Method and crisis
There are particular moments in history, the epoch in which the perception of the world changes. It is at these times that overlooks the need for the establishment of new methods.
The crisis comes as a result of revolutionary scientific discoveries, historical events of the epoch-making as a result of inventions that change the course of events. It may be the influence of a powerful personality, able to move forces and human thoughts, or the work of an isolated individual: it does not matter.
The crisis triggered a questioning of the general established knowledge and creates the urgent need for a restructuring of knowledge, new ways to beat new arrive at the truth.
(We assume that the fact to influence the method, but this is not always obvious change, most likely proceed in parallel. The fact creates change in the method and the method, turn, look for foundation on fact.)
The way to get to the "simple and round truth": this is the method.
Meta , beyond, after; hodos , path, road. Road trying to get through hardships and doubts and prostrations, the certainty is no longer debatable.
The metaphor of the road is particularly useful to convey the sense of movement and fatigue seems to describe the believer's pilgrimage in search of the perfect faith.
Philosophers, scientists, thinkers in general, in these times of radical change, a reversal of the paradigm, have raised the question of method as a tool to build new knowledge or, as appropriate, to put them in a crisis.
The method is par excellence the initial question: any philosophy or system of thought begins with a method. You need a preliminary characteristic of human rationality: Before embarking on the path, we must reflect on the journey itself, the type of course, the limits of the street.
chief should decide the mode of consciousness: at first making a clean sweep of the old buildings, which now no longer fit, and disoriented by the end. Then decide what we may hope to find and what to cut off the possibility of certainty.
A brief overview in philosophy - science can help us understand what we're talking about.
Galileo realized the potential of a new optical instrument invented in the Netherlands. Instead of using it to scoop the enemy, pointed it towards the sky. He spent a cold winter, observing, noting his "sense experience" diligently. It was the birth of Starry Messenger .
From simple facts contained in that book, and nothing more, the Aristotelian view of the world was challenged. There was the problem of reshaping the human knowledge. Accountability, rationally, what Aristotelianism not even imagine.
The origin of Galileo's scientific method: embed knowledge from direct observation and mathematize data provided by the senses. Finally deduce general principles to expand human knowledge.
And if there is something that jars with the Holy Scriptures, then it is the fault of human understanding of the Divine Word, not the physical law that the other great book God, nature, written in characters of which he alone is the true exegete: mathematical characters.
Otherwise things are with Bacon. He also feels the need to establish a "new body" logic, which replaced the old school and outdated arguments, good only for theological disputes " idola Theatri " philosophical preconceptions which is essential discard for the sake of truth.
successor is the direct experience of the facts, not from the most useless limbs mechanical, a faithful record of them on tablets of truth, and ultimately the induction of first principles, which reflect the same thing. Confidence in the induction experiment was absolute.
The final elevation of mathematics in paradigmatic form of knowledge, a model for all other sports, you have to Descartes. The mathematics becomes a tool even innate, from none other than God himself. Metaphysics and its origin to ensure their validity.
In Discours are isolated four principles Fundamental to direct our minds towards the incontrovertible truth.
It is the Cartesian method: to identify clear and distinct ideas, analyze it (ie broken down into simpler and more manageable sub-ideas), summarized as follows (once selected reassemble true ideas) and tally them to make sure not having forgotten something.
was the beginning of the two great philosophical currents of modernity: the continental rationalism el ' Anglo-Saxon empiricism.
But time passes and never leaves the same cards on the table. Rationalism had to give way to the Newtonian system that yes, even a god regulator admitted, but it was not the cornerstone of his method. Too dangerous to leave the path of truth in the hands of a master invisible would be a return to school.
Empiricism coll'implodere instead ended up on itself: it is true, we hear things, we perceive external objects, and all our knowledge comes from outside. But where science ends and where the interpretation begins? If all we experience is contingent, then it will be our science.
The crisis was serious and still today we suffer the direct consequences. Einstein had to do without evidence of sensitive and, paradoxically, he returned to the pure philosophical speculation. Planck, however, could not escape his chance, and it seems that God plays dice with the world.
The contemporary philosophy of science, based on the principle of falsification . We have given up their goal: we can not overturn the concept and consider the most likely a theory that can be falsified .
Today is the possibility of refutation that scientifically based theory.
We place limits on our path, carving out a tiny tour along which we can be relatively (!) Quiet and out of danger, away from extreme skepticism.
But a method that imposes a limit, which denies the goal, which has no direction, and where the risk of being late should remain only the means, can still carry the name? This is not a crisis from which, perhaps, could develop a new method?
