From: "Doctor Spurt" <SPURRETT-AT-mtb.und.ac.za> To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 15:33:15 GMT +0200 Subject: BHA: Earth-quakes Greetings, DP: > >There is another question bugging me. Millions in India (the country > >I come from) accept that earth-quakes occur because 'mother earth' > >rolls over in her sleep. To them, it is a perfectly good > >'explanation'. Are they 'wrong'? Guilty of 'false consciousness'? COLIN: > > However, given the state of play of > > geological research I would have to say that they are wrong. > ... and ... > > So all-in-all given that we have two theories for > > earthquakes, I prefer the scientific explanation. This is an important problem, and there are many relevantly similar examples of the same type. (Belief that illness is caused by angry spirits as opposed to an analysis in terms of metabolism and infection, say, or any of a number of cases where 'scientific' explanations compete with 'traditional', 'religious', 'magical' and other forms.) Now all of these explanation-types, as far as I can tell, are realist (everyone is realist about _something_) and most of them realist in a sense similar to transcendental realism as a philosophical ontology, which is to say that they acknowledge a distinction between the flow of outcomes (whether observed or not) and layers of mechanisms which may be at work without being manifest. (Thus a malignant spirit may be said to be at work, but to be counteracted by some other action so that no undesired outcome follows...) The question, then, is not "who is realist?" or even "who is not in the grip of the epistemic fallacy?" but rather "whose account of the mechanisms is preferable?" I have been brought up in a scientised culture, and am myself a kind of philosopher and historian of science. I think that earthquakes are better explained by geology than by theology, but hasten to admit, as any transcendental realist must, that geological explanations are not complete. This means that they do not entail the falsity of any competing belief as long as it is suitably updated. (So Newton and Boyle did not think that the mechanical philosophy was an objection to Christian theism, they thought that it showed HOW GOD ACTED IN THE WORLD...) I would not be surprised to find that there were geologists in India whose scientific work took place alongside genuine acceptance of the view that gods caused earthquakes. This does not close the debate though - there are mistakes of kinds other than entertaining a contradiction. The question is - what kind of mistake (if there is one) is being made here, and does it help being some kind of critical realist to either identify or avoid the mistake? (Does DCR entail atheism? Hmmm...) Cheers, David Department of Philosophy, University of Natal, Durban, 4041, South Africa. Tel: +27(0)31 260 3248. Fax: +27 (0)31 260 3031. ---------------------------------------------------------- Which is wrong? The weather or our calendars? - John Cage. --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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