Reason Eclipsed
on Philosophical Schools That Eat Their Own
In Tübingen in 1961, the German Sociology Society hosted a debate between the preeminent defender of scientific positivism, Karl Popper, and a founding father of critical theory, Theodor Adorno. This event hallmarked what became known as the “positivist disputes.” For the scientific positivists, only the instrumental, cause-and-effect reasoning of the natural sciences could say anything true about the world. For the social theorists, it was the mental constructs of historically and socially shaped minds that constituted reality as such.
If there was one thing that both the Popperians and the Adornoites believed, it was that reason alone is magisterial, and that only through reason can human freedom and social harmony be won. Both parties not only assumed the basic falsehood—or, per Popper, the unfalsifiability—of religious claims about reality, but they equally presupposed the meaninglessness of metaphysics.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Anthony Costello holds a BA in German from the University of Notre Dame, and two master’s degrees from the Talbot School of Theology/Biola University (MA Christian Apologetics, MA Theology). An Evangelical, he also served five and a half years in the U.S. Army, with one deployment to Afghanistan. He is the founder and president of the Kirkwood Center for Theology & Ethics (kirkwoodcenter.org).
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on education from the online archives
26.5—Sept/Oct 2013
The Perils of Pragmatism in Christian Attitudes Toward the Liberal Arts by Robin Phillips
20.8—October 2007
The Deep & Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education by David Lyle Jeffrey
more from the online archives
30.2—March/April 2017
The Education of Children Takes Generations of Fidelity by W. Ross Blackburn
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
