From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Phenomenology and Science
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 05:28:16 +0000


Jud wrote:

>Evidently, any person who gives
>up his or her time for the benefit of the well-being of animals has a
>personal emotional investment in a caring regard for the poor beasts.

It does not follow that if a person "has a personal emotional investment," 
that therefore this is scientifically relevant. The fact that scientific 
objectivity can actually be lessened by emotional investment in the subject 
shows that one does not follow from the other. That is all I mean when I say 
feelings are SCIENTIFICALLY irrelevant, but personally or motivationally 
relevant.

>Anyone who does not display this concern is ALSO manifesting an
>emotional position of uncaringness.

Again, no one is saying that a scientist must actually lack feelings towards 
the subject. I repeat this only because you have continually characterized 
what I am saying in this way, when I have explicitly said again and again 
that this is not what I am saying. Do you see that I am not saying that a 
scientist must actually lack feelings towards the subject? Do you see the 
difference between this and saying that a scientist must not allow their 
feelings to alter the objectivity of their observations?

>Anthony: Do you agree with what I said above, that your feelings towards 
>the
>subject can indeed affect a scientist's conclusions, so that since a
>scientist should reach the same conclusion regardless of how they feel
>about the outcome, that therefore their feelings are scientifically
>irrelevant in that sense? Because that is all I mean.
>
>Jud: Your paragraph is ambiguous and ill-wriiten [ambiguous]. Who is 'A
>scientist?' Who is 'The subject?' Who is: 'They?'

Take my dog. Do you see that any scientist testing cures on my dog should 
reach the same objective conclusions regardless of whether they feel as 
strongly as I do about the outcome? Because that is all I mean when I say 
that feelings are scientifically irrelevant.

>Jud:
>Why, is it only at night that the body becomes imaginary?
>
>Anthony:
>That's precisely Husserl's point - the phenomena look exactly the
>same.
>
>Jud:
>No, you clipped my query re the werewolves. But us analyticals keep
>saying that the entity is in constant change from nanosecond to
>nanosecond,

Take any nanosecond of waking experience, and you could dream it too. That 
is all I mean when I say that the two can look exactly the same either way.

>Jud: Again you miss the point - it IS relevant to your fellow
>phenomenologists, just as much as it is to us amused onlookers, and to
>your students, who jump on grungy busses and  ride grafitti desecrated
>trains, and pedal bikes through the pissing rain through
>untranscendentalist  dangerous neighbourhoods to attend your interesting 
>lectures.

Actually, here in Houston most of us drive shiny new cars, including 
students. We hate public transportation here.

Anthony Crifasi

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