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Tag: Critical thinking

Why is Anthropology so Critical?

Portrait of Giambattista Vico by Francesco Solimena

By Matthias Teeuwen            I want to thank Ton Salman for his insightful take on the question whether anthropology is the most scientific of the humanities or the most humanistic of the sciences or both, it gave me food for thought. For one: how is it that anthropology is considered science? It seems that Ton sees the scientific aspect of anthropology in its critical function of looking past the representations and meanings of people and examining the empirical conditions in which they arose.

I very much agree with Ton on this point. But I think that this hybridity is easily misunderstood in the sense that the critical, scientific side of anthropology is emphasised at the neglect of the hermeneutical, humanistic side.

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Critical thinking: Who’s up for it?

By Georgette Veerhuis            A month ago on Thursday 21 January 2016 I attended the symposium Diversify Philosophy at the VU. It sounded mysterious. Why does philosophy need to be diversified? It also sounded progressive and modern, and therefore almost incongruent with age-old philosophy. Isn’t philosophy ‘simply’ premised on, and specialised in, critical thinking? Why then should philosophy need to change?

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