File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2004/bhaskar.0404, message 29


From: "Isaac Mostovicz" <isaac-AT-smuller.com>
Subject: RE: BHA: Re: BHa: criteria for ascription of reality
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 18:14:40 +0200


Hi Mervyn,

It is a pity that I could not follow the whole discussion. However, one
point of your argument needs clarification. You say:" one must be able to
distinguish science from ideology, true claims from false ones, [...] but
only [...] through depth explanation and explanatory critique." While what
you try to do show an effort not to use mechanical demarcation, there is no
assurance that the criterions you are going to use will not be regarded in
the future as irrelevant and artificial. In other words, unless being able
to prove that you use TRUE criterion -something that is impossible, all you
are talking is about the level of artificial, mechanical criterion you are
using. On the other hand, the difference between you and positivistic
scientists is in your commitment to explore the truth even though you know
that you might not find it, something that is humble, very human and great.

Isaac 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
[mailto:owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of Mervyn
Hartwig
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 2:23 PM
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: BHa: criteria for ascription of reality

Hi Tobin,

All I claim is that there are different ways of knowing (being committed 
to epistemic relativism, I said nothing about universal truth), and that 
any attempt to draw a neat dividing line between science and non-science 
by the application of some fixed criterion (is it observable?) is to 
detotalize them and illicitly privilege one way of knowing, science, 
leading historically to such absurdities as the logical positivists 
claiming that only 'empirical science' is cognitively meaningful by 
contrast to logic and mathematics which are 'meaningless' and 
metaphysics which is 'gibberish'. The reality and power of unobservables 
is attested in practice all the time both inside and outside science, 
including by those who, in a performative contradiction, are 
theoretically worried about them (e.g. the power of imagination). I 
would add that the observability criterion is also anthropomorphic. Of 
course, one must be able to distinguish science from ideology, true 
claims from false ones, but this can't be achieved by the mechanical 
application of some demarcation rule but only as Jamie argued through 
depth explanation and explanatory critique.

Wasn't it 'chymistry' or alchemy that Newton spent most of his life 
studying and was this not a kind of proto-chemistry such that in 
associating it with witches you yourself are perhaps unconsciously 
applying a science/ nonsense divide?

Mervyn

Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus-AT-mail.com> writes
>Mervyn wrote:
>
>>                                 And as this reminds us, science,
>>though important, is not the only means of knowing---witness
>>Shakespeare! (What can any demarcation criterion tell us about the truth
>>of *A Midsummer Nights Dream*?)
>
>Whoa, slow down!  "Hamlet" has been told (I don't think performed, but
>recounted) to African tribal peoples, who thought the story ridiculous
>because it's based (from their perspective) on a wacko understanding of and
>response to ghosts.  This is universal truth?  (Which, by the way, has its
>own positivistic credentials.)  In that context it's a little odd to then
>make this appeal:
>
>>Still, science has very strict
>>protocols, including for ascribing reality causally, which can certainly
>>distinguish the power of a magnetic field from that of a witch's spell.
>
>On the one hand, this seems to imply that there is some sort of
>scientifically valid truth represented in fiction, and aside from the false
>universalism, arguably this notion confuses the reality (causal efficacies)
>of art with its truth.  On the other hand, it exaggerates the decisiveness
>of scientific research, in which there are often several plausible theories
>(e.g. the variety of string theories), or even simultaneously valid
theories
>(light as particles, light as waves).
>
>I think the question Howard raises isn't all that far from the problem of
>ideological sciences, such as bourgeois "free market" economics.  Clearly
>the validity of marxist economics isn't obvious to a lot of people; some
>would even assert that the "strict protocols" of science prove that marxism
>is wrong.  Besides, the 17th- and 18th century emergent proscription
against
>ontology can't have been all *that* much to protect either science or
>religion: after all, most of Newton's work concerned witches.
>
>So I think you're being a little over-hasty in dismissing Howard's
question,
>which is richer than you are recognizing.
>
>Thanks,
>
>T.
>
>---
>Tobin Nellhaus
>nellhaus-AT-mail.com
>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
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