philosophy in science: section 5
Every “why”
Now the scientist (or at least, the cynical one) would say, “Well if something exists that doesn’t interact with the 4 fundamental forces, can’t be observed, tested, or even proven to exists, then its irrelevant to us and has no impact on us – how can it? Science deals with those things and so is is equipped to answer every why that is relevant to human existence. Anything else is just guess work, and who’s to say your conclusion is more valid than mine?”
This is the expression of an entrenched philosophy (positivism), and I believe is actually the absence of any sort of mature philosophy or serious thinking the matter through.
Since we can’t verify this scientifically, we will have to do so rationally. There are only three possibilities for what the scientific process is capable of answering:
- no whys
- all whys
- some whys
I think it would be rather foolish to think that science couldn’t answer any why. Common sense tells us that, so let’s just cross choice #1 off the list.
We’re left choice 2 and 3. All that is needed is to show one example of how something can be known apart from scientific investigation, to establish the exclusivity of choice #3.
To establish that choice 2 is false, one need not look further than an a priori analytic judgement (thanks Kant). The statement, “Triangles have three sides,” is not something that requires scientific study to conclusively prove – it is just inherently true, and is true completely apart from empirical investigation.
But this really isn’t sufficient when it comes to matters of any importance. A priori propositions are typically self-evident, and don’t hold any real ontological potency. Even though we’ve just seen that choice #2 is false, the question lingers, apart from seemingly dodging the question, is there anything important that can be known apart from science? I believe yes.
In fact, let’s take a scientist. Take the most ardent, fastidious scientist, who apparently lives and dies and by his principles.
One day, the scientist’s son comes home from school. He has a black eye, and tells his father that he was hit by a fellow student. This child has never lied before. Has never been dishonest. The scientist calls a meeting with his son’s teacher, and the parent of the abusive child. This other parent is wearing work clothes. Smells of alcohol, wears a few scars, and has a rough demeanour. He protests, saying that it was in fact the scientist’s child who hit his son. He claims some of his son’s friends can corroborate the story.
Would some questionable eye witnesses, and a contradictory story from an equally questionable source cause the scientist to scrutinize his abused son? Would the scientist take a week off from the lab to analyze data, run simulations, refine a hypothesis, set up a control study, all to determine whether his son was telling the truth? Absolutely not! The scientist knows that his son is telling him the truth and knows that the drama unfolded as it was relayed to him.
I cannot imagine a parent, no matter how grounded in the absolute authority and skepticism of the scientific method who would require complete empirical satisfaction before being able to say with all conviction, “I know.” The living of life requires that we proceed as though we know certain things and there is no good reason to dismiss these truths as illusory or manufactured. It is a contrivance that proof of a certain kind must be a prerequisite to establish the certainty of a truth.
Why have we the opinion that empirical (that is sensory) perceptions are more reliable than emotional ones? Than rational ones? Than heaven forbid, spiritual ones? We have nothing justifiable on which to base this assertion than a presumption.
Now, near the beginning of this section I said:
“…since we can’t verify this scientifically, we will have to do so rationally.”
This offers up another interesting example: even rationale, a quality most humans recognize and rely on – a quality on which “science” itself depends as a basis for its success – is a scientifically untestable quality. How interesting that science rests on a categorically unscientific property. Really consider the implications of this.
We can talk about rational thought. We all know what it means, or have some conception. We can analyze and scrutinize it with great vigour and precision, and yet, it is not quantifiable. There is no objective means by which we can evaluate and assert its existence, let alone its quality. On every account, it is an unscientific, and by definition, must be a non-empirical property. And yet the entirety of science is based on the reality and presence of rational thought. It is predicated on testing and verification and falsifability as being valid criteria, which have themselves been established through rational thought, which in turn cannot be subjugated to these proposed criteria, and thus the method that claims Universality in reliable truth discovery. How this irony can go unchecked, I do not know.
philosophy in science: introduction
philosophy in science: section 1
philosophy in science: section 2
philosophy in science: section 3
philosophy in science: section 4
philosophy in science: section 5
philosophy in science: section 6
philosophy in science: section 7
philosophy in science: section 8
philosophy in science: conclusion
tags: philosophy, science
November 21st, 2007 at 11:46 am
This section is problematic:
“One day, the scientist’s son comes home from school. He has a black eye, and tells his father that he was hit by a fellow student. This child has never lied before. Has never been dishonest. The scientist calls a meeting with his son’s teacher, and the parent of the abusive child. This other parent is wearing work clothes. Smells of alcohol, wears a few scars, and has a rough demeanour. He protests, saying that it was in fact the scientist’s child who hit his son. He claims some of his son’s friends can corroborate the story.
Would some questionable eye witnesses, and a contradictory story from an equally questionable source cause the scientist to scrutinize his abused son? Would the scientist take a week off from the lab to analyse data, run simulations, refine a hypothesis, set up a control study, all to determine whether his son was telling the truth? Absolutely not! The scientist knows that his son is telling him the truth and knows that the drama unfolded as it was relayed to him.”
You are confusing empiricism with the scientific method. The study of history for example is empirical in that historians use their sense to analyze manuscripts, steles, paintings, et cetera but it is NOT scientific in that it does not and cannot subject historical events to repeated experiments. We cannot control for crop failure in assessing the causes of the French revolution. In fact, the example you give is one in which the scientist-father has an over-abundance of empirical evidence to back up his son’s assertions. Just because he does not subject the schoolyard altercation to lab testing does not mean he is not using empirical data.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Dan, thanks for taking the time to read and comment! You have great questions, and they only help me as I’m still figuring out what a believe.
Now, part of the difficulty is in the language.
Clearly the father is using “empirical” means. We can’t live in the world and NOT use empirical means. If we could, by what means would our reason have awoken, or, by what interface could we engage the world?
What I’m getting at here is the needless and perhaps harmful addition of the “empiricist” and “positivist” philosophy — that is knowledge can only be certain through rigour and method — and certainly that they do not warrant any sort any exclusivity insofar as man seeks knowledge.
In my example then, what is absent is the influence of empiricism and positivism, though empirical means are employed. Yet, the father can still know.
My problem is not with the empirical. It is almost all we have with which to access the world outside ourselves. Sensation, evidence, common sense, reasonability. No problem there.
The dictates, however, of what I’d call “empiricist philosophy” are for more exacting, arrogant, and exclusive than there mere faculties of using an intellectual and social “best practice.”
Does that help clarify where I’m coming from.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:47 pm
This is bulls$#t. So Dan can produce an article that says exactly what you’re saying, only shorter and more clear and go at your stuff and no “where’s the fruit?” “Whats behind this?”. Boourns!!!
November 21st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Dan produced an article that talks about Kant’s ideas.
I already confessed similarities, and that I agree with some of Kant’s points.
I am moving on.
The article doesn’t talk about the rest of where I’m going. There’s a difference between “background” and “main body of thought.” The latter is in part published today, and the rest forthcoming.
Plus Dana never spelled my name “Bene.”
November 21st, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Way to address the reason I was commenting.
November 21st, 2007 at 2:42 pm
“Why have we the opinion that empirical (that is sensory) perceptions are more reliable than emotional ones? Than rational ones? Than heaven forbid, spiritual ones? We have nothing justifiable on which to base this assertion than a presumption.”
Have you read Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature? He lays out a defense of empiricism against 18th Century rationalism. It’s an interesting and intricate argument that I’ve no space to lay out here. I recommend it as required reading though before declaring this position presumptuous.
P.S.: Who is Dana?
November 21st, 2007 at 3:10 pm
To Jay:
“This is bulls$#t. So Dan can produce an article that says exactly what you’re saying, only shorter and more clear and go at your stuff..
1) As I said, the article Dan posted talked about Kant. So did I in part. So? It was only a preface. Background. Not my argument, and so, whether the article summarized something better than me or not is irrelevant… I’m moving on to something else the article doesn’t even hint at, and the upcoming arguments, I’ve never read anywhere else.
2)”and no “where’s the fruit?” “Whats behind this?”. Boourns!!!”
We’ve been over this: Dan’s just disagreeing, giving an alternate view, recommending other sources. But for some reason, they’re not upsetting me, I’m not taking them personally, and I’m able to respond in kind, with other ideas, minus the emotional content. Disagreement doesn’t bother me… I thought I explained this.
November 21st, 2007 at 3:23 pm
‘The dictates, however, of what I’d call “empiricist philosophy” are for more exacting, arrogant, and exclusive than there mere faculties of using an intellectual and social “best practice.”‘
Do you mean “empiricist” or “positivist” in this case, from your prior post it would appear that you mean “positivist.”
November 21st, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Unfortunately I mean both:
I’m using the terms to modify each other:
empiricist: knowledge through sensual observability, testing, validation, and method
positivist: that rigorous empiricism is the only path to truth
Positivism is the natural end destination of empiricism when humanism get enters the mix, and man sees himself a perfect apparatus.
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:11 am
Ben,
If you are interested in the Hume perspective, the bit that I’m talking about is here:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hume/david/h92t/B1.4.1.html
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Dan said”What Im saying is that my understanding of sola scriptura holds that everything the Christian needs to attain salvation is available to them through examination of the Bible.
“Requiring someone to go out there and attempt a back-door entry to the noumena (because you have suggested the insufficiency of the phenomena) through means not yet made clear in your writing appears to suggest that scripture alone is not sufficient.”
Back door…you mean using some other means apart from the sensory… like faith?
I’m saying in fact that senses and the rational processing of sensory data, will not get us there. Science, though, think that this is the only path to truth.
Christ seems to assert otherwise. My point is that the sensory (and, even the rational) doesn’t lead to salvation or knowledge in God?
Do you believe otherwise?
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Oh, thanks for the article. Thoughts to come later.
November 22nd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
“Back door…you mean using some other means apart from the sensory… like faith?”
Faith is not a tool of investigation, rather it is an extrapolation from available sensory data.
Faith is not to be confused with “wishing” or “hoping” for things. It is not a separate way of knowing.
November 22nd, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I disagree. Faith is a knowing.
“Faith is an extrapolation from available sensory data.”
I really do not want to sound snotty here, please believe me, but you would do well to consult a dictionary. Faith is the diametric opposite of what you have just suggested: faith is the choice and the compulsion to assert something in the TOTAL ABSENCE of any data, especially of the sensory kind, otherwise it’s not faith, it’s just common sense in something corporeally evident:
“faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things NOT seen.” (emphasis added”
Maybe, now, instead of simply asking me questions and challenging me, you’d care to flesh out your position, and why its tenable?