No.109 Seminar ： Genealogy of Meaning: The Unity versus Disunity of Science Debate
- Yoshihiro Maruyama (The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research)
- 2016/02/16 4:30pm
- The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research (Research Administration Building 1F)
- Japanese (This seminar is open only for students and researchers at Kyoto Univ.)
Summary
The human race acquired the concept of meaning at a certain point of civilisation. And with virtually no doubt the birth of meaning did change the entire world in terms of both our internal and external lives, thus having made our existence far more troubled and yet more nuanced at the same time. Presumably, if there were no such concept as meaning, we today could not even have a daily non-sense chat, let alone scholarly research discussions, in which the meaning of everything is called into question.
Now, what does the meaning of science consist in? Whilst in the dawn of the modern philosophy of science, some positivist philosophers, such as those of the Vienna Circle, were inclined to find meaning in the ideal unity of science; in stark contrast to the good old days’ philosophers of science, philosophers in later generations, such as those of the Stanford School, have come to claim meaning by the very virtue of the actual disunity of science. This talk aims at elucidating those conceptions of meaning that underpin such a discrepancy on what constitutes meaning, and thereby giving a gentle introduction to several philosophical debates on the nature of meaning including in particular the meaning of science, the meaning of language, the meaning of life, and the meaning per se. (No prior knowledge required)