At 07:22 PM 12/14/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Of course philosophy has a reason to be interested in science. Of course I
>do not think that disciplines should be hermetically sealed off from each
>other. Of course I think that social scientists should discuss how to do
>social science with philosophers and other scientists. This is so obvious
>that I should not have to say it...
but you said that "there is no single point to philosophical study of
science or any other human activity." Perhaps I misunderstood the meaning
of "single" here, so that what you're saying is that there are _many_
points to the philosophical study of science.
>.... I also don't believe that philosophy has a special subject matter,
>such as "method," into which it has special insight.
It seems to me that philosophy has several special subject matters, such as
metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, logic, ethics, and "human nature." The
way I've always seen philosophy is more _directional_, however: that is,
philosophy involves looking into propositions and theories more _deeply_,
to examine the premises, definitions, logic, and completeness. Of course,
this kind of probing can go on indefinitely, which is where pragmatism
comes as a limit.
>The subject matter of philosophy is philosophical writings and (in the
>case of phil of science), scientific writing and practice. All
>philosophers can do is comment, more or less informedly, on what
>scientists do. They cannot tell them What Is Good Method.
They can tell them, but only a small number will listen. I, for one, say
that scientists who reflect on their method (rather than cranking out
"science" following convention) are likely to be the better scientists.
(Lewontin is more likely to be a better scientist than Dawkins or Wilson,
or at least philosophy can help settle disputes amongst them.) Further, as
I've said, the philosophy can inform us lay-people, helping us understand
the various debates amongst scientists, perhaps ferreting out all of the
hidden value-judgements that can be hidden in scientific jargon.
To my mind, saying that scientists won't listen to philosophical reflection
is part of a _critique_ of science.
>... Maybe you want to find ammo from philosophers of science to deploy
>against the narrow-mindedness of mainstream economists. I think that is a
>worthy goal and purpose. If you come up with a specific concrete example,
>either a non-Mainstream idae ora pproach you want to defend in some
>specific way by reference to Kuhn or Lakatos, etc., I would be happy to
>discuss it. Likewise if K oe L provided you with ammo to attack mainstream
>economics in some particular way. But windy discussions of method unmoored
>to any concrete matter in dispute are too abstract for me to get
>a purchase on.
I think that "windy discussions" of _anything_ "unmoored to any concrete
matter in dispute" are anathema. That's why I try to link abstractions to
representative concrete examples, where possible.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
