🚀 go-pugleaf

"Steve Harris sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
message news:79cf0a8.0311142044.4dc06cdc@posting.google.com...
[...]
> Again, the "realm" of epistemology is like the "realm" of comparative
> English literature. The stuff from comparative lit that working
> writers need, they generally already have, or else can more easily
> learn from other places. And the stuff from it that writers don't
> need, they don't need. The same goes for working scientists and
> philosophers.
>
> I've seen real working scientists take bunches of data through office
> doors that say "Department of Statistics." But I've never seen a
> Department of Epistemology consult. The very idea is worthy of a
> cartoon. Philosophers study the works of scientists to learn about
> epistemology, not the other way around.

Much has been written by (now mostly extinct) logical positivists and others
about the ways and means of science, including the nature of theories in
physics, the objective reality or lack of it of theoretical constructs that
can't be observed directly such as subatomic particles, and so on. It's all
very interesting, and to my mind shows that there is still some connection
between science and philosophy even if, as you say, it's a matter of
philosophers studying what scientists do rather than vice versa.
Philosophers of science can sometimes elucidate what scientists do in a way
that might never occur to someone who is deeply engaged in science itself.
They try to see the big picture in its historic context, so naturally what
they do is descriptive and analytical rather than prescriptive, as you say,
but still very worthwhile IMHO.

Robert.