On The Role of Philosophy in Theology-Science Dialogue

Abstract

Most disagreements about the proper place of philosophy in the theology-science dialogue stem from disagreements about the nature of philosophy itself. This essay traces some of the history of ideas about the nature of philosophy, and then proposes that in this post-analytic era philosophy can play both a constructive and critical role in the theology-science dialogue. The constructive role is well reflected in current literature so this essay explores the role of philosophy as therapy. As a test case the doctrine of critical realism is diagnosed as a theory designed to solve a problem that needs instead to be dissolved by recognizing that it is based on a misleading picture of the knower's relation to the world.