Foresight and Knowledge - Hardcover

Simon, Yves R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0823216217 ISBN 13: 9780823216215

Publisher: Fordham University Press, 1996

Synopsis

For Yves R. Simon, philosophy has an affinity to science, not in the sense that philosophy is a mere metascience, a commentary on the sciences, but rather because it shares the same aim as science: the search for explanation. The philosophy Simon espouses is philosophical realism which, following Jacques Maritain, he prefers to call critical realism. Against the prejudice that only some version of philosophical idealism, be it critical or absolute, is capable of understanding positive science. Simon, in Foresight and Knowledge, develops a philosophy of science form a realistic perspective. Philosophy of science or the critique of science, as it was known in France, is according to Simon, metahphysics in the exercise of its critical function.
Simon selects as the central focus of the treatise the problem of determinism, causality, and chance. Simon shows that the concept "determinism" must be understood in different conceptual systems, such as a philosophy of nature and physics; in the latter, determinism is conceived as a possibility of certain and exact prediction.

About this title

About the Author

Yves R. Simon was a French Catholic political philosopher. He was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and was a member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. His work was in the realm of Thomism or scholastic philosophy, as well as moral and political philosophy. He had ten publications including A General Theory of Authority, Philosophy of Democratic Government, and Freedom and Community.

From the Back Cover

For Yves R. Simon, philosophy has an affinity to science, not in the sense that philosophy is a mere metascience, a commentary on the sciences, but rather because it shares the same aim as science: the search for explanation. The philosophy Simon espouses is philosophical realism which, following Jacques Maritain, he prefers to call critical realism. Against the prejudice that only some version of philosophical idealism, be it critical or absolute, is capable of understanding positive science. Simon, in Foresight and Knowledge, develops a philosophy of science from a realistic perspective. Philosophy of science or the critique of science, as it was known in France, is, according to Simon, metaphysics in the exercise of its critical function. Simon selects as the central focus of the treatise the problem of determinism, causality, and chance. Simon shows that the concept "determinism" must be understood in different conceptual systems, such as a philosophy of nature and physics; in the latter, determinism is conceived as a possibility of certain and exact prediction.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0823216217
• ISBN 13: 9780823216215
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 153