"Menaced Rationality": Husserl and Merleau-Ponty on the Crisis and Promise of Science. Issue 3 (December 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Singer, Jonathan D.
• Is Part Of: Progress in biophysics and molecular biology. Volume 119:Issue 3(2015)
• Page Start: 245
• Page End: 256
• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Subjects: Science -- Nature -- Physics -- Mathematics -- Rationality -- Phenomenology -- Husserl -- Merleau-Ponty; Biophysics -- Periodicals; Biochemistry -- Periodicals; Biophysics -- Periodicals; Molecular Biology -- Periodicals; Biophysique -- Périodiques; Biochimie -- Périodiques; 571.4
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2015.06.007
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0079-6107

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper I provide an overview of Husserl's and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological critique of science, and suggest that such a critique is not only necessary in order to resolve an aporia that is otherwise apparently endemic to science, but that such a critique may also offer resources for productively addressing related philosophical difficulties, particularly the relationship between ideality and materiality/"nature." Following Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, I maintain that only a phenomenologically grounded science can be consistently "scientific."