Retha Van Der Merwe
Biographic Data
| ID | 225805 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Retha Van Der Merwe |
| GIVEN NAMES | Retha |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Der Merwe |
| SIGNATURE | VAN DER MERWE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Johannesburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1038-758X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
How Darwin can help Post-Structuralists Maintain that Apartheid was Unconditionally Unjust
Generally, we want certain ethical claims to be unconditionally true. One such claim is “Apartheid was unjust”. In this paper, I discuss a group of South African post-structuralist philosophers who call their view Critical Complexity (CC). Because of post-structuralism’s radical contextualism, CCists can only claim that things are ‘as if’ Apartheid was unjust. They cannot claim that Apartheid was unconditionally unjust. Many will find this unsati…
Years On
In his best-selling book The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris develops a model for a universal ethics. His version of consequentialism has had some impact on the public, specifically on so-called new atheists. On the book’s 15th anniversary, I look back at and retrospectively critique Harris’s “science of morality” to see if it has stood the test of time. I first summarise the view, then identify various problems with it. Thereafter, I turn to arguabl…
Whewell’s fundamental antithesis
William Whewell’s 19th-century views are seldom given a prominent place in the history of the philosophy of science. There is, however, a key feature of his account that is, upon historical analysis, prescient of later developments, notably in pragmatism. Whewell calls this the “fundamental antithesis of philosophy”, which centres around the idea that there is no clear demarcation between subject and object (between mind and world or theory and f…
A beginner's guide to crossing the road
Crossing the road within the traffic system is an example of an action human agents perform successfully day-to-day in complex systems. How do they perform such successful actions given that the behaviour of complex systems is often difficult to predict? The contemporary literature contains two contrasting approaches to the epistemology of complex systems: an analytic and a post-modern approach. We argue that neither adequately accounts for how s…
Whewell’s Hylomorphism as a Metaphorical Explanation for How Mind and World Merge
How pluralistic is pluralism really? A case study of Sandra Mitchell’s Integrative Pluralism
Epistemic pluralists in the philosophy of science often argue that different epistemic perspectives in science are equally warranted. Sandra Mitchell – with her Integrative Pluralism (IP) – has notably advocated for this kind of epistemic pluralism. A problem arises for Mitchell however because she also wants to be an epistemological pluralist. She claims that, not only are different epistemic perspectives in science equally warranted in differen…
Stuart Kauffman’s metaphysics of the adjacent possible
Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In thi…
A Dilemma for Determination Pluralism (or Dualism)
Trial and Error? An Inquiry into Implementing a 'Straight-for-English' Approach with Foundation Phase Students with Inadequate English Proficiency
The language of instruction in South Africa is currently an extremely controversial issue. As a result of South Africa's political history, English is almost always chosen as the language of instruction. However, in many cases, students have not been adequately exposed to English when they enter the Foundation Phase. This study reports on research conducted at an Ex-Model C (formerly privileged) primary school in South Africa where an immersion-t…
No prominent works on this page.
Trial and Error? An Inquiry into Implementing a 'Straight-for-English' Approach with Foundation Phase Students with Inadequate English Proficiency
The language of instruction in South Africa is currently an extremely controversial issue. As a result of South Africa's political history, English is almost always chosen as the language of instruction. However, in many cases, students have not been adequately exposed to English when they enter the Foundation Phase. This study reports on research conducted at an Ex-Model C (formerly privileged) primary school in South Africa where an immersion-t…
A Dilemma for Determination Pluralism (or Dualism)
Stuart Kauffman’s metaphysics of the adjacent possible
Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In thi…
Whewell’s Hylomorphism as a Metaphorical Explanation for How Mind and World Merge
How pluralistic is pluralism really? A case study of Sandra Mitchell’s Integrative Pluralism
Epistemic pluralists in the philosophy of science often argue that different epistemic perspectives in science are equally warranted. Sandra Mitchell – with her Integrative Pluralism (IP) – has notably advocated for this kind of epistemic pluralism. A problem arises for Mitchell however because she also wants to be an epistemological pluralist. She claims that, not only are different epistemic perspectives in science equally warranted in differen…
A beginner's guide to crossing the road
Crossing the road within the traffic system is an example of an action human agents perform successfully day-to-day in complex systems. How do they perform such successful actions given that the behaviour of complex systems is often difficult to predict? The contemporary literature contains two contrasting approaches to the epistemology of complex systems: an analytic and a post-modern approach. We argue that neither adequately accounts for how s…
How Darwin can help Post-Structuralists Maintain that Apartheid was Unconditionally Unjust
Generally, we want certain ethical claims to be unconditionally true. One such claim is “Apartheid was unjust”. In this paper, I discuss a group of South African post-structuralist philosophers who call their view Critical Complexity (CC). Because of post-structuralism’s radical contextualism, CCists can only claim that things are ‘as if’ Apartheid was unjust. They cannot claim that Apartheid was unconditionally unjust. Many will find this unsati…
Years On
In his best-selling book The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris develops a model for a universal ethics. His version of consequentialism has had some impact on the public, specifically on so-called new atheists. On the book’s 15th anniversary, I look back at and retrospectively critique Harris’s “science of morality” to see if it has stood the test of time. I first summarise the view, then identify various problems with it. Thereafter, I turn to arguabl…
Whewell’s fundamental antithesis
William Whewell’s 19th-century views are seldom given a prominent place in the history of the philosophy of science. There is, however, a key feature of his account that is, upon historical analysis, prescient of later developments, notably in pragmatism. Whewell calls this the “fundamental antithesis of philosophy”, which centres around the idea that there is no clear demarcation between subject and object (between mind and world or theory and f…
Philosophy (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (4 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Metaphysics (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Law (2 works) · Philosophy (2 works)