of continua and catastrophes is dealt in relation to both. The term catastrophe is with priority defined with reference to catastrophe theory, but for informal contexts standard cases of (natural) catastrophes are seen as good examples for the content of this notion. First major trends in the history of philosophy and the linguistic strategies used to treat problems of philosophy are sketched (Greek and Renaissance philosophy and modern Analytic philosophy are discussed in some detail). It is shown that catastrophe theory can offer conceptually relevant help for epistemology and philosophy; its evolutionary schemes are able to catch aspects of the dynamics in the field of philosophy. In a second part, major revolutions, i.e. dramatic changes in the history of art are analyzed. We deal with Leonardo da Vinci, William Turner, Henry Moore and Salvador Dali. In the case of Dali, a link to René Thom, the founder of catastrophe theory is established based on a meeting of Thom and Dali and several paintings of Dali which treat the topic of catastrophe in the sense of Thom. As a further completion cases of catastrophes (dramatic changes) in the field of music (intonation crises) and in language art are discussed.

2006

It is difficult to think of a topic of greater concern than the nature of truth. Indeed, truth and the knowledge thereof are the very rails upon which people ought to live their lives. And over the centuries, the classic correspondence theory of truth has outlived most of its critics. But these are postmodern times, or so we are often told, and the classic model, once ensconced deeply in the Western psyche, must now be replaced by a neopragmatist or some other anti-realist model of truth, at least for those concerned with the rampant victimization raging all around us. Thus, “we hold these truths to be self evident” now reads “our socially constructed selves arbitrarily agree that certain chunks of language are to be esteemed in our linguistic community.” Something has gone wrong here, and paraphrasing the words of Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Newman, “We came, we saw, and we conked out!” The astute listener will have already picked up that I am an unrepentant correspondence advocate wh...

International Journal of Applied Research, 2021

This paper highlights a brief overview on the genesis of philosophy begins with Ancient Greece and continues until the present-day world of Postmodernism. The overall aim of this paper is to briefly unfold some profound interpretation that may help the readers to understand the evolution of philosophy and its changing meaning from time to time. A method of induction and deduction has been used all-over the paper to implicitly reflect all the philosophical doctrines and tenets of various philosophical traditions. The primary and secondary sources in the form of books have been used to frame this paper in a logical manner. Broadly speaking, this paper has started with Heraclitus concept of ‘Flux’ and ended with Lyotard conception of ‘Metanarratives’. This paper may help the readers, teachers, researchers in particular and people in general to understand the nature and evolutionary perspective of philosophy at a glance.