> On Mar 10, 2016, at 9:53 AM, John Collier <[email protected]> wrote: > > For example, Newtonian space and time are one way to explain the bucket > thought experiment. But even in Newton's own time it was observed (e.g. by > Leibniz) that the explanation couldn't be tested (it failed the pragmatic > maxim). Mach made the problem even more clear. It was not a good explanation > on those grounds, though it was good enough for Newton and for most > physicists up to Einstein.
A couple of pedantic points. First we should note that Peirce’s notion of testing is more broad than mere empirical verification (ala say what one tends to find among the neo-Kantians such as say the positivists) We can see this in his Neglected Argument for God which is a use of the maxim but in a very vague creative fashion. Thus we have to be careful to assume it can’t be applied to certain theoretical problems (or even to contemporary issues like string theory even if I think stronger empirical evidence is important). Second, again Peirce’s maxim is a verification for meaningfulness. So while the maxim helps show that the thought experiment can’t do what Newton wants, it is still meaningful as we think through it in terms of the maxim. Effectively this is what Mach is doing with his critiques. The question is poorly posed and Mach’s analysis thus helps illuminate the meaning of the problem precisely by bringing out these issues. (To be clear, in a certain way I’m saying more or less what you did - just that I’m emphasizing the positive rather than negative role the maxim would play in this) That Newton’s conception was good enough for physicists up to the early 20th century shows, I think, that often physics really is captured by bias and a tendency to accept the judgment of the community. This fits well into what I understand Feyerabend’s critiques of science to be drawing. Careful application of the maxim allows us to understand many of these issues better even if perhaps not allowing us to draw better support for theory/law. Now obviously abduction alone isn’t enough to explain science and I think we make a category error if we push it too far. There’s a lot going on socially within science.
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