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Forms of Truth and the Unity of Knowledge addresses a philosophical subject—the nature of truth and knowledge—but treats it in a way that draws on insights beyond the usual confines of modern philosophy. This ambitious collection includes contributions from established scholars in philosophy, theology, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, literary criticism, history, and architecture. It represents an attempt to integrate the insights of these disciplines and to help them probe their own basic presuppositions and methods.
The essays in Forms of Truth and the Unity of Knowledge are collected into five parts, the first dealing with division of knowledge into multiple disciplines in Western intellectual history; the second with the foundational disciplines of epistemology, logic, and mathematics; the third with explanation in the natural sciences; the fourth with truth and understanding in disciplines of the humanities; and the fifth with art and theology.
Contributors: Vittorio Hösle, Keith Lehrer, Robert Hanna, Laurent Lafforgue, Thomas Nowak, Francisco J. Ayala, Zygmunt Pizlo, Osborne Wiggins, Allan Gibbard, Carsten Dutt, Aviezer Tucker, Nicola Di Cosmo, Michael Lykoudis, and Celia Deane-Drummond.
"This outstanding collection brings together first-rate scholars, hailing from disciplines as varied as mathematics, biology, chemistry, architecture, literary studies, engineering, and theology, and invites them to reflect on the specific truth experience of their branch of knowledge. By doing justice to the diversity of this experience and at the same time to the unity of the quest for truth, this volume stupendously renews the classical idea of the unity of knowledge, indeed the beautiful metaphor of the tree of knowledge." —Jean Grondin, University of Montreal
"Each of the essays is high-quality in its own right and can serve as a springboard for other specialists." — Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
"This thought provoking volume addresses problems in contemporary academia and serves as a springboard for specialists to begin having interdisciplinary conversations with those outside their own disciplines. It advances the cause of restoring the rightful place of public intellectuals, one discipline at a time.” —Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
Vittorio Hösle is Paul G. Kimball Chair of Arts and Letters in the Department of German Languages and Literatures and concurrent professor of philosophy and political science at the University of Notre Dame. He was founding director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including The Many Faces of Beauty (2013), The Philosophical Dialogue: A Poetics and a Hermeneutics (2012), and Morals and Politics (2004), all published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
Introduction by Vittorio Hösle
Part 1. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
1. How Did the Western Culture Subdivide Its Various Forms of Knowledge and Justify Them? Historical Reflections on the Metamorphoses of the Tree of Knowledge by Vittorio Hösle
Part 3. EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, AND MATHEMATICS
2. Intuition and Coherence in the Keystone Loop by Keith Lehrer
3. What Is the Nature of Inference? By Robert Hanna
4. Speculation and Narration in Mathematics by Laurent Lafforgue
Part 3. EXPLANATION IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
5. A Molecular Glimpse of How Mother Nature Can Regulate Our Being by Thomas Nowak
6. What Light Does Biology Shed on the Social Sciences and the Humanities? by Francisco J. Ayala
7. What Is the Nature of Perception? by Zygmunt Pizlo
Part 4. INTROSPECTION AND UNDERSTANDING IN THE HUMANITIES
8. Is Introspection (a First-Person Perspective) Indispensable in Psychology? by Osborne Wiggins
9. Could Normative Insights Be Sources of Normative Knowledge? by Allan Gibbard
10. Truth and Knowledge in Literary Interpretation by Carsten Dutt
11. Historical Truth by Aviezer Tucker
C h a p t e r T w e l v e 12. Truth and Unity in Chinese Traditional Historiography by Nicola Di Cosmo
Part 4. ART AND RELIGION
13. The Architecture School within the University by Michael Lykoudis
14. How Is Theology Inspired by the Sciences? by Celia Deane-Drummond
About the Contributors
Index