Science, Philosophy, and Interfaith Understanding

The paper discusses two central topics in the philosophy of science, namely the demarcation problem and the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification, in order to solve the problem of pluralism, not only in science but also in philosophy and in interfaith understanding. On the one hand, the discussion of the neo-positivist verifi ability principle will show that it can only be consistently adopted by admitting a wider notion of reason, from which neither philosophy nor religious belief are excluded. On the other hand, the inquiry into the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification leads to define more accurately this wider concept of reason and to apply it to the problem of the mutual understanding between different scientific, philosophical and religious traditions. Not only in the empirical sciences, but also in other cultural fields, all discussions are guided by the underlying assumption that some settlement of different opinions or rival interests is in principle always possible because things are as they are, quite independently of our opinion on the subject. However, this pre-operational (or transcendental) validity claim would be devoid of any meaning and truth, in the absence ofspecifi c procedures that allow us to retrace in the fi rst person the methodical steps that guide participants in that discourse to their conclusions. Without this methodical moment, which is essentially neglected by Popper and the Logical Empiricists, any dialogue between groups holding rival views would be de facto impossible.