Hi Evgenii,
On 06 Jan 2012, at 19:14, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
Bruno,
I have recently finished listening Prof Hoenen's Theorien der
Wahrheit where he has also reviewed Feyerabend's Science in a Free
Society. Today I wanted to learn more about that book and have found
in Internet
Paul Feyerabend, 1975
How To Defend Society Against Science
http://www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43842
You may like it. Just two quote:
"The lesson is plain: there does not exist a single argument that
could be used to support the exceptional role which science today
plays in society."
Hmm... Not sure I agree with this, but I have a larger conception of
science that most scientist today. Personally I consider that science
is natural, and practiced by virtually all animals. Babies makes
theories and update them all the time. Science becomes good science
when it stays modest and conscious of the hypothetical character of
all theories. In fact I do not believe in "Science", I believe only in
"scientific attitude", which is really nothing more than curiosity,
doubting and modesty.
"Science is just one of the many ideologies that propel society and
it should be treated as such."
I disagree a lot with this, although some modern view of science might
be like that, notably "naturalism". A lot of naturalist seems to take
for granted the primitive existence of a universe, or of matter or
nature. Once we take *anything* for granted, we just stop doing
science for doing ideology, which is only "bad religion". Of course
"human science" is not scientific most of the time, and I am talking
about "ideal science".
Hmm... I agree with Feyerabend on Galileo, but that might be the only
point where I agree with him, to be honest.
Other quotes that I like are at
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/01/feyerabend-against-science.html
I took a look, and I really think that Feyerabend confuses science and
science-done-by-weak-human in search of food, position and power.
In a sense I believe that the scientific era has existed among a few
intellectual only from -500 to +500. After that, the most fundamental
science, which I think is theology, has been politicized. The
enlightenment period was only 1/2 enlightened, because its main
subject, the reason why we are here, has remained a political taboo.
The whole "human science" remains in practice based on the worst of
all arguments: "the boss is right.".
Bruno
On 06.01.2012 18:33 Bruno Marchal said the following:
On 06 Jan 2012, at 17:54, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 06.01.2012 17:08 John Clark said the following:
On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyi<use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:
If to talk about Galileo, then it would also good to
remember Feyerabend
(for example Against method). Feyerabend has studied the way
Galileo has made science a lot and his conclusion:
"The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to
reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration
the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's doctrine. Its
verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and revisionism
can be legitimized solely for motives of political
opportunism."
I believe those remarks could be summarized more concisely if he
had said " I Paul Feyerabend am an idiot". I love philosophy but
hate philosophers because very little philosophy comes from
professional philosophers, it comes from scientists and
mathematicians. Every time I think I'm being too hard on
philosophers somebody mentions a person like Feyerabend and I
remember why I dislike them so much.
John K Clark
This statement contradict to a normal scientific world view but it
is based on historical facts. Hence it well might be that you have
to read more about Galileo.
As for Feyerabend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend)
"Feyerabend became famous for his purportedly anarchistic view of
science and his rejection of the existence of universal
methodological rules.[1] He is an influential figure in the
philosophy of science, and also in the sociology of scientific
knowledge."
His book Against method has been cited more than 6000 times
according to Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Feyerabend
This does not mean that everybody has to agree with him but a
statement about an idiot looks exaggerated.
I agree. In fact I do agree often with John Clark, but then he
exaggerates also very often the point. I am probably very close to
him on philosophers, especially continental one, and on Feyerabend.
But, actually, in this Galileo case, I have come to similar
conclusion as Feyerabend, and I think it is an important point. The
church was asking to Galileo to present his view as a theory or
conjecture, and the church agreed that such a theory explain better
the facts. The church asks him only to accept that it was only a
theory, but Galileo refused (or accepted it but only to avoid
trouble, cf "e pur si muove"). Of course, Galileo should have
answered "all right, but then you should accept that God and all that
is only a theory, too", which was not diplomatically possible.
But by refusing the status of theory (conjecture) for its own
findings, Galileo did endorse the "modern" view of naturalism, and
that science *has* to be naturalist, and this *is* a scientific error
(as comp illustrates) which has not yet been corrected (excepting the
study of comp). Even Aristotle did not commit that error explicitly,
although he paved the road for it. Most scientists, even layman,
believes today that the existence of a primary physical reality is a
*scientific fact*, where it is only either a gross animal
extrapolation, or an aristotelian assumption, which can be refuted
(as comp illustrates, at the least).
A pity is that more or less recently the catholic church has done a
work of rehabilitation of Galileo, where they endorse that very
mistake, showing how much the catholic Church want weak materialism
and naturalism to be dogma. That is not new, Catholics even differ
from protestants on the importance of the notion of primitive matter,
notably to be able to say that bread is, in concreto, the flesh of
Jesus.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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