The Disengaged Researcher as a Type: Truth and Probability in Studies on Religious Thought
The Disengaged Researcher as a Type: Truth and Probability in Studies on Religious Thought

Author(s): Michał Rogalski
Subject(s): Philosophy, Psychology, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: truth; probability; intellectual controversy; history of ideas; Catholic modernism
Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the issue of the intellectual historian’s attitude to the subject of his research, especially if it takes the form of an intellectual conflict or controversy. It is a critical analysis of the possibility of assuming an objective attitude towards one’s own research: without any valuation. Based on Aristotle’s remarks on rhetoric, the author shows that the presentation of research results in writing is linked to taking a position towards them and giving them a place and meaning in the context of broader reasoning, which is synonymous with the operation of evaluation. The empirical context of the presented argument is provided by a self-analytical case study: the author’s research on Catholic modernism in Poland. Reflecting on it, the author points to another source of the impossibility of objectivity, hidden in the hermeneutic method of research. Gadamer’s postulate of writing history again and again for the sake of the changing historical context leads to a strong emphasis of the worldview of researchers themselves in their studies.

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