Clark, John, list,
I think we need to distinguish between pragmaticist meaningfulness, -
clarity of conceivable, imaginable practical implications - and
questions of methodeutic economy of inquiry.
[Quote Peirce]
Thirdly, if pragmatism is the doctrine that every conception is a
conception of conceivable practical effects, it makes conception
reach far beyond the practical. It allows any flight of imagination,
provided this imagination ultimately alights upon a possible
practical effect; and thus many hypotheses may seem at first glance
to be excluded by the pragmatical maxim that are not really so
excluded.
[From "Pragmatism — the Logic of Abduction" CP 5.196, end of
paragraph http://www.textlog.de/7663.html , also EP 2:235]
The economics of inquiry sometimes has to take a more hard-headed,
cost-benefit analysis approach, but Peirce emphasizes that much research
takes many generations. The question is not whether we can test
distinctive predictions tomorrow or next week, but instead is of whether
the theoretical research is currently fruitful in any sense. Physicists
argue about it. It looks to me like there has been progress, quite a
wealth of ideas, but what do I know? It's very challenging, going up
against extremes of large and small. Anyway, it really is the nature of
physics to seek to unify accounts of phenomena, so the effort toward
unification of quantum field theory and general relativity in a theory
of quantum gravity is not a matter of whether, but of when. QFT and GR
are both highly constraining, so the versions of quantum gravity that
can meet those constraints will not be too numerous. Perhaps people will
prove mathematically that only one or a few incompatible versions of
quantum gravity can meet those constraints, and given that various
seemingly incompatible versions have turned out to be equivalent or
proper subsets, such will be another avenue toward the establishment of
a theory of quantum gravity. And again, I think it would be pessimistic
to rule out tests of distinctive predictions from string theory within
our lifetimes. People get impatient. Peirce wrote, somewhat tongue in
cheek, I admit:
Give science only a hundred more centuries of increase in
geometrical progression, and she may be expected to find that the
sound waves of Aristotle's voice have somehow recorded themselves.
["Reason's Rules," MS circa 1902, CP 5.542, near the paragraph's end]
Best, Ben
On 12/12/2016 1:24 PM, Clark Goble wrote:
On Dec 12, 2016, at 10:38 AM, John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net
<mailto:s...@bestweb.net> > wrote:
[String theoy] gets at some key issues in philosophy of science
regarding what is or isn’t a legitimate theory and why.
That's true, but the word 'legitimate' sounds like an attempt to
"block the way of inquiry".
It certainly can be. Going back to the old Fixation of Belief the way
some scientists use “legitimate” certainly fits into what Peirce
decries. Typically what is “legitimate” or not is simply whether it
goes against some community’s deeply held theory.
However I think in general the concern about legitimate is theories
that intrinsically set up inquiry. I don’t like the term “legitimate”
precisely because it’s ambiguous. However I think good theories are
theories that allow us to inquire about their truthfulness by making
somewhat testable predictions.
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