Integrated Truth and Existential Phenomenology

Robert C. Trundle, PhD (1984), Fellow at the Adler-Aquinas Institute, is a former faculty member at Regis College and University of Colorado at Colorado Springs as well as a former Outstanding Junior Professor and full Professor at Northern Kentucky University.

• EDITORIAL FOREWORD KENNETH A. BRYSON xvii Foreword by Peter A. Redpath xiiiPreface xxiONE Existential Phenomenology and Truth in Science1. Dilemmas of Truth that Afflict Realism2. A Weak Realism Despite the Dilemmas?3. A Robust Realism for Mature Theories4. Theory-Dependence Vs. a Consciousness-Rooted RealismTWO Realism Rooted in Observational Consciousness1. Consciousness and Reality2. Reality of a Paradox to a Paradoxical Consciousness3. Existential Phenomenology: An Antidote to Neuroscience Sophistry and Other Substitutes for Philosophy4. The Recurring Seductions of Self-Refuting Reductionisms5. Should Neuroscience Study the Phenomena of Neuroscience and Disbelief in God?6. Anti-Phenomenological Footings of Neuroscience Philosophy7. How Philosophy was Previously Skewed by Aping Science8. Contra Kant: Consciousness of a Thereness Apart From Thought9. Consciousness of Aspects of Phenomena10. Seeing Non-Epistemologically in the Analytic Tradition11. In This Tradition, Seeing EpistemologicallyTHREE From Cultural Relativism as a Species of Realism to Realism in Science1. A Common-Sense Inference of True Theories Versus an Everyday Contextual Relativism2. Realism as Opposed to a Politically-Correct Cultural Relativism3. Phenomenological and Logical Support of Realism4. Scientific Significance of Aspects of Phenomena5. An Anti-Realist K-K Thesis Surmounted by Common Sense6. A Phenomenological Explanation of Historical Developments7. The Developments Include Free Will and Causal DeterminismFOUR Scientific Realism and Problems of Observation1. Theory Vs. Theory-Neutral Observation2. Observation-Theoretical Distinctions Or Differences in Degree?3. Theory-Laden Observation and Observational Consciousness4. Observational Footing is Not a Physics-Friendly Metaphysics5. Metaphysics Vs. Modal Logic and a Phenomenology of Observation6. Observation-Laden Theory: Are Theoretical Entities Observed?7. Observation via Existential Phenomenology is Not a TheoryFIVE The Turn From Realism Roused by a Self-Avowed Realist1. Covert Influence of Popper’s Anti-Realism2. A Preamble to Popper’s Problems in the Philosophy of Science3. The Overlooked Origin of Observation Statements as Falsifiers4. How Falsificationism is Ungrounded by Observation5. An Anti-Realism of Kuhn’s Radical Relativism6. From Relativism to Post-Modern Reinventions of Self and Theories7. The Relation of Science to Sophists and Super Scientists8. A Peculiar Case of Missing the Profound Point about Popper9. Radical Empiricism Fueling Feyerabend’s Anarchy10. Feyerabend’s Anti-Establishment Think-Tank-Like Conjectures11. Conjectures Vs. Sartre’s Strange Support of Aristotle and ThomasSIX A Return to Scientific Realism1. Commensurability: A Presupposition of Scientific Progress2. Truth Upheld by De Re and De Dicto Impossibilities?3. The Impossibilities are not Undercut by Meaning Variances4. Verisimilitude: Increasing Truth, Not Truth-likeness5. Problem of Ascribing Truth to Theories as Conjunctive Propositions6. Propositional Logic Vs. What It Makes Sense to Say7. Is it Senseless to Say that Superseded Theories are Still True?8. Truth is an Attainable Aim of Methodology9. A Methodology Tolerating New Phenomena Not Being Duplicated10. From Eventual Duplication to Novelty and New Research11. From Research and Success to the Issue of Internal InconsistencySEVEN Scientific Truth Informs Truths of Ethics, Art and Politics1. Integrated Truth with Its Starting Point in Real Existence2. Existence Subject to Causes Understood Methodologically3. Modalities in Science Presuppose the Causal Principle4. Preamble: the Causal Principle Strictly Implies a First Cause5. Does Evolution Exclude a First-Cause Creator? Is this Creator Inferred Invalidly?6. A Soundly Inferred God Averts Kierkegaard’s “Leap of Faith”DIAGRAM: KIERKEGAARD’S “LEAP OF FAITH”…IS AVERTED BY THE BRIDGE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY7. A “Leap of Faith” Avoided by Sound Modal Reasoning8. Inferring a First Cause and Its Integration of Truth in Science, Ethics, Art and Politics9. The Sound Inference of a First Cause and the Conditional10. Denying a First Cause and Rise of the Naturalistic Fallacy11. A First Cause and Our Psychobiological Nature Being as it Ought to Be12. Ethical Truth Favoring the Family is Inferable from Science13. Scientific Truth Informs Truth in Art, Architecture and Music14. Political Truth is Informed by Truths of Ethics and ScienceINFERENCES IN THIS ESSAY: INTEGRATING TRUTHS IN SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, ETHICS, ART AND POLITICSBibliographyIndex