Abstract
The basic position of this paper is that the theories of modern science are constructed by a selfish methodology which ensures that most scientific theories have a selfish character. A selfish theory works only for the survival of its validity. This characteristic of scientific theories harmonizes perfectly with the value preferences of modern society, the culture of modernity. Some scientific and philosophical approaches against this selfishness are herein put forward.
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Notes
This description can remind us of J.-P. Sartre’s ideas in his Being and Nothingness. For example his understanding of consciousness as a process of nihilation shows this similarity. This is very natural: in existential philosophies one can find many sensible characterizations of selfishness and the selfish methodologies
See for example the first chapters of E. Fromm: Escape from Freedom (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969).
A book such as e.g. J. G. Frazer: The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion (Macmillan, London, 1925) highlights this similarity. Both the magic and modern views oppose the religious one.
The characterization of modernity is impossible here. Many aspects of it are analyzed by Lyotard, Habermas, Rorty and others. The works of the members of the Budapest School (F. Fehér, t1. Heller, Gy. Markus and M. Vajda) were the most important source for me. My view was greatly influenced by the Hungarian book called `The Unsecretive Object of Desire’ by A Szilagyi ÇLiget, Budapest, 1992).
This aspect of modernity e. g. is described and analyzed in a very impressive version by t1. Szilagyi in the above mentioned book.
These relations are treated in detail in a very important book: S. Shapin, S. Schaffer: Leviathan and the Air-pump (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1985).
See for example the debates on Yates’s ideas (F. A. Yates: Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science, in: C. S. Singleton (ed.): Art,Science and History in the Renaissance, Johns Hopkins U. P., Baltimore, 1968)
R. Dawkins: The Selfish Gene (Oxford U. P., Oxford, 1976)
These aspects of scientific theories are analyzed for example in the different versions of evolutionary epistemologies.
There are many versions of the philosophy of science from the sociology of knowledge to social epistemology, which try to explain these aspects of science. An excellent analysis of this problem as seen in Newton and Leibniz is shown by G. Freudenthal: Atom and Individual in the Age of Newton (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1986).
See for example: L. Ropolyi: Thermodynamic Elements in World Views — World View Elements in Thermodynamics, 424–439 in:K. Martinas et al (eds.): Thermodynamics: History and Philosophy (World Scientific, Singapore, 1991).
T. Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (U. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970).
P. Feyerabend: Against Method (NLB, London, 1975) and P. Feyerabend: Science in a Free Society (NLB, London, 1978).
P. A. Heelan: Towards a Hermeneutic of Natural Science, J. of Brit. Soc. for Phenomen. 3(3), 252–260, 1972; D. Fdllesdal: Hermeneutics and the Hypothetico-deductive Method, Dialectica, 33(3–4), 319–336, 1979; G. Markus: Why There is No Hermeneutics of Natural Sciences?, Science in Context 1987, 1 5–51.
G. Boniolo, F. Gonella: Quantum Mechanics and Imagery: a Hermeneutical Approach, Found. IPhysics,21(7) 845–854, 1991
See the reference of note no. 11. This trend of science is also analyzed by a dissertation entitled `The One and the Many. Towards a Unification of the Quantum and the Classical Description of One and Many Physical Entities’, by D. Aerts (Brussels, 1980–81)
O. E. Rössler: Endophysics, 25–46, in:J. Casti, A. Karlquist (eds.): Real Brains — Artificial Minds, North-Holland, New York, 1987; G. Kampis: The Hermeneutics of Life (in this volume)
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Ropolyi, L. (1999). Against the Selfish Theory. In: Fehér, M., Kiss, O., Ropolyi, L. (eds) Hermeneutics and Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 206. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9293-2_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9293-2_25
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