Abstract
In the coming chapters we will try to deepen our understanding of the limitations of the reductionist worldview as the foundation of communication studies. This effort is worthwhile because outlining these limitations will allow us also to ask how, if at all, they might be circumvented. As an important introduction to all of this, we have to add to our discussion a brief but crucial note about the false promise embodied in the reductionist explanation.
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Notes
- 1.
The best known axiomatic system in history is Euclid’s geometry of course. Non-Euclidean geometries were not known in Descartes’ time. Euclid’s geometry undoubtedly served as Descartes’ model for the construction of scientific knowledge. But it was not the only deductive system known in his time: Aristotle’s system of syllogisms (which preceded that of Euclid), and in particular the one implied by Aristotle’s derivation of all the valid syllogisms from those of the first group was also rather well known, if not yet articulated in a way that underscored its nature as a formal system. Only modern scholars of Aristotle’s theory (and most prominently, Lukasiewicz) could emphasize this aspect of Aristotle’s theory unequivocally. Indeed, even the first fully formal articulation of Euclid’s geometry belongs only to the time of David Hilbert. These facts clarify, I hope, just how far-sighted was Descartes intuition in this case.
Bibliography
Bar-Am, N., & Agassi, J. (2014). Meaning: From Parmenides to Wittgenstein: Philosophy as footnotes to Parmenides. Conceptus, 41(99), 1–21.
Descartes, R. (1985). The philosophical writings of descartes (vol. 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosen, R. (1991). Life itself. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Bar-Am, N. (2016). The Unbelievable Complexity of the Truly Simple. In: In Search of a Simple Introduction to Communication. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25625-2_8
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