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You are hereby invited to the third seminar in our new interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition (ECCO) <http://ecco.vub.ac.be> : A Minimal Philosophical Agenda. Worldview Construction as a Philosophical Method. Clément Vidal <http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com/> (ECCO, VUB) Abstract: Is there something like a philosophical method? It seems that there are as many methods as there are philosophies. A method is any procedure employed to attain a certain end. So, before going to a method, we have to ask: what is the aim of philosophy? At the origin of philosophy, there is a questioning about the world. Leo Apostel and Jan Van der Veken made more precise and explicit those fundamental questions (Apostel & Van der Veken 1988). The primarily aim of philosophy can be seen as answering this philosophical agenda; with the answers, one come up with a worldview. We'll argue that the philosophical worldviews constitute a particular class of the possible worldviews. With the help of three analogies, we'll give some guidelines to construct such worldviews. But, what are the best philosophical worldviews? We'll see how we can compare and confront them; and also some problems for their diffusion. The last section will propose some basic hypotheses to build such integrative worldviews. When? This Wednesday 31th January, 2-4 pm. Where? The seminar room is B 0.036 (building B, level 0, close to the human sciences computer rooms), on the VUB Campus Etterbeek. Coffee and drinks are available. Free entrance: everybody welcome! _____ Seminar Program for the coming weeks: 7th February Mixel Kiemen, Complex-Adaptive information processing. 14th February Wim Christiaens, Apostel's concept of causality: defining Being by folding "logic" on "life". 21th February Dirk Kenis, Knowledge Management in Virtual Communities: opportunities for Agile Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) 28th February Erden Goktepe, Mediating International Agents: The Question of Efficiency. Future speakers : Karin Verelst, Helen de Cruz, Arnold De Loof, Mehmet Tezcan, Klaas Chielens. _____ More on last week Seminar: Jan Bernheim, A Progressive Evolutionary Worldview. (Presentation <http://pcp.vub.ac.be/ECCO/Seminars/Bernheim2007.ppt> | Discussion <http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1825> ) Note that to participate to the discussion, you needs to register to knosos.be, and to subscribe to the ECCO group. More informations about the ECCO seminars: http://pcp.vub.ac.be:8000/ECCO-web/11 or http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1666 (PDF <http://www.knosos.be/?q=system/files/ecco_seminars_2007_0.pdf> program with abstracts). Best regards, Clément Vidal. _________________________________ http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com <http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com/> Evolution, Complexity and Cognition research group, Free University of Brussels. Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium. +32 (0) 2 640 67 37
