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Document Details :

Title: Een beeld houdt ons gevangen
Subtitle: De afstandelijke blik en de vraag naar waarheid en geluk
Author(s): VANHEESWIJCK, Guido
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie
Volume: 83    Issue: 4   Date: 2021   
Pages: 711-737
DOI: 10.2143/TVF.83.4.3290134

Abstract :
Is a scientific account created from a detached view or a third-person-standpoint the only correct description of reality? Or is reality accessible from an involved or first-person-standpoint as well? (section 1) To answer this question, I take five steps. As a twofold starting-point, the epistemological fact is highlighted that the detached perspective (view from nowhere) and the involved perspective (view from now/here) can never be taken simultaneously (section 2) along with the historical fact that since the 17th century only the detached perspective in a naturalistic context has become dominant (section 3). In reaction to this dominant naturalist paradigm, it is noted that the extent of a detached perspective is broader than only a scientific ‘view from nowhere’ (contra scientific naturalism), and that the involved view has ontological implications (contra social naturalism) (section 4). Finally, building on the insights of Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Taylor and Akeel Bilgrami, I look at the ontological repercussions of the relations between both perspectives — an involved or first-person-standpoint and a detached or third-person-standpoint — on the issue of truth (section 5) and happiness (section 6).

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