File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/97-02-10.192, message 31


Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 18:08:49 -0500 (EST)
From: malgosia askanas <ma-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: DIALECTICS OF NATURE & SCIENTIFC THEORY -- RETORT


Karl wrote:

> To suggest
> that "when objective natural processes seem to be contradictory in
> light of our theories, it probably means our theories need
> improvement"  is tantamount to claiming that objective natural
> process are not necessarily contradictory. This is thereby to asssume
> that we have absolute knowledge of such "objective natural processes"
> in the sense that we know that they are not necessarily
> contradictory. 

No, it isn't.  My point is that our theory-forming activities are
predicated on seeking explanations and models for natural processes which
do _not_ regard these processes as contradictory.  As Ralph says, it is
only when this quest has somehow been exhausted (a situation which is not
easy to imagine) that we would move to an assumption of the other
possibility -- that nature itself is somehow contradictory, i.e. can be
apprehended only through sets of mutually contradictory explanations. 
Even then, I am not sure whether we would attribute this state of affairs
to nature itself or to the inherent limitations of our understanding; I am
also not sure that one could really differentiate between these two 
positions. 

> Anyway I understand that Kuhn has amply demonstrated that the 
> majority of scientists are happy to work within a given scientific 
> paradigm even if sits uneasily with what are called the facts. 

You seem to be drawing a rather sharp theoretical distinction between 
"science" and "what scientists do".  Can you explain what you mean by
"science"?  Is this a platonic notion of some kind?  To me, science is
a certain kind of human enterprise governed by certain standards, 
assumptions, methodologies, etc. 

> You report to us: "I have never hear of a scientist who would rest easy
> with a conviction that one accepted natural law operates in
> contradiction to another accepted natural law."

> Surely you are operating under a confusion here. If a scientist has
> this particular conviction then by definition s/he would rest easy
> with it. Is not that what convictions are all about?: being
> convinced. It is only when one is not convinced that one may not
> rest easy with something or other.

Karl, just substitute a luckier word for "conviction".  

> If they are natural laws then they are valid even if they contradict
> each other. Your remark  suggests that the scientist may have
> the god-given quality to change or modify these laws or the character
> of their relationship to each other in such away as to emancipate
> them from their contradictory relationship. 

By "natural laws" I meant "what current scientific practice has evolved 
and accepted as being the laws of nature".  I have no idea what the laws
of nature are apart from that.  


-m 


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