🚀 go-pugleaf

"Haines Brown" <brownh@teufel.hartford-hwp.com> wrote in message 
news:874p1q5ksp.fsf@teufel.hartford-hwp.com...
>
> Androcles, you comment on my question by suggesting that its terms or
> even its presumptions are problematic. However, I was trying to
> ascertain the OP's meaning for "postscientism" in relation to a
> conventional meaning(s) of scientism, and so I don't see how your
> questions, however reasonable they may be in themselves, are
> relevant. But let me address them anyway.
>
> "Androcles" <Headmaster@Hogwarts.physics> writes:
>
>> Haines, what do you mean by "the categories and axioms of natural
>> science" and "knowledge"? Indeed, what do you mean by "natural"
>> science?
>
> Your question should have been, what do I mean by "science"? Natural
> science is simply an artificial convention that distinguishes situations
> in which human intentionality is a factor from those in which it is
> not. I don't care for this distinction, but it is conventional.
>
> Every science (understood broadly) rests on certain axioms, terminology
> and certain conceptual categories. I assumed this was obvious. An axiom
> is a statement that is presumed to be true because no investigation
> starts from a tabula rasa. Terminology is simply social conventions
> necessary for communication. Conceptual categories are a product of both
> culture and the powers of the mind, and the former means they are not
> impervious to criticism, although because our communication depends on
> them, to criticise them requires special and explicit measures that make
> clear what we are up to and also that we provide justifications to
> warrant our deviation.
>
> What is "knowledge" is a more contentious issue. I was using the term in
> a conventional sense, but admit that in philosophical terms it is
> contentious, although these contentious issues seem marginal to my
> question. In any case, I would simply mean by knowledge statements about
> the world that have truth value in that they correspond in some fashion
> with the world. While one can quibble about correspondence theory, I
> take such a definition as necessary to action in the world, and
> it becomes problematic only if the aim is not action in the world, but
> merely (passively) understanding it.

Note that I did not ask you what you meant by science. Had I wanted
to know what you meant by science I would surely have asked what you
meant by science.
However, I was trying to ascertain your meaning for "natural" science in
relation to the conventional meanings of "natural" and "science", and so
I don't understand how your questions, however reasonable they may be
in themselves, are relevant.

I have a clear idea of what is meant by science: the observation, 
investigation
and explanation of natural phenomema and occurrences.  Not all will agree
with me, some hallucinate that it is the invention of black holes or bright
green flying elephants and then expect others to go searching for them.

I'll repeat my question since you clearly have not understood it. I have
carefully placed quotation marks around "knowledge" and "natural" to
emphasize my question. Please try to answer the question asked instead
of writing a speech.

My question should have been and still is:
Haines, what do you mean by "the categories and axioms of natural
science" and "knowledge"? Indeed, what do you mean by "natural"
science?


>> Our world is transformed by technology, not by papers purporting to be
>> knowledge. Any technology based on the epicycles of Ptolemy or the
>> insane scribbling of Einstein would be a pointless exercise - as
>> history has shown, for nothing has ever come from either.
>
> Yes, I suppose. But the modern world does not entail just objective
> forces, but also is constructed by human activity, and that activity is
> obviously informed by our presumed knowledge of the world. It is not
> whether a particular body of knowledge has had historical impact, but
> that in general our knowledge of the world to a degree informs our
> action in it, and increasingly the world in which we live is affected by
> that activity. Are you here suggesting that knowledge is epiphenomenal
> and that humans are passive artifacts of forces over which they have no
> control?

Actually I was stating that our world is transformed by technology and not
by papers purporting to be knowledge; a statement to which you grudgingly
acquiesced. Any inference that I had made a suggestion is unwarranted.

>
> Keep in mind the point of my comment. The author had offered a very long
> list of quotations that seemed on the whole to suggest that our categories
> and presumptions are all subject to criticism.

I would agree with him.  The name "Einstein" is constantly paraded in films,
TV quiz shows, pop science magazines, newspapers etc., as though he were
holy instead of the greatest huckster since Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and
Saul of Tarsus. It would be unfair of me to include Jesus of Nazareth since
that would be hearsay, he wrote nothing.
Hmm... I've just used an Oxford comma. Perhaps it does have its uses, John
was not from Tarsus.
What kind of "knowledge" can stem from the simplistic assertion
the speed of light from A to B is c-v,
the speed of light from B to A is c+v,
the "time" each way is the same?
I would assert that such categories and presumptions are subject to 
criticism
and condemnation, they are not science. Rather, they are intellectual games
and immoral actions leading to malfeasance in the world.


> I was only asking the OP
> to specify what the point of his quotations was, and I suggested that
> however problematic may be some of the presumptions of contemporary
> science, it hardly warrants the term "postscientism", which presumes
> there is some alternative. Until the OP offers an alternative, the term
> does not seem to mean anything.


Very well. I was only asking you what you meant by "natural" science and
"knowledge" as the terms do not seem to mean anything.


> For example, the term postmodern does not mean that the modern world has
> broken down, but that there's something we can define as being "modern",
> and the definition of postmodernism differs with that definition in some
> fundamental way. While postmodernists might insist that definition is
> part of the problem (and hence some refuse to call themselves
> postmodern), that can hardly be meaningful for those whose aim is
> morally responsible action in the world rather than intellectual games.
>
Are you suggesting Valev is immoral and/or engaging in intellectual games?