Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 17:40:00 -0600 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-ilstu.edu> Subject: Re: BHA: negativity wins Mervyn Hartwig wrote: > > Dear Carrol > > Well, all I can say is that it is has been pretty much a commonplace in > the philosophy of science since Kuhn. > I know -- precisely a commonplace. Any difference can be _called_ a discontinuity. But I cannot for the life of me see what is gained by calling changes _paradigm_ changes. Now when the day comes when the concept of "the individual" is as foreign to the imagination (when Milton's PL is even more 'alien' than Odysseus' choice of _oikos_ over immortality) -- _that_ will be a paradigm change. > Bhaskar contrasts this position with a 'monistic' one - he's not saying > that there is no continuity, rather that there is radical discontinuity > as well as continuity. > > What a positivist you seem to be! I assume that 'positivism' is the assumption that truth is in the facts rather than the relations. If so, I'm not a positivist. Carrol > > Mervyn > > Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-ilstu.edu> writes > > > > > >Mervyn Hartwig wrote: > >> > >> (4) - and the warrant > >> for this is 'discontinuism' in science ie the fact of scientific > >> revolutions. > > > > > >I see this taken for granted in numerous different contexts, but it has > >never made any sense to me. I see the slow & halting _appearance_ of > >science from 16th through the 19th centuries, and I see various lurches > >fwd as earlier advances (e.g. gravity or natural selection)are placed in > >wider contexts. But it simply appears to be sloppy diction to call any > >of these changes "revolutions." Like the pepsi generation or the mini > >skirt revolutions. > > > >Carrol > > > > > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > -- > Mervyn Hartwig > 13 Spenser Road > Herne Hill > London SE24 ONS > United Kingdom > Tel: 020 7 737 2892 > Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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