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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Do philosophers need defending?
Message-ID: <2287@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Aug-87 19:26:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.2287
Posted: Mon Aug  3 19:26:14 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Aug-87 01:27:52 EDT
References: <3219@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Distribution: world
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT.
Lines: 18
Keywords: science philosophy empiricism methodology definition

In article <835@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes:
|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 this comment is based on a biased view of what mathematicians do.
Few mathematicians *ever* qualify their work in this fashion.  For the most
part, mathematics has a very clear methodology which is followed strictly
and without apologies.  Only in the realm of set theory are such caveats at
all common, and even there there seems to be an emerging consensus.
-- 

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108