🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug28.133107.8402@math.ucla.edu>, barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:

|> I might add that this is another thing that separates philosophical
|> study from scientific study. We don't worry about reading the
|> original works, or dwelling on the lives and miscellaneous writings
|> of the originators of physical theory. For some reason that I don't
|> understand, philosphers still devote much time to original 
|> works from Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, etc, etc, 
|> rather than merely focusing on the concepts themselves, divorced
|> from their proponents (and their proponents generally inferior
|> original presentations).

Well, we agree on this (at least to a substantial degree).  You
probably missed the previous postings by me and others a while ago
on just this topic, and I don't think we want to rehash the issues.

However, you conflate philosophical study with the study of the
history of philosophy.  Again, this makes me suspicious that your
actual experience and knowledge of both philosophy and philosophy
of science (particularly recent contributions to these) is severely
limited or missing entirely.  Quite honestly, to me you seem to be
running mostly on fumes here.  I find it odd that the only philosophers
you have ever mentioned are all dead.  (And in addition they had
virtually nothing to say regarding the philosophy of science.)  You
haven't even mentioned any of the positivists from the early part
of this century.  Sure, if your view of philosophy and philosophy
of science is through the eyes of the medievals through the 18th
century philosophers you would think they had little to offer
in terms of philosophy of science.  But this would be like me
complaining that chemists are goofy because they believed in phlogiston
or that physicists are dimwitted because Galileo gave a preposterous
explanation of why you can't use a suction pump to pump water higher
than 34 ft.

Why not give us an idea of the scope of your knowledge and study
in these areas?  At least this would enable the participants to
communicate a little more efficiently with you.  I bet I've taken
more courses in (and done more reading of) science than you have
of philosophy.  Geez, my wife (who used to be a philosopher of
science [biology]) has a degree in biology and was second author
of a paper in _Nature_ as an undergraduate.  You seem to think that
philosophers of science don't know any science and have never been
in a lab.  Not so.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm