biep@klipper.UUCP (08/18/87)
I got this in the mail (warning: you are about to jump in the middle
of a discussion!), and thought it was worth being put here. Dennis
agrees to me putting it on the net, but I am not sure he wants to
get involved in the discussion (see his remarks at the end).
If you follow up to this, please attribute correctly!
From: Dennis Hamilton <sjfc!deh0654@mcvax.cwi.nl>
To: biep@cs.vu.nl
Subject: Re: What is a methodology
In mail to Biep (biep@cs.vu.nl), Dennis Hamilton (deh0654@sjfc) writes:
~Now, what's the other topic. Oh, is the intersection of ph. and sc. non-empty.
~I didn't realize I had effectively said that. I think I want to leave the
~claim in, although it seemed wrong at first, when put so directly. The more
~I think about it, the more I want to stick with it. The only reading I have
~that could be used to support the claim is both about epistomology and
~ontology, going back to Russell ("Analysis of Matter") which is about how do
~we know what we know about the physical world, and Whitehead, I think, who
~was concerned about being able to measure things. (What makes a yardstick
~work, or a meter stick, for that matter.) I am paraphrasing badly.
~
~My first reaction is that philosophy and science have perspectives on the
~same subjects, rather than have overlapping content. Now I think I'd be happy
~to propose that both are true. You can blame it on me just so long as I'm
~not expected to marshall a strenuous defense of the idea. (By the way,
~I have been supposing that Empiricism, Pragmatism, and Utilitarianism are
~philosophical perspectives, and that without some or all of them, there
~isn't any Scientific perspective. But I've never looked real hard at what
~it might mean to say that. I don't appreciate much of the subtleties that
~I believe are actually attached to those capitalized terms.)
~ orcmid {uucp: ... !rochester!sjfc!deh0654
--
Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax)
Protect endangered species: Forbid line-eater hunting!