Zagadnienie teorii filozofii przyrody

Abstract

The authors attempt a characteristic of K. Kłósak’s work on philosophy of nature against the background of comparative analysis of various concepts of philosophy of nature. They seek for the theory which is most adequate to reality and will best satisfy contemporary man. The multiplicity of concepts of philosophy of nature is methodologically conditioned by acceptance of certain preliminary assumptions which effect the whole system of theorems and the way in which they are substanciated. Among these theorems, the decisive role is played by different ways of understanding science and rules of classifying sciences. Hence, we classify the very concepts of philosophy of nature into traditional and autonomous ones depending on the acceptance of the old or the modern theory of science and rules of classification of sciences. The traditional concepts of philosophy of nature, e. g. those of J. Gredt, P. Hoenen, F. Dougherty, Ph. Selvaggi, A. Meisen, have not really succeeded in assessing its relation to natural sciences and to metaphysics. Autonomous concepts, e. g. those of Maritain or K. Kłósak are attempts of fundamental practice of philosophical cognition of science and thus ascertaining for it a methodological status or field of studies at least comparatively autonomous. The authors have characterised Kłósak’s theoretical assumptions and metatheoretical concepts and assessed his definition of the subject matter of philosophy of nature as „a science concerning the aspect of existence in reality as the type of subjects which constitute nature”. To define the cognitive-theoretical assets of K. Kłósak’s concept, it is compared to contemporary means of philosophical reflection, among others on the example of Z. Augustynek’s philosophical reflections on time and systemic ontology. Comparative analyses of this kind have proved that this specific practice in philosophy is based on particular sciences without limiting them to their empirical characteristics. It is aimed at subject studies of ontological nature and base view of structures and processes. It is characterised by a certain ontological openness. Kłósak’s concept has much in common with the specific style of contemporary, first of all with ankering it, i.e. making it a subject of natural sciences. However, it goes much deeper and creates a coherent original theory in which ontological theses are neither simple conventions, nor contextual elements of the theory to be proved empirically, but ontological implications reductive in character. The conclusion points to the fact that Rev. Kłósak’s chief attempt is to present the specificity of philosophy of nature and its autonomous character, with respect to natural sciences and metaphysics. Though it is built and constructed in the arising manner, philosophy of nature presented in this way is to explicate in a specifically ontological manner the material reality.