Reflections on academic reasoning and morality of a scholar

The line of argument in this essay acknowledges that every scholar comes to her or his research project as a human being - a human character with its set of convictions. Human rationality therefore is not an independent faculty and cannot be divorced of human convictions. Taking a lead from the author’s reflections on his personal experience facing moral challenges in constituting the field of bio-mechatronic research, the paper presents an algorithm of analysis of complex holistic arguments. Particular attention is paid to the study of the logical structure of an argument. However, based on the most recent advances in the development of philosophical theology, in particular the emergence of narrative and contextual philosophies, the claim of the paper is that rationality of an argument, most of the time implicitly, supervenes on a scholar’s convictions. The claim is equally valid both at the stage of the development of an argument and at the stage of the assessment and critical eva...