Judgement, Scientific Consensus and Education

In this article, we will examine the role of intersubjective consensus as a possible response to the relativism in the philosophy of science represented by Kuhn and Feyerabend. In this context, Jaakko Hintikka has proposed Kant’s dialogue with nature as a potential solution and brought it into connection with Peirce’s abductive reasoning. In the article, we also intend to explain why it is necessary to supplement Kant’s concept of reflective judgment with Hegel’s concept of knowledge, namely the consensus of the institutional scientific community, which was later elaborated by Imre Lakatos. Kant’s reflective judgment is linked to Hegel’s heuristic inquiry, in which consensus is reached when the knowing subject acknowledges established forms of knowledge as scientific paradigms, recognizes their shortcomings, but does not reject them. Rather, the subject improves upon them, raises them to a higher level, and integrates them into a comprehensive system of knowledge. Consensus thus proves to be an intersubjective achievement: a provisional determination of truth that is constantly put to the test and revised in the course of the mind’s cognitive process.