Scientific realism and philosophical naturalism in Šmajs’ evolutionary ontology

• Authors: Inéz Melichová , Robert Burgan
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

J. Šmajs’ concept of evolutionary ontology has attracted much attention in recent years especially in Czech and Slovak academic circles, yet it remains, as some of its proponents claim, undervalued in Britain and the US. Even in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, there are, in addition to its strong supporters, several authors who almost a priori reject the concept, pointing to several questionable, contradictory or even mutually exclusive or self-refuting arguments. In this paper, mainly based on a comprehensive analysis of the first part of Šmajs’ book, Evoluční ontologie kultury a problém podnikání (2012) [Evolutionary Ontology of Culture and The Issues Of Business], we attempt to demonstrate that the opponents of Šmajs’ concept are closer to the truth, since the concept, we believe, is just another variation on the extreme escalation of philosophical naturalism.

Keywords

EN

biological evolution; natural evolution; cultural evolution; cosmic development in its original meaning; development of the universe; development in the universe; human nature

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 556-575

Dates

published

2013-10-01

online

2013-09-28

Contributors

author

Inéz Melichová

author

Robert Burgan

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13374-013-0149-x