[was: Re: [PEN-L:6153] RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Re: analytical philosophy]
I wrote:
> you don't think that issues such as "the nature of knowledge" is a
> subject matter?
Ian writes:
>Your use of quotes gives you away, Jim. There have yet to be created,
>amongst pragmatists and other schools, transhistorical, immediately given,
>criteria for establishing knowledge claims. There is a long history of
>argument about issues in the topics you list above but don't expect
>agreement anytime soon.
I wasn't expecting any agreement.
I wrote:
> It shouldn't be to someone who's studied philosophy. The philosophy
> of economics (meta-economics?) examines the unexamined premises
> of economists (hidden in their models & empirical work) while we can
> imagine that "meta-economics" would itself require investigation.
Ian writes:
>Ad infinitum with the permanent possibility of dissensus. Disagreement as
>a badge of honor...politics.
yup. meta-economics reveals ideology.
I wrote:
>Philosophers have no special knowledge? then shut the departments down
>and force their members to go to law school! is there no contribution
>that philosophers have made?
Ian writes:
>Better yet, shut down the law schools too. They have no special "insight"
>into knowledge nor are they more virtuous than the rest of us. So why the
>fuck we let them tell us how to live while they wear black [lovers of
>death and power, them judges]. ...
It would be nice to get rid of judges and lawyers. However, that doesn't
seem feasible. At least in class society, they're inevitable, like death &
taxes.
I wrote:
> _Of course_, no one appointed the philosophers as "method police" and I
> was NOT arguing that they should be. What I was trying to say was
> that philosophical insights can _help_ science and its interpretation.
Ian writes:
>...interpretationS. Just look at the interminable debate over the
>Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. No sign of epistemic finality
>on the horizon there. Multiply that type of intellectual controversy times
>100,000 and you have "actually existing civilization".
I was using "interpretation" as a verb, which could be plural or singular.
I wrote:
> scientists like Gould or Lewontin get some of the grist for
> their reflections from philosophy, methodology. They don't conjure their
> philosophical reflections from measuring snails, etc.
Ian writes:
>Well, "where" do they get their grist for re-flection?
from Marx, though Gould seems to have moved away (and was never as close as
Lewontin has been).
On this issue, I don't think Ian and I disagree.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
