The Concept of Social Progress: An Epistemological Moment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v6i1.57Keywords:
progress, social progress, ideology, epistemology, criteria of the social progressAbstract
Starting from some ontological premises of the concept of progress, the paper highlights the intertwining of the ideological paradigm and the epistemological paradigm in the understanding of social progress. The result of this intertwining is the relational and relative nature of the concept of progress. But the questioning of relativism leads to a fruitful though rapid analysis of criteria of progress measurement: because the relative nature of the concept of social progress doesn’t mean ethical equivalence of different standpoints about the concept of social progress, and in no circumstances indifference towards the ordinary people, or towards the human values.
Downloads
References
Aristotle. Sophistical Refutations.
Bazac, A. (2012). “Deus ex machina – philosophie d’un trope littéraire”. Analele Universit??ii din Craiova – Seria Filosofie, nr. 29, (1/), pp. 130-147.
Bazac, A. (2013). “The ordinary man and the social development”. Analele Universit??ii din Craiova, Seria Filosofie, nr. 31, (1/), pp. 47-70.
Bazac, A. (2016). ”The philosophy of the raison d’être: Aristotle’s telos and Kant’s categorical imperative”, Biocosmology – Neo-Aristotelism, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 286-304.
Burkert, W. (1997). “Impact and Limits of the idea of Progress in Antiquity”. In Arnold Burge, Peter McLaughlin, Jürgen Mittelstrass (Eds.), The Idea of Progress, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 19-46.
Bury, J. B. (2010). The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth (1920), Echo Library, free download.
Chapouthier, G. (1995). “L'évolution de la vie: un déterminisme finalisé par sa construction”. Ethique, la vie en question 4, pp. 19-27.
Dodds, E.R. (2001). The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief (1973), Oxford University Press.
Kovàc, L. (2015). Closing Human Evolution: Life in the Ultimate Age, Heidelberg: Springer.
Le Goff, J. (1967). La civilisation de l’Occident médiéval, Paris: Arthaud.
Morris, D. (1967). The Naked Ape: A zoologist's study of the human animal, London: Jonathan Cape.
Nisbet, R. (2009). History of the Idea of Progress (1980), With a new Introduction by the author, New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers.
Plato, Republic.
Reichenbach, H. (1938). Experience and Prediction. An Analysis of the Foundation and
Structure of Knowledge, Chicago Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1866). “ Discours qui a remporté le prix de l’Académie de Dijon, en l’année 1750; sur cette question, imposée par la même Académie: Si le rétablissement des sciences et des arts a contribué a épurer les moeurs”, In: Oeuvres complètes, tome I, Paris: Firmin Didot frères, libraires, imprimeurs de l’Institut de France.
von Wright, G.H. (1997). “Progress: Fact and Fiction”. In Arnold Burge, Peter McLaughlin, Jürgen Mittelstrass (Eds.), The Idea of Progress, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 1-18.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC). CC BY-NC allows users to copy and distribute the article, provided this is not done for commercial purposes. The users may adapt – remix, transform, and build upon the material giving appropriate credit, and providing a link to the license. The full details of the license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.