Not even classical mechanics is mechanistic
pp. 251-262
in: Diederik Aerts, Hubert Van Belle, Jan Van Der Veken (eds), World views and the problem of synthesis, Berlin, Springer, 1999Abstract
Contemporary natural science or, put another way, the rationality of the classical sciences variously have been held responsible for the disconcerting, if not desperate, state of human affairs and future prospects of humanity. An unbridgeable gap is seen between the "two cultures' or two types of rationality, the one being that of the "hard and cold" natural sciences which indulge in measurement and calculation as their basic methods, and the other the moral standards of human rationality. Usually, the natural sciences, due to their methodology and state, are seen as turned against human culture, and a way out of the depressive state of human culture is hoped for by transforming the very nature of the sciences. This transformation is to entail first and foremost the "historification" and "humanization" of the sciences so as to allow for the incorporation of the thinking and acting subject into theory. However, as shown elsewhere [1; 2]., both the criticism leveled against the sciences and the expectations as to their future transformation rest on a misapprehension of the characteristic features of their epistemology.