Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pacbell!well!fico2!everexn!karen
From: karen@everexn.uucp (Karen Valentino)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: SCI.PHILOSOPHY.OBJECTIVISM
Message-ID: <1990Feb2.192924.7843@everexn.uucp>
Date: 2 Feb 90 19:29:24 GMT
References: <3284@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <3285@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <9442@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <2018@cjsa.WA.COM> <5056@convex.convex.com>
Organization: Everex Systems, Inc.
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cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:

>When Webster's talks about philosophy as a "science", "science" is surely
>used in the very loosest sense.  

I would say that "science" is used in its *broadest* sense; this word
seems less loaded to me.  Philosophy is not natural science.  But it
is science. 

>Science is empirical; to be scientific, a
>question must--at least in theory--be capable of resolution by experiment.

I disagree with this statement.  Empiricism is knowledge gained through
observation and experience.  It is a way of gaining information that may,
or may not, be confirmed by experimentation.  There's no requirement that
it *must.*    

This quibbling over definitions stuff is fun.

Honestly, though, and I've repeated it often enough elsewhere, the
argument here is not whether philosophy is a science; the argument
is over what sciences should go in sci.  

>philosophical one.  Philosophy is therefore not "scientific".

"scientific : of, relating to, or exhibiting, the methods or principles
of science."

I don't think of philosophy as being "scientific," either, although
I definitely assert that it is a science.  But I'm wondering if what's 
needed is for me to expand my view of what is "scientific," rather than 
insisting that others narrow theirs.

Karen



-- 
   Karen Valentino  <>  Everex North (Everex Systems)  <>  Sebastopol, CA
      karen@everexn.uu.net      ..{apple, well}!fico2!everexn!karen

	  "The best way out is always through."  Robert Frost