Kant's Wissenschaft

October 16, 2013 timothywstanley@me.com

When Immanuel Kant called on people to 'have the courage to use their own understanding,' to 'dare to know,' he had in mind a broad expanse of inquiries, including those in the arts and sciences, and even the testing of truth claims offered in the name of religion. Although Kant wrote before practitioners of the various inquiries distinguished themselves from one another as physicists, historians, chemists, biologists, literary scholars, economists, geologists, metaphysicians, and so on, these several Wissenschaft were nurtured significantly by the same Enlightenment imperative, by the same broad cognitive ideal. That ideal, directing us toward truths that are discovered, not divined, that are grounded in evidence and reasoning rather than tradition or intuition, is the most important common heritage and resource of the entire modern professoriate.

"Why Can't the Sciences and the Humanities Get Along?" - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education - http://bit.ly/19SFYyD