Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 10:33:03 -0700
From: David Geelan <bravus-AT-innocent.com>
Subject: Re: PKF: Can Philosophy Save Science?


G'day everyone

I've enjoyed Jack and Avijit's contributions on the Schick article that
Christian quoted (phew!)

Another way of saying pretty much what Jack has said is to suggest that
Schick is engaged in a 'reductio ad absurdem' (a beloved rhetorical
technique of PKF's!) on Kuhn. 

Kuhn suggests that observations are theory-laden, Schick claims that
Kuhn claims that observations are theory-determined. These are quite
different positions: the idea that our theories *influence* what we
observe is one thing, the idea that we can observe *nothing* not
predicted by our theory is quite another (and is clearly nonsense, since
otherwise we could never learn anything.)

To summarise, I believe Schick sets up a 'straw man' that Kuhn never
proposed, demolishes that and then claims to have demolished Kuhn.

David

 
_____________________________________________________
David R Geelan, Science & Maths Ed Centre,Curtin Uni of Tech
GPO U1987, Perth 6001, ph +619 351 3594, fax +619 351 2503.
Home page: http://alpha7.curtin.edu.au/~pgeelandr/bravus.htm
"the boundaries of reality are in fact movable" - Jurgen Habermas
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