Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 Scientific knowledge depends upon institutions. Universities, academies, journals, and professional societies preserve standards of evidence, refine methods, and transmit accumulated understanding from one generation to the next. Without such institutions, science could neither maintain continuity nor achieve collective progress. Yet the same institutions that preserve knowledgeContinue reading “Excursus 048 – On Insiders and Outsiders in Scientific Innovation”
Author Archives: Hossein Jorjani
Excursus 047 – On the Growth of Fields of Expertise
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The history of knowledge is, in large measure, the history of intellectual differentiation. In antiquity, philosophy (philosophia) embraced nearly every systematic inquiry into nature, humanity, and society. Aristotle’s division of knowledge into theoretical, practical, and productive sciences established a broad framework from which later disciplines graduallyContinue reading “Excursus 047 – On the Growth of Fields of Expertise”
Excursus 046 – On Natura Non Facit Saltus
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The maxim natura non facit saltus (“nature makes no leaps”) has long served both as a methodological principle and as an ontological hypothesis. Methodologically, it directs inquiry toward identifying intermediate stages and causal connections rather than accepting apparent discontinuities as ultimate explanations. Ontologically, it expresses theContinue reading “Excursus 046 – On Natura Non Facit Saltus”
Excursus 045 – On the Biological and Institutional Senses of Work
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 16 Discussions of work commonly refer to institutionally organized human productive activity rather than to productive activity in the broader biological sense. This distinction is easily overlooked, leading social institutions to be credited—or blamed—for conditions that arise from more fundamental biological constraints. The necessity of productive activityContinue reading “Excursus 045 – On the Biological and Institutional Senses of Work”
Excursus 044 – On the Primacy of Movement in Dialectical Thought
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 16 Throughout much of the history of dialectical thought, contradiction has increasingly come to be regarded as the defining feature of dialectic. From Plato through Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx, dialectical development was progressively interpreted in terms of opposition, negation, conflict, or contradiction. By the nineteenth century,Continue reading “Excursus 044 – On the Primacy of Movement in Dialectical Thought”
Excursus 043 – From Pedagogical Models to Ontological Commitments
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Scientific education commonly proceeds by means of simplified models. Because complex systems are difficult to understand in their full generality, instruction often begins with deliberately unrealistic cases that isolate a single principle while suppressing complicating factors. Such models serve an indispensable pedagogical function: they provide theContinue reading “Excursus 043 – From Pedagogical Models to Ontological Commitments”
Excursus 042 – On Structural and Institutional Levels of Explanation
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 In discussions of social, economic, and political questions, structural constraints and institutional constraints are often treated as though they were identical. As a result, the origin of a phenomenon is frequently confused with the appropriate means of addressing it. Human reproduction provides a straightforward example. Pregnancy,Continue reading “Excursus 042 – On Structural and Institutional Levels of Explanation”
Excursus 041 – The Productive Role of Imperfect Data
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Some historians of science have suggested that the imperfections of Galileo’s telescopes, rather than hindering discovery, were in fact instrumental to his success. The blurred and edge-distorted images forced him to interpret what he saw conceptually, using geometry and analogy rather than photographic realism. Because theContinue reading “Excursus 041 – The Productive Role of Imperfect Data”
Excursus 040 – On the Allegory of the Cave and Induction
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 The orthodox interpretation holds that Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is not an account of empirical inquiry but a metaphysical drama of intellectual ascent: the shadows signify ignorance, the cave represents the sensible world, and liberation symbolizes the soul’s turn toward noēsis and knowledge of theContinue reading “Excursus 040 – On the Allegory of the Cave and Induction”
Excursus 039 – On Bacon’s Asymmetry of Induction and Deduction
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Bacon’s principal target of criticism in Novum Organum I:30 was the upward movement from particulars to general propositions. He argued that the traditional method, which he termed inductio vulgaris (“vulgar induction”), merely gathered instances, leapt prematurely to universal statements, and then relied on syllogistic demonstration toContinue reading “Excursus 039 – On Bacon’s Asymmetry of Induction and Deduction”
Hossein Jorjani 