Article ID: CBB001023765

Phenomenology in the American Vein: Justus Buchler's Ordinal Naturalism and its Importance for the Justification of Epistemic Objects (2009)

unapi

Niemoczynski, Leon (Author)


Spontaneous Generations
Volume: 3
Pages: 9--27


Publication Date: 2009
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Epistemic Boundaries”
Language: English

In this essay, I explore Justus Buchler's ordinal naturalism with the goal of establishing how his phenomenological approach extends the range of human inquiry to include the many and varied traits of natural phenomena that are not simply the result of sensate experience or material functions. To achieve this goal I critically assess Buchler's notion of ontological parity--the idea that abstract phenomena such as values, relations, ideals, and other mental contents are just as relevant as sense-data when one attempts to provide an adequate description of the world in naturalistic terms. I argue that certain phenomena, subsisting within what Buchler calls the proceptive domain, are legitimate objects of knowledge as they are par t of a larger domain of phenomenological analysis: nature more broadly and justly understood. It is my view that in the attempt to describe the natural world Buchler's ordinal naturalism succeeds where other forms of naturalism fail because his form of naturalism offers a more capacious view of nature that attempts to describe whatever is in any way, not just focus on what is readily apparent to speci?c forms of observation that may privilege one domain of analysis over another. I draw the conclusion that because Buchler's ordinal naturalism contains within it a working principle of ontological parity, his approach to nature ful?lls the criteria of the phenomenological method, and so I title his ordinal naturalism an ordinal phenomenology (Corrington 1992, 1-6, 9-14). Ultimately it is my aim to bring Buchler's thought into closer connection with continental phenomenology, as well as to illustrate a more just and open understanding of nature through an analysis of his unique variety of philosophical naturalism.

...More
Included in

Article Gil-Riano, Sebastian; Hamilton, Vivien (2009) Editor's Introduction: Epistemic Boundaries. Spontaneous Generations (p. 1). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001023765/

Similar Citations

Article Patrik Aspers; (2015)
Performing ontology (/isis/citation/CBB418096730/)

Article Antonia Tonus; Guilherme Messas; (2018)
Ludwig Binswanger: The Construction of an Epistemological Foundation for Psychiatry (/isis/citation/CBB347437449/)

Article Boulnois, Olivier; (2007)
Augustin et les theories de l'image au Moyen Age (/isis/citation/CBB001020462/)

Article Waldegg, Guillermina; (2001)
Ontological Convictions and Epistemological Obstacles in Bolzano's Elementary Geometry (/isis/citation/CBB000101855/)

Chapter Robin Findlay Hendry; (2020)
The Existence of Elements, and the Elements of Existence (/isis/citation/CBB387242449/)

Chapter Haaparanta, Leila; (2009)
The Relations between Logic and Philosophy, 1874--1931 (/isis/citation/CBB001210347/)

Chapter Farzad Mahootian; (2020)
Kant, Cassirer, and the Idea of Chemical Element (/isis/citation/CBB657452257/)

Article Ducheyne, Steffen; (2009)
“To Treat of the World”: Paul Otlet's Epistemology and Ontology and the Circle of Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB000960279/)

Article M. S. Valiathan; (2016)
Caraka’s Approach to Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB383933474/)

Article Lynch, Michael; (June 2013)
Ontography: Investigating the production of things, deflating ontology (/isis/citation/CBB361114447/)

Book Anjan Chakravartty; (2017)
Scientific Ontology: Integrating Naturalized Metaphysics and Voluntarist Epistemology (/isis/citation/CBB537561900/)

Thesis Sofia Helena Jorge Varino; (2017)
Vital Differences Indeterminacy & the Biomedical Body (/isis/citation/CBB818176057/)

Thesis Landon Marc McBrayer; (2015)
On naturalism (/isis/citation/CBB763636277/)

Book Anton, John Peter; (2005)
American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB000501467/)

Article Juliette Ferry-Danini; (2019)
Should phenomenological approaches to illness be wary of naturalism? (/isis/citation/CBB510749802/)

Authors & Contributors
Tonus, Antonia
Ferry-Danini, Juliette
Patrik Aspers
Varino, Sofia Helena Jorge
Diedrich, Lisa
M. S. Valiathan
Concepts
Philosophy
Ontology
Epistemology
Phenomenology
Disease and diseases
Naturalism (philosophy)
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, early
19th century
18th century
Medieval
21st century
Places
United States
India
Greece
Czech Republic
Institutions
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment