obnoxio@BRAHMS.BERKELEY.EDU (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (05/22/87)
I'm directing followups to sci.philosophy.tech. Subject: Re: Knowledge In article <669@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU>, carnes@gargoyle (Richard Carnes) writes, in response to Kenn Barry. >Your argument contains an implicit contradiction. You are arguing a >philosophical (epistemological) point: that the only adequate basis >for knowledge is the repeatable testing that characterizes the hard >sciences. But you can't prove this philosophical point by testing >and measurement; therefore, by your own reasoning, there is no >adequate basis for accepting it as true. By Kenn's own reasoning, there *is* an adequate basis. His thesis has received repeated tested over the centuries. (NB-Kenn did not say "re- peated".) In essense, is the solution to Hume's dilemma provided by Loeb's theorem!? [I mentioned the theorem in my review of Smullyan _Forever Undecided_.] > You can't say: "I know >that P is true, but of course that's just my opinion." You seem to >be advocating a positivistic philosophy which has long since been >abandoned by philosophers, for good non-positivist reasons. There was nothing even close to positivism in Kenn's assertions. Just plain old honest pragmatism. >There is certainly a great deal of agreement in the social sciences >and humanities. Kenn's "there is none" was incorrect. But the great deal that you are talking about couldn't stand up to the hard sciences for a minute. > Any time one scholar says to another, "I see your >point," or implicitly acknowledges the force of another's point by >addressing it, there is agreement. If what you are saying is true, >and everything in (say) philosophy, theology, or literary criticism >is just a matter of opinion, then discussions among scholars in these >fields would proceed in this wise: "My opinion of A is X." "My >opinion of A is Y (or not-X)." End of discussion. No, this is not what Kenn was saying. He was saying that theologians will never come to a uniform agreement about some of the central ques- tions of their field. Reading this as an assertion that all theolo- gians do is exchange opinions and then stop is a tad bit inaccurate on your part. (Perhaps they do--but that is another question.) > Obviously this is >not what happens. Scholars present *reasons* why we should accept >one view rather than another, and of course everyone speaks in this >way constantly in everyday life. Right. But these reasons build up into beautiful but airy castles. I certainly like the castles of the theologians and the philosophers. But they do not have the same deep roots that the physicists' and chemists' have. Thus, Kripke discovered how to make damned good sense out of Leibnez' "possible worlds". This was a remarkable achievement. In the final analysis, all he has done by this is make possible for you and I to argue more *accurately* about necessity and the like. This is not the same as arguing more *correctly*. (I am sloughing over the fact that some lovely mathematics grew out of this work. That is true, but irrelevant to my point.) > This shows that we are deeply >convinced that this kind of discourse is meaningful, and that there >*are* valid ways to adjudicate between opinions in domains outside >the hard sciences. This is an overdramatization. The reasons are given, yes, but they still only reduce one set of intangibles to another, more fundamental set of intangibles. >Also, I think it is naive to suppose that all the top scholars in the >humanities and social sciences do not know enough to come in out of >the rain, which is the implication of the view that they are quite >seriously engaged in meaningless and irresolvable debates. Not coming to firm uniform conclusions is definitely not the same as engaging in meaningless debates. Please stop it with these pointless strawmen of yours. >But the main point is that, by your own logic, the points you try to >make in your article are ultimately mere verbiage. This is untrue. Don't blame Kenn for not solving all the problems of the philosophy of science in one article--it can't be done. If, Richard, *your* thesis were true, we wouldn't be debating this very topic, now would we? -- Subject: Re: Believing the Academics In article <667@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU>, carnes@gargoyle (Richard Carnes) writes, responding to Charley Wingate: > For >instance, you might show us where sociologists imitate the >fundamentalists by starting with a conclusion which they lay down as >an axiom and refuse to reconsider no matter what evidence comes >along. I will ignore your exaggerated misrepresentation of Charley's position. For someone who believes that the social sciences can come to such strong agreement, why do you argue on these issues with yourself so much instead of the other people on the net? You gave your reading list. Here's one from mine: Serge Lang _The File_. This remarkable book shows how completely bankrupt two respected research- ers, Ladd and Lipset, were in the scientific brains department. Although, I must confess, that in the end that it does support your thesis, since due to Lang's efforts, L&L were rather widely discredited. But within the field, the ability and/or inclination to take these two to task did not exist. It's a shame that Lang will probably not be able to publish his file con- cerning the Huntington affair. That would make *very* interesting read- ing. (Serge Lang, of course, is a mathematician.) I'd like to quote a newspaper article that I have taped to my office door. I have no idea how representative it is, or even if the paper's story had been accurate, but I quote it anyway: HANDICAPPERS PROVE IQ TEST FAULTS After studying and testing race handicappers two social scientists claim that there exist no correlations between complexity of thinking and IQ tests. Stephen Ceci of Cornell University and Jeffrey Liker of the University of Michigan studied 30 harness track hand- icappers at work and then compared their professional skills with their IQ levels. "We doubt that any professionals--including scientists, lawyers, bankers, and businessmen--engage in a more intel- lectually demanding form of decision," said Ceci. The researchers could find no link between expertise and formal test scores, which averaged around 100. > The flowering of the social and behavioral >sciences, i.e., mankind's increasing understanding of itself, is one >of the great intellectual achievements of this century for which it >will be long noted. A year ago you and I tangled over Freud. I posted numerous excerpts from Freud's famous article about Little Hans--I thought it was pretty clear that they were utter stinking garbage, consisting of Rorschach test readings of the situation and leading the little kid head on into the "correct" answers. I posted examples of professional psychiatrists diagnosing serious organic diseases with nothing but Freudian drivel and a charlatans' confidence, with no one within the field noticing anything wrong. Sorry to disillusion you, Richard, but compared to the *real* intellec- tual achievements of this century (within science)--from relativity to the genetic code to pulsars, from semiconductors to superconductors, from the Marianas trench to the moon and the planets, from Goedel in- completeness to fake R^4s and monstrous moonshine--the "flowering of the social and behavioral sciences" is going to remain one long gigan- tic eyesore and an embarrassing piffle of a joke. Mankind understands itself? Ha ha ha. ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 "We can pay farmers not to grow crops, but we cannot pay artists to stop making art. Yet something must be done." --Jacques Barzun