Sciences as Categorical Closures, by Gustavo Bueno, 2013

Fundación Gustavo Bueno

   

Gustavo Bueno

Sciences as Categorical Closures

Translated by Brendan Burke
Revised by Lino Camprub�
→ Pentalfa, Oviedo 2013, 143 pp.
 

http://fgbueno.es/ing/gbm/2013sacc.htm[04/06/2018 11:39:37]
Sciences as Categorical Closures, by Gustavo Bueno, 2013

Sciences as Categorical Closures

When asked, a great number of people would consider the question “What is science?” merely
rhetorical, for the answer, to them, seems self-evident � science is what men of science do,
something which allows us to “understand reality scientifically”. It is what enables us to
control space shuttles to the moon, rockets to Jupiter and the genetic code. It is what will
soon provide the cure for cancer and AIDS. Any further answers, they might say, can only be
provided by scientists themselves.

As it stands, scientists do not always respond in a like manner. Some say that science is the
systematization of observed facts or experiments. Others say that the sciences are simply
models useful for gaining a grip on real things, functioning like nets flung to the sea to catch
the greatest number of fish. Scientists, though, are not necessarily fit to respond to the
question � a mathematician is not more qualified per se to respond to the question any more
than a historian, for instance.

“What is science?” is a truly philosophical question. This treatise offers a theory on the
philosophical theories of science and, employing the idea of categorical closure, sets forth a
broad outline for a theory of science based on the tenets of philosophical materialism.

Table of Contents

I. No single, exclusive idea of science exists.

The need for a theory of science, 7
II. Four types of responses to the question, “What is science?”
Four “families” of theories of science, 21
III. The response from the theory of categorical closure.
An overview of gnoseological materialism, 43
IV. The origin and development of the sciences as seen
from the theory of categorical closure, 111
V. Science and Philosophy, 127

→ What is a categorical closure? 1978

• Literatura y materialismo filosófico 16-20 julio 2018

• Controversia entre el tomismo y el molinism

http://fgbueno.es/ing/gbm/2013sacc.htm[04/06/2018 11:39:37]