Estado Sentido

Um excelente artigo de Brandon Harnish, "Alasdair MacIntyre and F. A. Hayek on the Abuse of Reason", para o qual chamo em especial a atenção dos interessados nas temáticas do racionalismo, tradicionalismo, modernidade, epistemologia, filosofia da ciência e Iluminismo:

«Hayek likewise expresses concern over the division between the humanities and the social sciences and the new approach to which this division gave rise. He quotes Albert Einstein to illustrate his point that science without epistemology—insofar as it is thinkable at all—is primitive and muddled (1956, 131). This approach is epitomized by the German sociologist Torgny T. Segerstedt, whom Hayek quotes: “‘The most important goal that sociology has set for itself is to predict the future development and to shape the future, or, if one prefers to express it in that manner, to create the future of mankind’” (in Hayek 1970, 6).

MacIntyre expresses this search for a formula of social development as, tellingly, a hunt for the position of God. “[O]mniscience excludes the making of decisions. If God knows everything that will occur, he confronts no as yet unmade decision. He has a single will. It is precisely insofar as we differ from God that unpredictability invades our lives. This way of putting the point has one particular merit: it suggests precisely what project those who seek to eliminate unpredictability from the social world or to deny it may be engaging in” (2007, 97). How the Enlightenment shift toward constructivist rationalism profoundly affected the social sciences or, perhaps more fundamentally, how the shift in the way man confronted questions of value and questions of fact changed his approach to the study of human action begins to become clear. MacIntyre and Hayek see utilitarianism and emotivism as two results of the Enlightenment shift (Hayek 1970, 14; MacIntyre 2007, 62). As manifestations of rationalism, these philosophies fostered the new social science ideology and made mankind feel the full and practical consequences of the Enlightenment Project’s failure.»

Em tempos o Cardeal Manning afirmou que "todas as diferenças de opinião são teológicas no fundo". Eu arrisco-me a dizer que todas as diferenças de opinião são também epistemológicas e metodológicas, pelo que importa sempre religare, ou seja, voltar ao início, para perceber e validar qualquer construção teórica e conclusões posteriores. Não é possível passar da doxa para a episteme quando nos deixamos enredar em manuais de pronto-a-vestir ideológico, servidos como verdades absolutas, sem procurarmos saber quais as bases epistemológicas e metodológicas destes. Compreender isto é a chave para tornar o debate público em qualquer sociedade aberta minimamente racional e inteligível, diminuindo as possibilidades de acrimónia exagerada e expurgando o ruído de que normalmente enferma, que, na política, são essencialmente o resultado da hemiplegia moral de ser de esquerda ou de direita.