Comments on: Science and the Arts

By: agm

agm — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 00:12:10 +0000

Re: John Landon The idea of quantized physical quantities is now a permanent fixture in the description of the physical world. The only thing that terrifies physicists about quantum mechanics is learning how to use its mathematical tools (and the even more daunting tools of its offspring, such as QCD) and designing experiments that measure what you think you’re measuring. The idea of a quantum is no more terrifying than the idea of a dollar being made of a hundred cents. Which erases none of the wonder of it all.

By: joe

joe — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 17:47:09 +0000

“Orthodoxy” creates heresies. Create one category and you create the other. The “one great thing about the Church” is that it creates these categories. What’s in them hardly matters. John Rawls and G.E. Moore are good examples of significant philosophers whose work was neither intuitively convincing or even particularly interesting, but had all the features necessary to produce a successful orthodoxy. The elements of their work touch on all the main procedural questions of their day and provide examples which usefully clarify the possible approaches to those questions. As a result, anybody “coming to the table” can line themselves up for or against different points of the orthodoxy, and the whole enterprise is much simplified by a common terminology. These guys often are excellent teachers as well, which means they produce lots of students who do well and have an easy time networking, etc. Unfortunately people forget, or never learn, the significance of these operational considerations, with the extremely unfortunate result that the content of these philosophers’ work is taken seriously long after they are dead and gone and their contemporary procedural questions are no longer relevant. Aristotle is the worst example.

By: Thomas Dent

Thomas Dent — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 10:15:02 +0000

I believe G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” used the idea that one great thing about the Church was its ability to avoid a myriad heresies and stick to the one orthodox Truth. I don’t know whether he considered the fact that if any of the heresies had been accepted as orthodox, and vice versa, he would be saying exactly the same thing. Or perhaps he saw the success and longevity of the Church as proof of its orthodoxy. In which case, Judaism should be still more orthodox. Question: How does religious orthodoxy differ from philosophical orthodoxy (if such a thing exists) and scientific orthodoxy?

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 10:12:39 +0000

But yesterday’s thoroughly criticized and discredited ideas in philosophy are tommorrow’s bright new ideas in psychology! Surely philosophy’s quondam relevance for the conduct of life can not have been forgotten in the mounting strata of academicism? It hardly seems to me that such a concern is fit for the rubbish heap, no matter how fantastical it has become…

By: Randolph Fritz

Randolph Fritz — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 08:35:39 +0000

And yet, and yet… In 1796, Georges Cuvier argued that extinctions had occurred, thereby showing us deep time. In 1828, Wholer synthesized urea, thereby showing that living systems were not required to synthesize organic chemicals. In 1838 Bessell determined the distance to 61 Cygni, showing us deep space. It is hard to escape the historical reality that the critical engagement with the physical that is at the heart of the sciences has utterly transformed philosophy. Surely someone dreamed of the depths of time before Cuvier. But it took “science”, whatever that is, to make it real to most thinkers. I think Harrison is wrong. And yet his error points at a truth. There is something powerful in “science”, though it is hard to say just what that is.

By: Jim Birch

Jim Birch — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 05:54:57 +0000

I thought Berkeleyism was still taught because not as a practical guide on how to cook eggs but because it is illuminates a wide range of issues like perception, knowledge theory, theology, semiotics, and so on. In a round-about way it gives an insight into the modern political strategy of repeating lies until they become truth. String theory currently is a bit short on practical consequences at present too, and, in future could well be supplanted by new, better or more elegant approaches in mathematical physics.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 04:06:27 +0000

One of the things that’s on the philosophy rubbish heap is the thing that motivated Harrison to make his claim—the effort to formulate a rule that decisively distinguishes science from non-science. The Demarcation Problem (as it’s known) occupied philosophers of science through to the 1980s, but has been pretty much given up on since then. Ironic, really.

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 01:19:01 +0000

I can think of view areas of inquiry with a larger rubbish heap than Christian theology, but I have yet to meet anyone who has been persuaded of Christianity because of the number of heretics that have been excluded down through the years.

By: Shai

Shai — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 01:14:36 +0000

In addition to aspects of string theory, m-theory, whatever, there are deterministic versions of quantum mechanics which are consistent but untestable for the forseeable future. this is not really a concern because we possess the concept of “degrees of belief”

By: Shai

Shai — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 01:08:05 +0000

heh, that’s a funny, if inaccurate story joe. so, anyway, you could go in any number of directions with Henry’s quote. it’s basically saying that science, despite embarrassments such as phlogiston and phrenology, proceeds by a method which is more likely to arrive at truth, knowledge and all that. But it’s a bit of a non sequitur because (i) science can’t replace politics or philosophy, (ii)science is influenced by politics and philosophy*, and politics and philosophy are sensitive to facts, including scientific facts. now religion does tend to follow the method of authority, but it is nevertheless sensitive to science, politics, philosophy, everyday life * the author may need an exorcism because he seems to be possessed by the late, great ideas of karl popper, a philosopher

By: joe

joe — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 23:18:48 +0000

Harry – if there is compelling contemporary stuff that draws on Schopenhauer, marvelous! I regret my Lit Crit/etc pigeonhole. John – Logical Positivism began as the Vienna Circle’s attempt to turn the Tractatus into a research program. Wittgenstein was so appalled by their “misunderstanding” of his work that he left the academy and wrote nothing for many years.

By: John Landon

John Landon — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 23:07:03 +0000

I find cavalier the attitude of modern science towards the ‘rubbish heap’ of philosophy. Strange arrogance? As to Berkeley or Schopenhauer, they bring to mind old Kant, now the object of Rortyean scorn for his foundationalism. If I recall Kant challenged the foundationalism of metaphyscial systems and of empiricism built in. What is to decide all of this? Darwin’s theory of evolution, that metaphysical research program, which generalizes about a totality without observing it, a prime candidate for the charge of metaphysics? We can see the lowball get underway with Dewey’s ‘seminal’ capitulation to Darwin. This new foundationalism is more outrageous than anything from rational psychology, theology, and the rest This refers to Darwin’s theory, not the fact of evolution. Hmm, didn’t Bohm find the theory of relativity confirmation of the Kantian ‘limit’, the boundary of the phenomenal? Physicists are rightly terrified of quantum mechanics, and it requires almost constant suppression of the obvious suggestion of severe ‘reality’ problems. see page xv of N. Herbert’s diagram of Benjamin Bunny getting strapped down for a reality check by the ‘Professor’. And as for (early) Wittgenstein, he seems to state the problem precisely at the dawn of the logical positivist spree, a tad Schopenhaurish.

By: harry

harry — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 23:03:00 +0000

Bob, read Brian O’ Shaughnessy’s work—particularly The Will – A Dual Aspect Theory, if you can find it. Profoundly influenced by Schopenhauer. And BOS is still widely well thought of, I think. Rightly so, in my view, though its all out of my area of expertise.

By: harry

harry — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 23:01:55 +0000

Bob, read Brian O’ Shaughnessy’s work—particularly The Will – A Dual Aspect Theory, if you can find it. Profoundly influenced by Schopenauer. And BOS is still widely well thought of, I think. Rightly so, in my view, though its all out of my area of expertise.

By: joe

joe — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:57:19 +0000

Bob, The Tractatus’ “picture-theory” of language was abandoned by Witt. in favor of his later “game-theory”. (Stephen Toulmin’s Wittgenstein’s Vienna is perhaps the most accessible overview.) Quine, Grice and Davidson et al are currently “fashionable” not only on the merits of their arguments but also because they were better teachers than Wittgenstein, and more effective at publicizing their work within the academic community via networking and so on. This sort of thing is unavoidable and should not be superficially condemned. (The only people whose ideals are shocked by such things are, by definition, pseudo-intellectuals.) If you find merit in Wittgenstein you should read George Lakoff. Not all of what was once “philosophy” is done today by “professional philosophers”. Lakoff is allegedly a linguist. Pretty soon some young hotshot will link the two in a thesis, and if he networks properly there will be a new fashion … one way or another Wittgenstein will eventually get his due. You can probably also still find interest in Schopenhauer among some Lit Crit/Crit Theory/Etc. types as part of their ritual flogging of the dead horse that is Hegel, but I don’t recommend this.