Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!reed!mojo From: mojo@reed.UUCP (Eddie [Ex-Delivery Boy]) Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: Definition of science and of scientific method. Message-ID: <6617@reed.UUCP> Date: Wed, 15-Jul-87 14:48:00 EDT Article-I.D.: reed.6617 Posted: Wed Jul 15 14:48:00 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 04:07:32 EDT References: <6693@allegra.UUCP> <1664@tekcrl.TEK.COM> Reply-To: mojo@reed.UUCP (Eddie [Ex-Delivery Boy]) Organization: Are you kidding? Lines: 29 In article <813@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes: >5) Science starts (or: sciences start) from the results of the philosophers' >work (unhappily the philosophers aren't ready yet, so those results are >not as sure as they should be, and certainly not as sure as they are often >thought to be by non-philosophical scientists) exploring the world. I don't think _philosophers_ are a prerequisite for science. While the scientific method itself presupposes a sort of pragmatic rationalist empiricism (hey, I can generate buzzwords! :-), I think this is in many ways the default state for the human mind. Certainly people were trusting their senses, and to a lesser extent their reason, before the concept of philosophy was so much as a gleam in the eyes of Whatever Gods There Be. And I would hazard a guess that the question "Why do I get burned when I stick my hand in the fire to pull out the mammoth steak I dropped" predated "Do I exist". >6) The definition of "science", and of scientific method, is by its very >nature a philosophical, not a scientifical matter. Otherwise one would >get paradoxes like: Think so? I think philosophy is much more prone than science to create paradoxes like the Occam's Razor one you cited. But that could be opening a whole new can of worms. Anyway, Biep, thanks for condensing this whole thing. I was catching fragments of it but not enough to follow the issues, really. > Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax) >Unix is a philosophy, not an operating system. Especially the latter.