TY - JOUR AB - The question of the limits of reason, not just within philosophy but also in the modern sciences, is arguably more important than ever given numerous recent commentaries on “life,” “reality,” meaning, purpose, pointlessness and so on, emanating not from philosophers or metaphysicians, but rather from physicists and biologists such as Steven Weinberg and Richard Dawkins. It will be argued that such commentaries concerning the “pointlessness” of the universe, or the purpose of “life,” and other such things, are flawed and unconvincing, not least because they seem to overlook or forget a number of well known and significant philosophical contributions on the question of limits, particularly by Kant, but also by Hume, Russell and Sir A J Ayer. AD - Central Queensland University AU - Younis, Raymond Aaron DO - 10.5840/forphil20101524 KW - Biologists; limits of reason; physicists; reason LA - en M1 - 2 M3 - Articel PY - 2010 RN - Ayer, A. J. The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge. Oxford: Macmillan, 1971. Ayer, A. J. Russell. London: Fontana, 1972. Ayer, A. J. The Central Questions of Philosophy. London: Penguin, 1990. Ayer, A. J. The Problem of Knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956. Beets, M. G. J. The Shape of Reality: An Approach to Kantʼs Analogies. Delft: Eburon, 1986. Beiser, Frederick C. The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Bennett, Jonathan Francis. Kant's Dialectic. [London]: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Buchdahl, Gerd. Kant and the Dynamics of Reason: Essays on the Structure of Kant's Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Campbell, Stephen R. “Constructivism and the Limits of Reason: Revisiting the Kantian Problematic.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 21, no. 6 (2002): 421-445. doi:10.1023/A:1020844323677. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Dickerson, A. B. Kant on Representation and Objectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511487163. Ewing, Alfred Cyril. A Short Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1967 Ewing, Alfred Cyril. Kant’s Treatment of Causality. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1924. Forster, Michael .Neil. Kant and Scepticism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2008. Friedman, R. Z. “Kant and Kierkegaard: The Limits of Reason and the Cunning of Faith.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 19, no. 1 (1986): 3-22. doi:10.1007/BF00160917. Gardner, Sebastian. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason. London: Routledge, 1999. Glanz, James. “Physicist Ponders God, Truth and ‘a Final Theory.’” New York Times, January 25, 2000. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/25/science/scientist-at-work-steven-weinberg-physicist-ponders-god-truth-and-final-theory.html. Gram, Moltke S. The Transcendental Turn: The Foundation of Kant's Idealism. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1984. Grier, Michelle. Kant's Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511498145. Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Hanna, Robert. Kant, Science, and Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. Heidegger, Martin. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Translated by James S. Churchill. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Hume, David. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. London: Forgotten Books, 1912. Jalāl ʻAẓm, Ṣādiq. The Origins of Kant's Arguments in the Antinomies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason: The Critique of Practical Reason and Other Ethical Treatises. Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, and James Creed Meredith. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: READ Books, 2007. Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Transalted by Lewis White Beck. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1951. Koupelis, Theo, and Karl F. Kuhn. In Quest of the Universe. 5th edition. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2007. Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Langton, Rae. Kantian Humility Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Llewelyn, John. The Hypocritical Imagination Between Kant and Levinas. London: Routledge, 2000. Mackie, J. L. The Cement of the Universe; A Study of Causation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. Matthews, Gareth B. Socratic Perplexity and the Nature of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999. McFarland, John D. Kant's Concept of Teleology. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1970. Shell, Susan Meld. Kant and the Limits of Autonomy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Neiman, Susan. The Unity of Reason Rereading Kant. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Overbye, Dennis. “The Universe Might Last Forever, Astronomers Say, but Life Might Not.” The New York Times, January 1, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/01/science/01END.html. Peacocke, Christopher. Transcendental Arguments in the Theory of Content. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Peterson, Gregory R. “Demarcation and the Scientistic Fallacy.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 38, no. 4 (2003):751-761. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.2003.00536.x. Prichard, H. A. Kant's Theory of Knowledge. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909. Putnam, Hilary, “Is There a Fact of the Matter about Fiction?” Poetics Today 4, no. 1 (1983): 77-81. doi:10.2307/1772152. Rescher, Nicholas. Kant and the Reach of Reason: Studies in Kant's Theory of Rational Systematization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Rescher, Nicholas. Rationality: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature and the Rationale of Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Russell, Bertrand. An Outline of Philosophy. London: Allen and Unwin, 1961 Russell, Bertrand. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: Allen and Unwin, 1948. Sellars, Wilfrid. Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes. London: Routledge, 1968. Sosa, Ernest, and Michael Tooley, eds. Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Shell, Susan Meld. The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit, Generation, and Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Stewart, Ian. Does God Play Dice? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Strawson, P. F. The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. London: Routledge, 1989. Velkley, Richard L. Freedom and the End of Reason: On the Moral Foundation of Kant's Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Vesey, Godfrey Norman Agmondisham. Kant's Copernican Revolution: Speculative Philosophy. Bletchley: Open University Press, 1972. Watkins, Eric. Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005. Waxman, Wayne. Kant and the Empiricists: Understanding Understanding. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Weinberg, Steven. The First Three Minutes. New York: Basic Books, 1988. SN - 1426-1898 (paper) 2353-7043 (online) SP - 317–334 ST - These Ultimate Springs and Principles: Science, Religion and the Limits of Reason T2 - Forum Philosophicum TI - These Ultimate Springs and Principles: Science, Religion and the Limits of Reason UR - http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=54527570&lang=pl&site=ehost-live http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=forphil&id=forphil_2010_0015_0002_0317_0334 VL - 15 ID - 15 ER -