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Some Historical and Philosophical Reflections on Science and Enlightenment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Abner Shimony
Abner Shimony*
Affiliation:
Boston University
*
†Departments of Philosophy and Physics, Boston University; 8 Dover Road, Wellesley, MA 02181.
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Extract

I am grateful for the opportunity to share with you some of my convictions, anxieties, and hopes. My central conviction is the immense value of a mental outlook which can be called by the suggestive and historically recognized name Enlightenment, whose exact characterization, however, requires careful discussion. It is an outlook widely shared, though with innumerable personal variations, by the members of the Philosophy of Science Association, by the broader community of scientists, science teachers, and philosophers, and by an ill-defined part of the general public. My anxieties are that the cultivation and the influence of this mental outlook in our nation and in the world are threatened in various ways, among them ideological attacks, slackening of educational standards, and demoralization of its adherents. My central hope is that Enlightenment will prevail despite these threats.

Type
Presidential Address
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue S4: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Dec., 1997 , 1997 , pp. S1 - S14
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1997

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Footnotes

‡

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Professor Jerome Rothstein of Ohio State University—an imaginative and philosophically-minded scientist, an inventive technologist dedicated to the preservation of the environment, and an enlightened citizen.

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