From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 06:52:42 EDT Subject: Corrected Version of Phenomenology and Science Subj: Re: Phenomenology and Science Date: 21/07/2003 06:32:12 GMT Daylight Time From: crifasi-AT-hotmail.com (Anthony Crifasi) Sender: owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu I don't know what happened to the first version of this message - it came out chevroned-out as if it had been sent before? Here's a clean copy [hopefully] Anthony writes: It does not follow that if a person "has a personal emotional investment," t hat therefore this is scientifically relevant. Jud: You keep repeating the mantra 'scientifically relevant.' What do you mean by this? It can be argued that the lax attitude towards the heat- tiles on the NASA space vehicle and the subsequent dreadful end to the experiment, not to mention the awful loss of the lives of many brave men and women, had a DIRECT scientific relevance to the space programme and the future design of spacecraft. Hopefully this dreadful episode will encourage the space-bosses to increase their personal emotional investment and commitment in the vital life-threatening scientific aspects of future projects. Anthony: 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. Jud: We are discussing attitudes towards items and proceedures in scientific practice. Objectivity is [as MichaelP rightly pointed out] an ATTITUDE - an emotional attitude or stance which is designed to subdue emotion and encourage an active state of objectivity. It is an emotional stance which is QUITE HOTLY and EMOTIONALLY advocated and defended by most scientists [including the forlorn little man from Prossnitz sitting gazing at the teapot.] Again you continually repeat the mantra 'scientifically relevant' ignoring the fact that 'scientific relevance' is only scientifically relevant to HUMAN BEINGS as in the case of if the dog lives or dies, or if the spaceship explodes or returns safely. You are up to the blind Heideggerian pastime of REIFICATION again. NO SUCH THING EXISTS as 'scientific relevance,' as a metaphysical entity, it is ONLY A TERM used to describe the pertinence TO HUMANS regarding the existential disposition and interaction and reaction of actual entities which are studied or manipulated by actual living, breathing scientists and technicians to form new compounds and composites which affect not some metaphysical notion of 'scientific relevance, ' but real flesh and blood HUMAN BEINGS and the actual world which those human beings inhabit. Anthony: Again, no one is saying that a scientist must actually lack feelings towards the subject. Jud: I'm not being prescriptive about the way that scientists should behave - just telling it how it is and how attitude can affect outcomes. Anthony: 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? Jud: I agree that you are not being prescriptive either, but you do appear to be agreeing with Heidegger, [against Husserl] that a scientific attitude towards phenomenological investigation is not necessary and even counterproductive. I on the other hand am claiming that scientific attitudes and emotional stances towards scientific investigations and procedures DO affect outcomes and and are reflected in the results [see dead dog and exploded spaceship or live dog and intact spaceship] Anthony: 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: No, I do not see and I do not agree. Your attitude would be more involved/concerned and you are likely to be more thorough, not only in the amount of research you would invest to procure the latest substances, but in the actual way in which you treated and cared for the animal during its treatment. This difference in approach would inevitable affect the outcome. Take two cancer patients with exactly the same clinical progress of the disease and the same metatastic proliferation. One is a black construction worker, the other a successful oncologist. Which one is more likely to live longer than the other and why? Don't come back with the answer that if they were given the same medication and care that they are both likely to survive for a similar period, because due to the position of the oncologist, not only is he likely to receive more care from his colleagues [who mix socially with his wife, etc.,] he is in reality very likely to have access to better drugs. If in the unlikely circumstance that the doctors were just as attached and sympathetically disposed to the black construction worker that they arranged parity of medication and treatment for him all well and good and the clinical prognosis would no doubt be parable with the oncologist. But due to the a priori relationship twixt the medical establishment in the clinic and the sick oncologist the emotional commitment to the science part of the treatment equation would not be the same and the black man would in all probability die first. Anthony: 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: This whole discussion as I see it addresses the assumption on the behalf of Heidegger that scientists and technicians because they exhibit a disciplined approach to their investigations are in some way less sensitive and are some kind of Untermenchen in the way that they interact with objects of their experiments, compared with people like him poetically mooning around in a completely disorganised manner examining the undersides of leaves looking for an IS-label. Not content with attacking scientists for introducing a controlled modus operandi, he sneers [privately to friends] at his potty old mentor for attempting to introduce a system of rules of conduct or method of practice into his phenomenological investigations. Presumably, if the party to which he devoted his sleazy political affiliations had triumphed, he may well have seen to it that scientists were forced to wear some distinguishing symbol along the lines of the yellow star or the pink triangle? Perhaps the symbol of an unblinking, cold, expressionless 'scientific eye?' Would he therefore have then felt satisfied to see his old teacher aimlessly traipsing about the corridors of Freiburg, locked out of the library, staring out at the quadrangle below at the students with their swastika armbands, and on his own arms a yellow star on one side and the detested scientific eye on the other? ;-) Anthony: Actually, here in Houston most of us drive shiny new cars, including students. We hate public transportation here. Jud: Houston? Be careful you drive a saloon and not an open-topped car. :-( Cheers, Jud. <A HREF="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ ">http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/</A> Jud Evans - ANALYTICAL INDICANT THEORY. <A HREF="http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com">http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com</A> --- StripMime Warning -- MIME attachments removed --- This message may have contained attachments which were removed. Sorry, we do not allow attachments on this list. --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html --- --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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