Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 09:17:40 +0100 From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere7.demon.co.uk> Subject: BHA: Ways of knowing Hi Ruth, I think it would be useful if you cited what people actually said instead of snipping it off. I said: "My answer is that *commitment* to science as the pivotal way of knowing can't be justified philosophically - in the end it just is a commitment - but it seems foolish to deny the historical importance and results of science compared with other practices, achieved above all by that which distinguishes it from other practices: systematic experiment and comparison in order to ground models of the real." Allow me to underline *in the end*, *seems* and *historical*, none of which would appear to be consistent with your analytical either/or construal of what I said. *In the end* implies that there are cognitive grounds, but I don't regard them as conclusive - and no, I never mean 'absolutely' conclusive (or even 'sure exactly'). *Seems* is not the same as *is*. And the Big Ditch argument is from history, not philosophy (though it doubtless involves philosophical assumptions). By philosophy I meant a priori argument. >I'm not sure exactly what I think about the relative epistemic status of >science. This entails that you at any rate don't have a problem about there being other ways of knowing (the main thing at issue in this thread), otherwise there would be nothing for science to be relative to. Mervyn "Groff, Ruth" <ruth.groff-AT-marquette.edu> writes >Hi Mervyn, Tobin, all, > >I'm not sure exactly what I think about the relative epistemic status of >science. > >But Mervyn, if you want to say: > >"My answer is that *commitment* to science as the pivotal way of >knowing can't be justified >philosophically - in the end it just is a commitment" > >then it is hard to see what place a term such as "foolishness" has in >characterizing someone who happens *not* to make such a >commitment. > >"Foolishness" suggests a lack of abiity to judge; it's a kind of cognitive >shortcoming, among other things. If the commitment has no cognitive >grounds, then failing to make it can't really be a matter of foolishness. >By "justified philosophically" did you really mean something more like >"demonstrated with absolute certainty, such that it is impossible to >disagree," or something along those lines? > >Ruth --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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