Scientific rigor: elementary principles extracted from Aristotle in the interest of Theology.

• Main Author: Clodovis Boff
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais 2015-10-01
• Series: Horizonte
• Subjects: Rigor; Epistemologia; Paideia; Método Teológico
• Online Access: http://periodicos.pucminas.br/index.php/horizonte/article/view/10128

<p>Against the modern tendency to considerate just the formal-empirical knowledge as Science, and this one mathematized as much as possible, here many declarations of Aristotle are raised in order to show that the scientific rigour is not univocal but analogic: it is determined according to the nature of the object to be known. This is a so elementary epistemological rule that not knowing it is understood by that philosopher as apaideusia, i.e., lack of basic education in the knowledge sphere in general. To the Stagirite, a pepaideuménos, i.e., a well educated spirit requires to every subject just the kind of rigour which is adequate to it, attempting not to impose whether the demonstrative or the mathematical rigour to the subject. It is specially truth for the theological Science, whose subject, by being transcendent, asks for a sui generis rigour which has to be so faithful as possible to it.</p>