Subject: Re: PKF: phil of sci
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 14:11:29 +0100


Englightening discussions. What bothers me about this list is its
implicit conformity. Very few have responded to some of the more
empathic infusions which I have tried to address in some of my postings.

I will tell you something: Knowledge is possible, and those who deny that
this is the case will have to face and answer to the fact of its irrefutable 
applications. In the verb for example, there is a concentrated will that has
aspects unique to it when harnessed by a human brain (being). Here we have
a basis for the irrefutable application of knowledge, in fact we have an ante-
cedent root of its proof. And indeed none of us can argue with the riverbed
foundations of legal systems in human societies - which precedes and
infinitely outweighs philophies of science - as I assume we all know upon
reflection. We know things only case by case, and in so far as we live by moving from
case to case, which we have to do in any case to keep ourselves from being
run down by one another.

There are perhaps two or three on this list who are not so intellectually
indoctrinated to take the following propositions seriously (I've tried before
with similar statements, and even some strongly though out fictions):
- all the books in your memory are extremely rational nodes of contrivance,
and represents hope. 
- science should be a light source, and knowledgeable of its ways. Those
who do not practice it should have access to it through this notion. This compound
has to be the case if our applications of knowledge gained through scientific
experiment and inquiry are not to wreck us. This is not the contrvivance of a moral
existence, it is the basis, or the presumptive foundation, of a moral existence
in the unbounded context which science now represents.
- most of us who are philosophically inclinced need external text (references
to the works of other men and women) to phsychologcially 'parse' a frustration
between the constant presence of our lexicon and our socially entrenched egoism.
Who of us is even bothers to take an interest in Gandhi's letters to Tolstoy,
and Tolstoy's to Gandhi?
- only man can conceptualize the effects that the psychopathic cloth of
Christianity has had on our natural world, and on our future as a consequence.

> Finally, We should not speak of the analysis of actual scientific procedure
> and philosophical inquiry of science as if they are two different
> forms of intellectual research.
Indeed - and I would hyper-extend on this for it to be even more inclusive.
----------
> Odes=EDlatel: Pierre Raheb-Mol <artemp-AT-idx.com.au>
> Komu: feyerabend-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> P=F8edm=ECt: Re: PKF: phil of sci
> Datum: 5. listopadu 1998 5:56
>
> At 01:35 PM 11/4/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >hi everyone,
> >
> >i've been 'listening in' on some of the discussion going on in this group
> >for a while now, and suppose that i have something to contribute -- or
> >rather, hope to hear some replies and further contributions from other
> >members of this group.
> >
> >feyerabend claimed that the sciences are 'a complex medium containing
> >surprising and unforeseen developments demanding complex procedures and
> >defies analysis on the basis of rules which have been set up in advance
> >and without regard to the ever-changing conditions of history.'
> >
> >as far as i know, this is about as succinct as feyerabend got in his
> >criticism of 'rationalists', and as far as it goes, i think he is correct.
> >i imagine that part of feyerabend's dislike for philosophy of science in
> >general is that he thought it impossible to say anything beyond relatively
> >trivial and obvious things about progress in the sciences.  the history,
> >procedures, technologies, culture etc of science are too complex to get
> >beyond diffuse comments that are actually very obvious and known to all.
> >if you transgress the trivialities and commit yourself to a 'vision' of
> >scientific progress or rationality, those procedures, technologies,
> >history etc of the sciences will quickly contradict you.
> >
> >if this sort of argument is correct, then in order for philosophy of
> >science to make some kind of interesting contribution to our intellectual
> >culture, it ought to study all those procedures, technologies, history
> >etc.  but i don't know if there are many philosophers doing this.  as far
> >as i know, no one is really considering, for example, the contributions
> >made by applied science or of Big Science to scientific progress (ian
> >hacking has done some nice work, however, and some sociologists of
> >scientific knowledge might be doing this too -- though i suspect there
> >are other problems with their program.)
> >
> >anyway, i haven't really asked a question which needs answering.  but i
> >wonder, in general, what others might think of how i've characterised the
> >matter.  in particular, what do students and professors studying the
> >philosophy of science think about it?
> >
> >thanks,
> >scott.
> >
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> >
>
> Scott's characterisation of the philosophy of science, if i interpret
> him correctly, is one which agrees with Feyerabend's disdain for scientific
> rationalism. He suggests that in order to locate 'progress',
> the proper place of philosophy in science (and i see
> he throws history in as well), should be somewhere near the practical and
> instrumental domains of science.
> Of course, this is not an uncommon view held by scientists themselves.
> It is position Weinberg has championed for years. And some of the great
> sociologists of science, like Steven Woolgar, and philosophers like
> Bruno Latour, have been important in
> analysing science at this grass roots level as it were. But critics of
> the uselessness of the history and philosophy of science like Weinberg
> make their arguments from positions solidly within philosophy, and
> contractorily manufacture the argument from material gathered hither
> and yonder from past philosophical investigations of science. I find advocates
> of such views a bit ignorant of what philosophy (and history) actually do
> for science. Surely, focussing on the procedural minutae of scientific 
> activity is enhanced by research of more general questions. For example,
> (and this is a case which Woolgar & Latour had to face all the time in their
> work),
> in order to straightforwardly examine how a certain laboratory decided
> to focus on one group of data and not another, was an investigation not only
> into the social/contractual determinations of what constitutes 'proof', but
> is a decisive factor in our constructions on notions of 'scientific
> objectivity'.
> Weinberg confuses this as a philosophical 'attack' on scientific objectivity
> rather than for what it is - a philosophical inquiry into
> science-as-it-is-today.
> I do not think that we should look at philosophy as an infallible guide
> to tell scientists where to take their research, but as a tool to help
> us understand the mode of change in science. 
> What does the list think?
> cheers
> pierre
>
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