Ciencia prohibida... ciencia buscada (A propósito de La ciencia del bien y del mal de Javier Echeverría)

Abstract

A labyrinth was the infinite for Leibniz (who declares on several occasions that,as much from the angle of the infinite large as from that of the infinite small, infinity is nothing but a fiction in the attempts of thought to explain the phenomena). But another labyrinth was also for him the problem of the evilness, together with the correlative problem of goodness. Used, since he was a young mathematician, to the Leibnizian puzzle of the infinite, Javier Echeverría faces now the second labyrinth. And he approaches the subject by restoring the biblical myth of the tree that hides the mystery. Taken implicitly the opposite point of view that leads Kant to assert the intrinsic division of the reason, Echeverría, from the very title of his book, aims at goodness and evilness as effective goals for science. In this paper we discuss some implications of Echeverría’s bet.