THE ENLIGHTENMENT EPISTEMOLOGY AND ITS WARNING AGAINST THE INSTRUMENTALISATION OF SCIENCE
THE ENLIGHTENMENT EPISTEMOLOGY AND ITS WARNING AGAINST THE INSTRUMENTALISATION OF SCIENCE

Summary/Abstract: The paper is written in order to demonstrate the lack of soundness of the present counter-Enlightenment attacks against reason and science. The characterisation of Enlightenment cannot only refer to the logical consequences of the universally manifested reason –(the wishful thoughts about) the humans‘ education and educability and thus the changing the world for the better –without substantiating them. Kant has substantiated the Enlightenment epistemology that supports even today the human endeavour to live in a better world. As the purpose of the analysis is the epistemological way of comprehension –i.e. the rational all the way, coherent to the end, thus the scientific questioning of the premises of every theory –the paper thus features only a selection from among the coryphaei of the Enlightenment movement. It starts from Kant‘s ―Copernican revolution‖ –a metaphor used by him that may rightfully be employed in order to evaluate his philosophy –which, in the view expressed here, consists in the interdependence of the constructivist epistemology and the categorical imperative ethics. Actually, and this is the thesis promoted here, this epistemology and this ethics constitute a continuous and unique structure and just this unitary epistemological-ethical structure, called here even the Enlightenment epistemology, is the basis of the Enlightenment perspective and theory of comprehension. But this perspective and comprehension form a methodological pattern for the approach of the world and for the reason to be of the human knowledge. Thus, the paper is not a simple reminder of an old page of the history of philosophy. And neither should the history of philosophy be thought of as an evolution of ideas, where there would exist just a simple transmission and taking over of the relay from one paramount theory to another and where at one time or another the respective preponderant theory would exist alone. The Enlightenment pattern was not the only one when it appeared, and so much less today. The epistemological analysis of some contemporary facts emphasizes the contradictory views expressed within the Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment manners. There are presented Enlightenment type arguments and anti-Enlightenment arguments, put face to face. Thus, the paper shows that the Enlightenment perspective and understanding defeat the counter-Enlightenment attacks and they outline a methodological framework for the current interpretation of science and technology.

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