biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) (07/22/87)
[Warning: I am not a native speaker of English, and recent history shows I do have difficulties in conveying ideas of a more abstract nature] In article <816@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (that's me) writes several statements to the fact that philosophers don't know how to think. Robin ??? [rn is having a hiccough] responds: >OK, so which philosopher frightened your mother while she was pregnant? (and statements in defense of philosophy) OK, making oneself clear seems to be a major undertaking. What I wanted to say was: philosophers have to work below the boundary of methodical thought, as they have to *define* methodical thought. Scientists can see whether some result in their discipline is scientific, because philosophers have first defined the appropriate methodology for that field of science. Now I would wish more people dug into the philosophical basis of that methodology, so that they would become a little less confident in yelling "it's scientifically proven!". Especially mathematics is seen by many people as "absolute". If I tell them about things like intuitionism, they don't seem to grasp that Brouwer did undermine the fundaments (and so the reliabitity) of every-day results of mathematics. If I had a grudge against philosophy, I wouldn't be promoting this newsgroup the way I am doing. I only pointed out, that when the line of methodology is crossed, one enters the realm of science, and leaves philosophy (as one has stopped reflecting (is that the right word?) and starts thinking, i.e. systematically applying rules to facts, and experimenting, i.e. gathering facts from outside the mental world. Perhaps the confusion was also due to the fact that I till now used "thinking" for both reflecting and thinking. If I had a grudge against philosophy, I wouldn't both have studied math and held that math was philosophy, not science (that was one of the two dis- cussions I merged into the one about the definition of science and brought here - the other was whether artificial intelligence was a science). If I said that all unmethodical thinking could be called philosophy, I meant that, because there is no philosophical methodology (there can't be: how would that methodology be justified? By itself?), one can show a thought to be non-scientific, but not non-philosophical. And in daily usage (at least in Dutch, but I guess also in English), one can hear: "OK, that sounds nice, but until you can prove it's true, it's mere/just/idle philosophy". I don't receive talk.philosophy.misc (it doesn't get to Europe), but I understand that the reason for that, and the reason for it being a "talk" group, is exactly that it is filled with garbage, which no one can forbid, as there is no criterium for "real philosophy". Well, let's clearly state the point under discussion: I state that there is no criterium for "real philosophy", other than "the reflective work which must be performed before any science can begin" Warning: I have been attacked already by people who thought I meant "before" temporally (I certainly do not), or who meant I said scientists couldn't be philosophers (on the contrary, I think someone who is not a philosopher has a hard time being a genial scientist). "before" here means something like "the latter is built on the former". Yet another caveat: there are more ways philosophy can run, which may end in disciplines like ethics and aesthetics. These are philosophic in as far as no science could produce results in that field. Of course this criterium is a subjective one (that's what I've been defending above). Besides discussion on my statement (which doesn't say my criterium is right) I would welcome thoughts on my criterium. -- Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax) Never confound beauty with truth!
rjf@eagle.ukc.ac.uk (Robin Faichney) (07/24/87)
Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: In article <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: >[Warning: I am not a native speaker of English, and recent history shows >I do have difficulties in conveying ideas of a more abstract nature] OK, but.. >Now I would wish more people dug into the philosophical basis >of that methodology, so that they would become a little less confident in >yelling "it's scientifically proven!". Does this mean 'significantly less confident in a significant number of cases'? If so, it seems to me obviously false. If not, why say it? >If I had a grudge against philosophy... Didn't (seriously, (like I said)) think you did. Just a misconceived view of it. >I only pointed out, that when the line of methodology >is crossed, one enters the realm of science, and leaves philosophy (as one >has stopped reflecting (is that the right word?) and starts thinking.. I hope that is not the right word. To say philosophers reflect but do not think is tantamount to saying they are not logical. Philosophers certainly think, more carefully and logically than those of any other discipline. >there is no philosophical methodology (there can't be: how would >that methodology be justified? By itself?).. Your assumption here is that philosophy is some sort of monolithic precursor to everything else. Precursor it may be (though obviously not in the temporal sense, as you say yourself), but not for everything, and it's certainly not monolithic. It is not a universal precursor, because it deals purely with theory, and some things are essentially practical. (I'd say one of these is science, but I'm not going to argue that here.) And the fact that philosophy has different subject areas, as you note, means that the *methodology* of one area can be based on the findings of another. To suggest that philosophy is not methodical, would be taken (in my opinion rightly) as a gross insult, by any one of the thousands of practicing professional philosophers out there. Probably the central pillar of methodology in philosophy is rationalism (using the word in its non-technical sense), which might in itself be examined by a philosopher, but would not be seriously questioned as a methodology by anyone with any sympathy for modern British/American philosophy. >And in daily usage (at least in >Dutch, but I guess also in English), one can hear: "OK, that sounds nice, >but until you can prove it's true, it's mere/just/idle philosophy". I have heard this, once or twice, and in my opinion it is misuse of the word. What distinguishes philosophy from garbage is its methodology. The fact that that methodology cannot be completely and precisely defined, (and more to the point: is not familiar to the layman) does not mean it does not exist. >I state that there is no criterium for "real philosophy", other than >"the reflective work which must be performed before any science can >begin" It is concerned with the foundations of science, amoung other things, but it is certainly not `reflective', if that means unmethodical and/or irrational (or arrational) and/or illogical (or allogical). > Never confound beauty with truth! Why not? [ I suppose I better add :-) ] I repeat: make sure you know about something before attempting to enlighten us all about it. Robin
myers@tybalt.caltech.edu (Bob Myers) (07/25/87)
Summary: Keywords: In article <3227@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> rjf@ukc.ac.uk (Robin Faichney) writes: >In article <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: > >>Now I would wish more people dug into the philosophical basis >>of that methodology, so that they would become a little less confident in >>yelling "it's scientifically proven!". > >Does this mean 'significantly less confident in a significant number of >cases'? If so, it seems to me obviously false. If not, why say it? Obviously false? Not to me. Seems quite likely to me, at least for non-scientists. Among scientists is a different story. But I think many non-scientists associate "scientifically proven" with Truth (capital T). Just think about the way some people will say "{Relativity, Evolution} is only a theory!", thinking that theories are not scientifically *proven*, and therefore aren't really Truth. As if that really had any relevance at all. The point is that scientific proof is not absolute, but it is often taken as absolute truth. The nature of *scientific* truth is not well understood (in my experience) by most non-scientists. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Myers myers@tybalt.caltech.edu ...seismo!tybalt.caltech.edu!myers
sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) (07/26/87)
In article <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: >What I wanted to say was: philosophers have to work below the boundary of >methodical thought, as they have to *define* methodical thought. >I state that there is no criterium for "real philosophy", other than >"the reflective work which must be performed before any science can >begin". How about defining the scope of philosophy as the discovery of non-empirical truths and that of science as discovering empirical truths. The pursuit of non-empirical truths would include definitions or studies of what an empirical truth is, how to arrive at empirical truths, as well as delineations of necessary forms of thought, proper modes of reasoning, etc.. In this definition, logic and mathematics would be under philosophy, while psychology, physics, and the like would be under science. If this definition were correct, then we could truly say that science is built on a philosophical foundation (or, as you imply, that philosophy is logically prior to science). -- "Absolute knowledge means never having to change your mind." Sarge Gerbode Institute for Research in Metapsychology 950 Guinda St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 UUCP: pyramid!thirdi!sarge
biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) (07/28/87)
In article <3227@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> rjf@ukc.ac.uk (Robin Faichney) writes: >In article <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl> I wrote: >>Now I would wish more people dug into the philosophical basis >>of that methodology, so that they would become a little less confident in >>yelling "it's scientifically proven!". >Does this mean 'significantly less confident in a significant number of >cases'? If so, it seems to me obviously false. I don't know what "significantly less confident" means. Do you have a confidence metric? Anyway, I did mean the significant number of cases, and I did mean "clearly less confident, I would be happy with every bit". Can you explain what you think is false and why you think so? Generally, Bob Myers catched what I meant, I got the impression. >If not, why say it? I didn't say it. I said what I said, and I didn't say what *you* said. Or didn't you mean "it" to refer to your paraphrase? If it refers to my original statement, it reduces to: I: <something> you: Do you mean <something else>? If not, why say <something>? In short: I think I don't grasp you here. >>reflecting (is that the right word?) >I hope that is not the right word. OK, then it is not the right word. Let me try to explain (something to which I start feeling utterly incapable): In an "ideal" world, where methodology for every science is complete, scientific work is just applying the rules of the methodology for that realm of science: which experiments to perform, which hypotheses to consider, all is prescribed by the rules. I called this "when philosophy is ready" (as far as methodology is considered, that is...). So, ultimately, scientific work is not creative (I hope I now have found the word..). Of course at the moment it is, since philosophers aren't ready yet constructing methodologies, and aren't even sure some "final" methodology is possible at all (it may very well not be). Philosophy, however, must be creative, since it has to *find* the very rules by which to abide when thinking and doing. >>there is no philosophical methodology (there can't be: how would >>that methodology be justified? By itself?).. > >Your assumption here is that philosophy is some sort of monolithic precursor >to everything else. Nothing monolithic, but in my first article I restricted myself, when saying "philosophy", to purely those parts of it that formed the fundament of science. (Remember: I listed: (1) Does anything at all (God?) exist; (2) Do I exist; (3) Does an "outside" exist, etc., and made some remarks about changing the order of the first two.) So by definition philosophy became a precursor to science. Remember also that my first note was directed to some people having trouble with the word "science", not to philosophers. And if I say philosophy has no methodology: a scientist cannot challenge the methodology of his discipline without leaving science (not just his disci- pline) and becoming a philosopher. A scientist can (and has to) take the dictate of his methodology as the last word. A philosopher may have rules he obeys in his work, but he cannot take them for granted, he has to support them (if only by saying "aren't they convincing?"). A scientist may take an empirical fact, apply some mathematical theorem on it, and say "well, that theorem is *proven*". A mathematician has to challenge the proof, to look for the presuppositions, and to convince himself, to persuade himself (no rules) it is true (or not). For a mathematician nothing is ever proven, the proofs can only become more convincing. Of course a mathematician can consider the axioms of (some) logic very convincing (I don't really, by the way, but that's another problem), but he cannot use the fact that logicians have proven something as an absolute (most do, however, even if they say they shouldn't. The same way as most mathematical theorems aren't ever proven, only convincing outlines of proofs are given. A proof in the logical sense would be too long, dull and fatiguing). [I guess I should have put quotation marks around "proof" in the above.] Then again, whenever I say "a philosopher should(n't)", some philosopher will come and say "I don't think so". If I say philosophy has no methodology, I mean that in the sense mathematics has no methodology. Of course there are methods and rules, but as Goedel showed for mathematics) a philosophical field may "turn over itself", in a sense (I don't know how to say this), and show itself wrong. Compare this with the way physics showed the deterministic world view wrong with QM. >Some things are essentially practical. (I'd say one of these is >science, but I'm not going to argue that here.) We could start a discussion on what "practical" means (to a philosopher), but I propose that in that case we should start it under another header, and completely separated from this one. (Might be interesting, by the way.) >The fact that that methodology cannot be completely and precisely defined, >(and more to the point: is not familiar to the layman) does not mean it >does not exist. Then what is your definition of methodology? To me, if a methodology cannot be stated, it is none. Indeed, most (I suspect all) sciences only have partial methodologies, but in as far as they exist they can be stated precisely. >I repeat: make sure you know about something before attempting to enlighten >us all about it. What exactly did I misdo you, that you fell so heavily over me? :-) What was triggering you in my first two messages? That I attributed methodology (and mathematics) to philosophy, and not to science? That I showed otherwise paradoxes like the Occams razor one would occur? That I admitted (I don't know to whom any more) that philosophy was more prone to paradoxes than science? That I said this was because philosophers were working "below the line"? I think long point-by-point rebuttals of long point-by-point rebuttals of ... will only bore the readers of s.p.t., and detract from whatever it was that caused you to react in the first place. I propose that if we decide to continue on that, we'll do it by email, and that an explication on the original point of disagreement (whatever it was) can be done in this newsgroup. Our rebuttals move too fast, there is no static topic. BTW, where I just skipped some of your points, unless I missed the intent I agreed. -- Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax) General-purpose hardware is great! Now I can change my mind without changing my brain!
biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) (07/28/87)
In article <67@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes: >How about defining the scope of philosophy as the discovery of non-empirical >truths and that of science as discovering empirical truths. The pursuit of >non-empirical truths would include definitions or studies of what an empirical >truth is, how to arrive at empirical truths, as well as delineations of >necessary forms of thought, proper modes of reasoning, etc.. In this >definition, logic and mathematics would be under philosophy, while psychology, >physics, and the like would be under science. I would put psychology and physics under philosophy as long as there is not a relatively large body of methodology (and perhaps theory?). I think general usage agrees with me: physics used to be a part of philosophy till the changes made by people like Galilei and Newton, and psychology was a part of philosophy until <the author's favorite psychologist> stated his methods and theories. That's why sentences like "the field XXX only slowly freed itself from philosophy" come from. -- Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax) General-purpose hardware is great! Now I can change my mind without changing my brain!
rjf@eagle.ukc.ac.uk (Robin Faichney) (07/29/87)
Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: :>In article <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: :> :>>Now I would wish more people dug into the philosophical basis :>>of that methodology, so that they would become a little less confident in :>>yelling "it's scientifically proven!". :In article <3227@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> rjf@ukc.ac.uk (Robin Faichney) (me) writes: : :>Does this mean 'significantly less confident in a significant number of :>cases'? If so, it seems to me obviously false. If not, why say it? In article <3341@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> myers@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Bob Myers) writes: :Obviously false? Not to me. Seems quite likely to me, at least for :non-scientists. Among scientists is a different story. Absolutely. I meant scientists. I though Biep meant scientists. Not so sure now. How about it, Biep? Robin PS Maybe we should go privat/sm;i-ed cox
myers@tybalt.caltech.edu (Bob Myers) (07/30/87)
In article <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: > >In an "ideal" world, where methodology for every science is complete, >scientific work is just applying the rules of the methodology for that >realm of science: which experiments to perform, which hypotheses to >consider, all is prescribed by the rules. I called this "when philosophy >is ready" (as far as methodology is considered, that is...). So, >ultimately, scientific work is not creative (I hope I now have found the >word..). Of course at the moment it is, since philosophers aren't ready >yet constructing methodologies, and aren't even sure some "final" methodology >is possible at all (it may very well not be). Hmmm. I don't like this line of argument. I think you're trying to make an artificial division between science and philosophy here. In particular, if no "final" methodology is possible, why should one try to make such distinctions here? It sounds like you're arguing that a scientist is creative only in so far as he is a philosopher, developing the methodology of that science. Even granting this (which I do not), doesn't that mean that this sort of philosophy is really a part of science? I just don't see the point of categorizing "this" as science and "that" as philosophy. Also, I fail to see how the methodology could tell one which hypotheses to consider. It seems to me that developing hypotheses is very close to the heart of scientific creativity. But maybe I'm missing something here. I don't quite understand what you mean by methodology, I think. >Then what is your definition of methodology? To me, if a methodology cannot >be stated, it is none. Indeed, most (I suspect all) sciences only have >partial methodologies, but in as far as they exist they can be stated >precisely. I think it would help if you tried stating a methodology for one of the sciences. Then I would have a better idea what you are referring to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Myers myers@tybalt.caltech.edu ...seismo!tybalt.caltech.edu!myers
sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) (07/30/87)
In article <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: >I would put psychology and physics under philosophy as long as there is not >a relatively large body of methodology (and perhaps theory?). >And if I say philosophy has no methodology: a scientist cannot challenge the >methodology of his discipline without leaving science (not just his disci- >pline) and becoming a philosopher. A scientist can (and has to) take the >dictate of his methodology as the last word. A philosopher may have rules >he obeys in his work, but he cannot take them for granted, he has to >support them (if only by saying "aren't they convincing?"). A scientist may >take an empirical fact, apply some mathematical theorem on it, and say >"well, that theorem is *proven*". A mathematician has to challenge the >proof, to look for the presuppositions, and to convince himself, to >persuade himself (no rules) it is true (or not). For a mathematician >nothing is ever proven, the proofs can only become more convincing. I probably missed the first part of the discussion, but it seems that you are saying that the realm of methodology belongs to philosophy and that of *applying* methodology to science. Since you list physics and psychology under philsophies, you must feel that these are primarily concerned with methodology, whilst other disciplines (those you would allow as sciences, like chemistry and biology) are not primarily concerned with methodology. If I have understood your definition of philosophy correctly, you would say that physics (for instance) does not *use* methodology, but only studies it. This seems quite counter-intuitive. From a naive viewpoint, it seems that the use of a vast panorama of expensive instruments does really constitute a methodology. Even in theoretical physics, mathematical methodologies are used freely. Psychology also seems to me to have various methodologies, insofar as it is a science at all (admittedly an arguable point). If it's not a science, I don't think I would dignify it with the title of being a philosophy either. As has been pointed out, philosophy uses various methodologies (though, like any other discipline, it also *generates* a certain amount of methodology). It generally uses logic (perhaps not always, unfortunately); some philosophies use the methodologies of etymology (Heidegger was a big one for this); linguistic analysts use the method of investigating common meanings of words. I took a philosophy course once in which Roget's Thesaurus was programmed onto punch cards, and we had to discover Wittgensteinian Families of Meanings by peering through stacks of cards to see which holes they had in common. (If you said that this wasn't philosophy, you'd have a point, actually!) Hegelian philosophy and Socratic philosophy use the dialectic; Nosick uses explanation in preference to proof, etc., etc.. On the other hand, each science generates its own methodology. The methodology is not generated by philosophers but by scientists, and science *is* a creative undertaking, in that the scientist must dream up suitable hypotheses and then dream up suitable ways of testing these. All these are part of the purvue of science. It seems silly to me to think that a scientist keeps switching hats and becoming a philosopher whenever he is working out hypotheses or methodologies, instead of doing experiments, just as it seems silly to think that a philosopher is temporarily becoming a scientist when he uses the methodology of logic in his arguments! Therefore methodology does not appear to be either a necessary or sufficient criterion for distinguishing between science and philosophy. Disciplines are best defined in terms of their overriding goals or purposes, I believe. I like my criterion for differentiating philosophy and science: Philosophy has the purpose of arriving at non-empirical truths; science has the purpose of arriving at empirical truths. I await with interest a serious challenge to this notion. -- "Absolute knowledge means never having to change your mind." Sarge Gerbode Institute for Research in Metapsychology 950 Guinda St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 UUCP: pyramid!thirdi!sarge
laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (07/31/87)
>In article <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: > >In an "ideal" world, where methodology for every science is complete, >scientific work is just applying the rules of the methodology for that >realm of science: which experiments to perform, which hypotheses to >consider, all is prescribed by the rules. I called this "when philosophy >is ready" (as far as methodology is considered, that is...). So, >ultimately, scientific work is not creative (I hope I now have found the >word..). Of course at the moment it is, since philosophers aren't ready >yet constructing methodologies, and aren't even sure some "final" methodology >is possible at all (it may very well not be). I think that all scientific work is fundamentally creative. Maybe you haven't found the correct word yet. Any creative work is done by ``applying the rules of the methodology'' -- the creative part comes in deciding HOW to aplly the rules and WHICH rules to apply. I can write two programs, both of which yield the correct result, one of which is a ``quick and dirty hack'' and the other which is a beautiful piece of code which has those I show it to gasping at how wonderful it is. There is a difference. Yet the rules for writing code in C do not change. -- (C) Copyright 1987 Laura Creighton - you may redistribute only if your recipients may. ``One must pay dearly for immortality: one has to die several times while alive.'' -- Nietzsche Laura Creighton ihnp4!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura
biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) (07/31/87)
[Note to Bob Myers: I'll post a separate article "What's a methodology". I think breaking up this discussion in somewhat independent parts will do it good.] [Before I have to start a series "do psychologists need defending?": I am not stating there may be no scientific forms of psychology, but I take over this example, as Sarge himself wrote he doubted about the scientificity of psych.. I only wrote (in my former article) that *in the past* psych. wasn't a science. I don't know much of contemporary psychology. In fact, the actual example doesn't matter. Sorry if it offends someone!] In article <71@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes: >In article <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> I wrote: >>I would put psychology and physics under philosophy as long as there is not >>a relatively large body of methodology (and perhaps theory?). I meant this temporally: until they (if ever, especially psychology) had found or will find a r.l.b.o.m.(a.p.t.) they were/will be not considered sciences. I certainly wouldn't deny physics the status of a science now. [Nothing so good for modesty as seeing how one is unable to convey ideas to others. I'll never say "reasonable" again if people ask me "How's your English"!] >I probably missed the first part of the discussion, but it seems that you are >saying that the realm of methodology belongs to philosophy and that of >*applying* methodology to science. Yes, but that's no exhaustive definition, of course, and (see below) your notion of empiricity sounds appealing to me, too. >Since you list physics and psychology >under philsophies, you must feel that these are primarily concerned with >methodology, whilst other disciplines (those you would allow as sciences, like >chemistry and biology) are not primarily concerned with methodology. >[Some text resulting from not taking Bieps statement above temporally] No: when they were still busy finding their methodologies, they were mainly philosophic. Now that most of the work is mainly carrying them out, they are mainly scientific. Of course it's a gradual difference, and at the moment physics is doing some more philosophy in trying to get along with QM. >[List of methodologies used in various philosophies] >[Both philosophers and scientists both generate and use methodology] >Therefore methodology does not appear to be either a necessary or sufficient >criterion for distinguishing between science and philosophy. Finally, it *is* of course just a question of definition, but it's always nice to have the definition fit the reality instead of otherwise. I am glad you offer a constructive criticism, with your counter-definition. There is some- thing to that empiricality, and perhaps it should be in the definition somewhere. But, as I try to show below, it's not a sufficient criterion, however it may be necessary. But yes, I indeed do think people do keep switching hats if they change from setting to using methodolog[y/ies] or vice versa, at least if "use" means "use, taken as true/correct/right", as e.g. physicists normally do with logic. (i.e. without feeling any need to defend their use, or to add "supposed logic is right") If a mathematician would do so (which they sometimes do), I wouldn't call him a philosopher any more, but I would grant you he wouldn't be a scientist either. I think both notions will appear in "the final definition". >Disciplines are best defined in terms of their overriding goals or purposes, I >believe. I like my criterion for differentiating philosophy and science: >Philosophy has the purpose of arriving at non-empirical truths; science has >the purpose of arriving at empirical truths. >I await with interest a serious challenge to this notion. Does "Natural Philosophy" constitute one? (If it means what the Dutch aequivalent means, it's as much as "pre-scientific physics+biology", including bits of chemistry, geology, mineralogy, etc.) Sounds rather empirical. I think you wouldn't call every attempt to find an empirical truth "scientific", otherwise, why doubt about psychology? Isn't it the sloppyness of their method (if any) that makes you doubt? Also: "the sciences" try to explain the world using "logic yields truth" as part of their methodology. Christian science (I learn from the net) does the same, using "the Bible yields truth" as part of their methodology. I don't know of any other differences (but then again: I only heard about them on the net). So both are equally (un)scientific to you? If I try to arrive at the empirical truth of you being dead, I am a scientist? :-) On the other hand (I don't know what to think of this myself): is statistics a science, with their "empirical hard/weak law of large numbers"? If I type "rn" to see whether there is news, am I carrying out science? I *am* trying to arrive at an empirical truth. -- Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax) Is the difference between a difference of degree and a differ- ence of sorts a difference of degree or a difference of sorts?
sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) (08/03/87)
In article <835@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: >Does "Natural Philosophy" constitute one? (If it means what the Dutch >aequivalent means, it's as much as "pre-scientific physics+biology", >including bits of chemistry, geology, mineralogy, etc.) Sounds rather >empirical. > >I think you wouldn't call every attempt to find an empirical truth >"scientific"... > >Also: "the sciences" try to explain the world using "logic yields truth" >as part of their methodology. Christian science (I learn from the net) >does the same, using "the Bible yields truth" as part of their methodology. >I don't know of any other differences (but then again: I only heard about >them on the net). So both are equally (un)scientific to you? Good point. I didn't mean, however, to give an exhaustive definition of philosophy and of science -- only a means for differentiating one from the other -- namely, by purpose. I stated: >Disciplines are best defined in terms of their overriding goals or purposes, I >believe. I like my criterion for differentiating philosophy and science: >Philosophy has the purpose of arriving at non-empirical truths; science has >the purpose of arriving at empirical truths. However, to give a *definition* of science would be more challenging. Let me see -- how about: "A science is a discipline whose purpose is to arrive at universal empirical laws." Following Kuhn, one would probably have to add something about there being a currently universally or widely accepted paradigm covering the discipline in question. Further, the data used in the discipline must be consensually validatable. In the absence of a generally accepted paradigm, according to Kuhn, we have merely a proto-science. Psychology, I believe, falls into the category of a proto-science. A lot of paradigms are floating around, but none has become prevalent. The same is probably true for the other "social sciences", and certainly for such things as parapsychology. So: "A science is a discipline whose purpose is to arrive at universal empirical laws, whose data is consensually validatable, and where there is a prevalent paradigm that is widely or universally agreed on." Note that the above proposed definition does not mention methodology. I think many sciences come into existence and stick around for quite some time before people come to realise what methodology they have been using. The methodology seems to mature right along with the data and the theory. Philosophy, I think, would be even more difficult to define. -- "Absolute knowledge means never having to change your mind." Sarge Gerbode Institute for Research in Metapsychology 950 Guinda St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 UUCP: pyramid!thirdi!sarge
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (08/04/87)
In article <835@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: |But yes, I indeed do think people do keep switching hats if they change from |setting to using methodolog[y/ies] or vice versa, at least if "use" means |"use, taken as true/correct/right", as e.g. physicists normally do with logic. |(i.e. without feeling any need to defend their use, or to add "supposed |logic is right") If a mathematician would do so (which they sometimes do), |I wouldn't call him a philosopher any more, but I would grant you he |wouldn't be a scientist either. I think this comment is based on a biased view of what mathematicians do. Few mathematicians *ever* qualify their work in this fashion. For the most part, mathematics has a very clear methodology which is followed strictly and without apologies. Only in the realm of set theory are such caveats at all common, and even there there seems to be an emerging consensus. -- Frank Adams ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Ashton-Tate 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108