Vorkosigan

Take a moment to talk to Joel via PM, Michael. I don't care if i'm annihiliated here or if i "win" a debate; i intentionally take up minority positions because they're so much more challenging.

That's fine, Hugo. I didn't much care either, until you suddenly decided that personal insults were in order. "headbanger," indeed.

In this case i do think realism is shaky, but i would assert it anyway just to give a discussion more sides (how many irrealists or anti-realists are there here? I can think of two, perhaps...). I reference Laudan because his paper is interesting for anyone who has never considered such things and because it's easier to locate than the stuff i have in my library; whether i agree with him or not is moot (i don't). Consequently, i'm unimpressed by your quote.

Thanks. I'll try not to quote papers you reference in the future.

I "see the problem"; i don't agree that the failure of philosophy in solving a problem implies anything about its disutility (as you are no doubt aware);

<shrug> If you can look at 2,500 years of failure, and not see failure.....Philosophy is moderately good at generating questions; it is hopeless at providing answers, at least where the questions intersect reality.

and i would oppose you in any case because we all learn more that way. Am i trolling, or walking a fine line betwixt those dark regions and proper debate? You be the judge...

You're not trolling, and I was looking forward to some fine talk. Perhaps we should return to the topic of Christianity and science.

Vorkosigan

Gurdur

I've seen the insults fly in all directions. Perhaps we all should calm down, hey ?
ad hom *shrug* ?

As a blanket statement, this seems very biased.

Natural science is best at empiricism, and comes often a cropper as soon as metaphysical or human-psychological questions come into play.
To dismiss philosophy like that could simply be seen as not understanding philosophy, let alone its history.

On one hand, you have the entire philosophical development of logic and logical processes, such as the humble syllogism;

OTOH, philosphy exists not to necessarily answer questions, but to create them.

And science exists, in essence to discover more empirical facts.

Therefore to fault philosophy for not being natural science misses the point.
Additionally, many of the questions that philosophy poses are unanswerable; e.g. metaphysics.

My old prof of medical ethics once picked me up on this; he said I was paying too much attention to developing cluster-bomb arguments, and too little attention to developing further interesting avenues of questions.

And since he specialised in medicine, a discipline still very much influenced by vague factors not yet adequately described by natural science (the question, for example, of what is at start mentally healthy or not is not a natural science question --- it is a philosophical question, and only afer that has been decided does natural science then stat and detail the types of mental ill-health), then he was very right indeed in his criticism.

Hugo Holbling

*sigh*

I won't send you back to the posts to review your work. Let's move on:

At last. Let's drop SSK and philosophy unless or until it's shown to be relevant, such that lurkers will appreciate it.

*sigh* You can quote me what you like; just please refrain from assuming that a paper quoted in opposition is supposed to be supportive of my own position.

We had a discussion on this topic in the philosophy forum a few months back - it's a shame you didn't join in. Gurdur has answered you very nicely, and hopefully Joel will soon be active on the non-realist side.

As was i. What say you answer my original questions in some more depth? Is it possible for science to develop in a non-realist worldview? I suspect not, but how would we set about showing this? On the assumption that it couldn't, how influential can we say Christianity (generally or specifically) was in adopting or developing realist ideas? If indeed Christianity (in whatever form) was irrelevant to the rise of science, or merely one of many factors, let's bring the questions forward to the time of the scientific revolution: was realism a necessary assumption there too? It seems the failure of non-realist ideas to explain the rise of science would be significant, leaving aside the problems you suppose them to have.

None of these questions require a debate as to whether or not the various alternatives are sound, as far as i am concerned. Please feel free to say otherwise, but explaining yourself in so doing. What say you?

Bede

Back into the groove. I'll deftly sidestep the Holbling/Vork dispute and go back to Joel's last reply to me.

We are talking Catholics here so don't assume that theology has to mean the Bible alone. The fathers and councils were also seen as authoritive in many ways. The Bible does make clear the universe was created by God and that it was good. We also have frequently quoted passages from Psalms and Wisdom that were used to explicitly justify scientific thought. The existence of natural law was directly taken from the laws of God. This was something almost all Christians agreed on whereas to reek thinkers the existence of any kind of law was a highly controversial point between schools.

This is a really basic error and not worthy of you. The matter was well understood in the Middle Ages - a miracle is when God intervenes directly rather than through secondary causes. You must have a belief in natural law to recognise a miracle. Interestingly, Moslems reject miracles and occasionalism makes the concept meaningless anyway.

Only if you have the protestant mind set that only the Bible counts. Medieval thinkers also had the Fathers. We can in fact see the idea of God as giving laws to nature in the work of Bede, Scotus and Anselm which date from before the new learning hit the West in the twelth century.

This passage strikes me as highly naive. Consider that we have no evidence whatsoever for multiverses or extra terrestial life. Why then are these part of science and not just fantasy? Because science's culture of metaphysical naturalism has decreed they be allowed while ID is not. That's all there is to it. If in retrospect this turns out to be right, the naturalistic religion that set the scene might be allowed some credit, just as Christianity gets some for injecting certain fruitful assumptions into philosophy at an earlier stage.

The ideas that survive are the ones that are useful and politically acceptable regardless of any metaphysical connection to the real world. This much should be clear by now.

You are correct in your assumptions that any caricature is due to the brevity of these posts. Note also, that I do not think Islam is 'bad' because it hasn't produced the scientific and materialistic culture that Westerners simply assume is the best thing ever. Christianity could actually have a lot to answer for failing to protect society from the excesses of capitalism and liberalism. We don't have an agreed objective measure to decide with. We can say that the scientific revolution did not occur in Egypt or India and ask why not.

You need to read alot more about Al Ghazali, judging by your comment. I merely use him as an example but his influence among Moslems was far more prevalent that in the West. Ockham seems to me more influenced by his ideas than Aquinas, who certainly rejected many of his central points.

The myth is that science is driven by reason and evidence, that it reflects reality and that it is an indisputably 'good' thing that is used to judge everything else. I hope you don't subscribe to all of this.

Quakers are usually Christians and I understand Pennock is one too. Likewise, JJ Burnell, who is a senior professor of astonomy, is the chair of the Friends in the UK. I'm a neo-Darwinist so don't assume that believing fully in evolution is less than Christian.

I'm rather fond of Iran too.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Hugo Holbling

Vork has criticised this before (and i never got around to answering him), saying that the assumption of the world running according to laws was actually "Roman in origin". How would you respond?

Bede

Vork must have meant Greek rather than Roman. The idea of natural law being reliable and consistant because it comes from a reliable/good/consistant power is certainly found all over the place. Plato certainly seems to follow this idea but you'll find it in the pre-socratics too. The point, though, is that it was never acceptabled by all, uncontroversial or axiomatic to most thinkers. We get this false skewed impression of Greek thought being so rational because its the rational stuff Christians preserved for us.

However, in the Middle Ages we had an entire higher education system where the law creating god was accepted as axiomtic by all. Christianity laid down certain assumptions that happened to correspond with the ones that allowed modern science to begin. I would agree that realism was another such assumption that we might want to think about.

BTW, now that the Bible board is also about all religious history, I'll probably be found back there.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Celsus

Ok, I just got back, and will respond in time. Hugo, you can't ask us to drop SSK when you brought up Shapin and then expect us not to criticise their methodology. Bede, I'll try to get a response in the next few days.

Joel

Hugo Holbling

*sigh*

I brought up Shapin initially because he - like other scholars in the history of science - no longer considers the conflict hypothesis tenable. I then went on to comment that he makes some remarks in his The Scientific Revolution that very much agree with Vork. Only when i challenged the latter to defend the implicit presupposition of progress inherent in this thread did SSK come up.

Celsus

Hello Hugo,

Remember this question addressed to me?
Obviously, one can't begin to criticise someone without first looking at their methodology. Anyway, if you really insist on dropping it, that's perfectly fine with me.

Joel

Hugo Holbling

I remember. If you're going to criticise Shapin and thereby his conclusion that the conflict hypothesis is no longer tenable, then by all means we'll discuss SSK here. If not, i think it's a topic for another thread. On the other hand, perhaps you could explain why the assumption of progress is valid?