Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!mcvax!botter!klipper!biep From: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: Do philosophers need defending? Message-ID: <835@klipper.cs.vu.nl> Date: Fri, 31-Jul-87 04:20:41 EDT Article-I.D.: klipper.835 Posted: Fri Jul 31 04:20:41 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 1-Aug-87 16:09:47 EDT References: <3219@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl> <3227@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> <71@thirdi.UUCP> Reply-To: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) Distribution: world Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam Lines: 95 Keywords: science philosophy empiricism methodology definition [Note to Bob Myers: I'll post a separate article "What's a methodology". I think breaking up this discussion in somewhat independent parts will do it good.] [Before I have to start a series "do psychologists need defending?": I am not stating there may be no scientific forms of psychology, but I take over this example, as Sarge himself wrote he doubted about the scientificity of psych.. I only wrote (in my former article) that *in the past* psych. wasn't a science. I don't know much of contemporary psychology. In fact, the actual example doesn't matter. Sorry if it offends someone!] In article <71@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes: >In article <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> I wrote: >>I would put psychology and physics under philosophy as long as there is not >>a relatively large body of methodology (and perhaps theory?). I meant this temporally: until they (if ever, especially psychology) had found or will find a r.l.b.o.m.(a.p.t.) they were/will be not considered sciences. I certainly wouldn't deny physics the status of a science now. [Nothing so good for modesty as seeing how one is unable to convey ideas to others. I'll never say "reasonable" again if people ask me "How's your English"!] >I probably missed the first part of the discussion, but it seems that you are >saying that the realm of methodology belongs to philosophy and that of >*applying* methodology to science. Yes, but that's no exhaustive definition, of course, and (see below) your notion of empiricity sounds appealing to me, too. >Since you list physics and psychology >under philsophies, you must feel that these are primarily concerned with >methodology, whilst other disciplines (those you would allow as sciences, like >chemistry and biology) are not primarily concerned with methodology. >[Some text resulting from not taking Bieps statement above temporally] No: when they were still busy finding their methodologies, they were mainly philosophic. Now that most of the work is mainly carrying them out, they are mainly scientific. Of course it's a gradual difference, and at the moment physics is doing some more philosophy in trying to get along with QM. >[List of methodologies used in various philosophies] >[Both philosophers and scientists both generate and use methodology] >Therefore methodology does not appear to be either a necessary or sufficient >criterion for distinguishing between science and philosophy. Finally, it *is* of course just a question of definition, but it's always nice to have the definition fit the reality instead of otherwise. I am glad you offer a constructive criticism, with your counter-definition. There is some- thing to that empiricality, and perhaps it should be in the definition somewhere. But, as I try to show below, it's not a sufficient criterion, however it may be necessary. But yes, I indeed do think people do keep switching hats if they change from setting to using methodolog[y/ies] or vice versa, at least if "use" means "use, taken as true/correct/right", as e.g. physicists normally do with logic. (i.e. without feeling any need to defend their use, or to add "supposed logic is right") If a mathematician would do so (which they sometimes do), I wouldn't call him a philosopher any more, but I would grant you he wouldn't be a scientist either. I think both notions will appear in "the final definition". >Disciplines are best defined in terms of their overriding goals or purposes, I >believe. I like my criterion for differentiating philosophy and science: >Philosophy has the purpose of arriving at non-empirical truths; science has >the purpose of arriving at empirical truths. >I await with interest a serious challenge to this notion. Does "Natural Philosophy" constitute one? (If it means what the Dutch aequivalent means, it's as much as "pre-scientific physics+biology", including bits of chemistry, geology, mineralogy, etc.) Sounds rather empirical. I think you wouldn't call every attempt to find an empirical truth "scientific", otherwise, why doubt about psychology? Isn't it the sloppyness of their method (if any) that makes you doubt? Also: "the sciences" try to explain the world using "logic yields truth" as part of their methodology. Christian science (I learn from the net) does the same, using "the Bible yields truth" as part of their methodology. I don't know of any other differences (but then again: I only heard about them on the net). So both are equally (un)scientific to you? If I try to arrive at the empirical truth of you being dead, I am a scientist? :-) On the other hand (I don't know what to think of this myself): is statistics a science, with their "empirical hard/weak law of large numbers"? If I type "rn" to see whether there is news, am I carrying out science? I *am* trying to arrive at an empirical truth. -- Biep. (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax) Is the difference between a difference of degree and a differ- ence of sorts a difference of degree or a difference of sorts?