Abstract

The article reviews selected points arising from the quaestio disputata on the relation between philosophy and the sciences, published in this journal in September 2003 and then some weeks later treated in an open forum by professors and students of the Gregorian Faculty of Philosophy. The central issue emerging from the discussion was that of organizing the different modes of rational discourse in a manner that respects the specific methods of each, while remaining attentive to the unity of human thought and practical action. The later Wittgenstein took care to avoid mixing different types of discourse, while Carnap acknowledged the inevitability of including consideration of the psychP as an essential procedural step in every theoretical construct in the sciences. Maréchalian transcendental philosophies and Husserlian phenomenologies both insist that human subjectivity is more than functional, since it lies at the origin of rational activity. Thus, science draws attention to subjectivity, but a viable theory must still specify the status of actions proper to the latter