Related to this, we could ask “what does ‘material’ mean?â€
You do not draw in anything beyond your five senses.
If the data available to empiricism are what we are discussing, then I would adopt River’s definition. That’s a working definition, not necessarily exhaustive.
Scientists aren't taught the philosophy of science. Up through undergrad, science training consists of lectures and hands-on lab experiments that are meant to teach the concepts .... At the graduate level, scientific training is first and foremost an apprenticeship. Therefore, what I know of the philosophy of science is what I have gleaned from my own experience in doing and writing up research ...
For about ten years we did require a course like this of our Ph.D. students, but it disappeared when its main proponent retired. I suspect that the emphasis on methodology, and how deeply one wishes to explore its implications, depends on the inclinations of the people in a department at any given time, and not so much on the discipline.
Now here's a question: why are we all talking like consciousness is limited to humans?
I personally do not think it is limited to humans.
Modern physics, for example, is a combination of Descartes’ rationalism and Bacon’s empiricism since there is the idea that abstract conceptual-mathematical models can represent physical phenomena. There is the a priori rationalism of Descartes saying that we might as well assume that the res extensa can be mapped to a rational-mathematical model. Without rationalism, empiricism would be nothing more than tabulations of data. I kept thinking of this while reading your posts and I wonder what the connection is.
(my bold)
I do agree with the bolded sentence. But I will have to give more thought to the nature of the connection.
My first inclination is to say that it is a marriage and not an identity. I think we may have to move outside Western civilization to understand the terms of such marriage, where the functionality of the scaffolding may be the same (if I may persist with my anology) but the structure of the scaffolding looks completely different.
It is my opinion that math is language ... that is, it sorts the world in the same way that language does. And so one’s perception of how the relationship between concept and thing should be formed in goal-directed behaviors like science may depend on how one’s language has been structured and has evolved.
This is an armchair hypothesis, OK? I haven’t made a study of this.
In that same vein ...
What he had not really done extensively until perhaps the Renaissance is to try and find some abstract conceptual models to pair up with these observations (e.g. the Cartesian plane as a principle for describing position). It’s these abstract models and systems of principles which allow science to really build on previous developments. Our naked empirical abilities alone are simply too feeble.
I’m not sure I agree that this kind of abstraction, as a human faculty, is a Renaissance development, though certainly the scaffold that we are using right now in Wester Civ can be traced to the Renaissance ... and a whole big chunk of it to the resurrection of Aristotle by the Scholastics.
When someone says “but empiricism alone is effective in explanation†we must say “well, it depends on what you mean by ‘effective’â€.
Yes, that is a better way of putting it. And, after disagreeing with Ax so vehemently about the razor, I have to say that I accept his assertion that our evaluation of effectiveness proceeds backwards from the goal and not forwards from the methodology. The argument in favor of science is that it works, it gets us to the place where we were trying to go for a very large realm of endeavors. And it has been pretty good, on the whole, at staying away from realms where it is not useful.
Strange, I know zero philosophy and yet I would have reacted exactly the same way as you to this guys research. Bad science is obvious. But does this mean that without any training in philosophy you would have thought his methodology was fine?
Without philosophy I would not have been able to explain to him
why he was doing it wrong ... not beyond a certain point at least. I could say to him that he needs so many data points to run the test he has run, and point him to a better textbook for confirmation of that. Perhaps that would have been enough for him. But if he had been the sort of person who then asks, but
why does hypothesis testing have that requirement, then I start needing philosophy to explain further.
And it’s not exactly that he was doing bad science. His test method was OK, his measurements were accurate (let’s say so). The problem was that because he did not understand how his own work fit into to the larger picture, he presented his findings in a way that muddled their relevance and misled the funding agency. If ten other engineers could replicate his work with four tiles each, then we could have performed a meta-test on the results. But he has to know this himself, so that when he presents ‘results and conclusions’ he can instruct the funding agency how to use his work appropriately.
you don't need philosophy at the level being used here to understand it.
No, I don’t think you need a degree in philosophy to be a good scientist. But I think you need to have internalized those philosophical conclusions, and to have done so correctly.
Someone wrote (can’t remember who) that economics students no longer have to read Adam Smith in order to understand what he said because his thought has so suffused modern theory that understanding of modern theory is sufficient for understanding Smith.
I agree up to a point, but then I see economic advisors to the President .... or someone like Ken Lay, who had a Ph.D. in economics ... talking such nonsense out their ears about free market theory ... and I think to myself that we REALLY do have to spend more time teaching methodology.
And there are different levels, of course ... you don’t have to be schooled in every moment of economic history to talk about free market theory accurately, but there are some developments that you do have to know and have to be able to place in historical context.
I guess we arrive at the optimal mix through trial and error.
I would say the beliefs come in between observation--at least initial observation--and the organizational impulse, at least at the beginning of the iterations. And it is very much an iterative process.
Yes, I agree that this is a responsive process.
The problem is that the initial iteration predates anyone around by the time people stop to think about it. Myths, if you will, do not spring into existence on their own.
Well, we can’t go ALL the way back ... but some contributors are more important than others. There isn’t an empiricist walking around today who could make the first word come out of his mouth without Aristotle, whether he knows it or not. Personally, I think it is worthwhile to know what Aristotle said, and why he said it. YMMV.
I figure I can come back in six months without missing much.
I find it very comforting that I can come back after thirty years and the discussion is still going on.
Wolfie,