Ethical and logical analysis as human sciences.

Abstract

Almost two years ago, Richard Zaner addressed an evening session of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences meet? ing on the topic of his activities as an "ethicist" on the faculty of a medical school. Afterwards, he joined a group of sociologists and philosophers who had been among his audience for a discus? sion which lasted well into the night. In my mind, perhaps the most memorable theme from that long and lively session was the debate as to just what Zaner was doing as he ran around the hospi? tal in a white coat (literal) with at least a figurative copy of The Way of Phenomenology tucked into his pocket. Some proposed that he was doing Ethnomethodology; others, Medical Ethics; others, Counseling. My own proposal was that he was doing Critical Thinking, and doing that from an unusual basis phe? nomenology ? rather than from its usual basis, which is Formal Logic. Furthermore, I suggested that the skepticism which greeted my proposal might be occasioned by our conventional categoriza? tion of Critical Thinking as a branch or derivative of Logic, and thus as part of the Formal Sciences. Zaner's approach from phe? nomenology, however, places Critical Thinking among the Human Sciences. Since this is a rather unconventional categorization, I realized that I would have to make a case for it, as a precondi? tion to gaining a hearing for my original proposal. We now have Zaner's talk in pubUshed form (1984); thus, the discussion instigated by his discourse can be renewed on the basis of the text and with a larger audience. In Section 2, I begin by