3 ms·

No one, even the most ardent of postmodernists, is going to disagree that science is a very successful human enterprise and produces progress that philosophy ca

No one, even the most ardent of postmodernists, is going to disagree that science is a very successful human enterprise and produces progress that philosophy cannot. But that doesn't mean science approaches an account of reality on its own terms. To suggest otherwise is to postulate additional metaphysical baggage that even I, the lowly philosopher, find intolerable.

lisper 3y ago
> that doesn't mean science approaches an account of reality on its own terms. That's true. But just because this is not a valid justification of the assertion that science does not approach an account of reality on its own terms, it does not follow that science does not in fact approach an account of reality on its own terms. > To suggest otherwise is to postulate additional metaphysical baggage that even I, the lowly philosopher, find intolerable. Really? Why? What aspect of reality do you believe is inherently beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  The new riddle of induction, perhaps? You can dodge that by choosing suitable priors, or using heuristics like Occam's Razor, but then what justifies those?
  - lisper 3y ago
    The best answer to that question that I know of can be found in chapter 7 of David Deutsch's book, "The Fabric of Reality." But he's just channeling Karl Popper if you want to go straight to the source. The TL;DR is that science does not rely on induction at all.
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      That's a cop-out. Sure, the methodical process of science doesn't, strictly-speaking, require induction, but we still have to decide whether to expect the result of scientific inquiry to be useful.
      - lisper 3y ago
        > That's a cop-out. A reference to the published literature is a cop-out??? Sorry, no. > Sure, the methodical process of science doesn't, strictly-speaking, require induction, but we still have to decide whether to expect the result of scientific inquiry to be useful. What??? No! We just have to observe empirically that the results of scientific inquiry are useful.
        wizzwizz4 3y ago
        Karl Popper's position on this issue is a cop-out. See the last paragraph of the relevant SEP entry: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/ > Popper’s account appears to be incomplete in an important way. There are always many hypotheses which have not yet been refuted by the evidence, and these may contradict one another. According to the strictly deductive framework, since none are yet falsified, they are all on an equal footing. Yet, scientists will typically want to say that one is better supported by the evidence than the others. We seem to need more than just deductive reasoning to support practical decision-making (Salmon 1981). Popper did indeed appeal to a notion of one hypothesis being better or worse “corroborated” by the evidence. But arguably, this took him away from a strictly deductive view of science. It appears doubtful then that pure deductivism can give an adequate account of scientific method.
        lisper 3y ago
        > Karl Popper's position on this issue is a cop-out. where "this issue" is: > The new riddle of induction, perhaps? The reference I gave you was not directly to Popper, but rather to chapter 7 of David Deutsch's book, "The Fabric of Reality", which you quite obviously did not read because it directly answers the problem described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction

lisper 3y ago

> that doesn't mean science approaches an account of reality on its own terms. That's true. But just because this is not a valid justification of the assertion that science does not approach an account of reality on its own terms, it does not follow that science does not in fact approach an account of reality on its own terms. > To suggest otherwise is to postulate additional metaphysical baggage that even I, the lowly philosopher, find intolerable. Really? Why? What aspect of reality do you believe is inherently beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?

wizzwizz4 3y ago
The new riddle of induction, perhaps? You can dodge that by choosing suitable priors, or using heuristics like Occam's Razor, but then what justifies those?
- lisper 3y ago
  The best answer to that question that I know of can be found in chapter 7 of David Deutsch's book, "The Fabric of Reality." But he's just channeling Karl Popper if you want to go straight to the source. The TL;DR is that science does not rely on induction at all.
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    That's a cop-out. Sure, the methodical process of science doesn't, strictly-speaking, require induction, but we still have to decide whether to expect the result of scientific inquiry to be useful.
    - lisper 3y ago
      > That's a cop-out. A reference to the published literature is a cop-out??? Sorry, no. > Sure, the methodical process of science doesn't, strictly-speaking, require induction, but we still have to decide whether to expect the result of scientific inquiry to be useful. What??? No! We just have to observe empirically that the results of scientific inquiry are useful.
      - wizzwizz4 3y ago
        Karl Popper's position on this issue is a cop-out. See the last paragraph of the relevant SEP entry: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/ > Popper’s account appears to be incomplete in an important way. There are always many hypotheses which have not yet been refuted by the evidence, and these may contradict one another. According to the strictly deductive framework, since none are yet falsified, they are all on an equal footing. Yet, scientists will typically want to say that one is better supported by the evidence than the others. We seem to need more than just deductive reasoning to support practical decision-making (Salmon 1981). Popper did indeed appeal to a notion of one hypothesis being better or worse “corroborated” by the evidence. But arguably, this took him away from a strictly deductive view of science. It appears doubtful then that pure deductivism can give an adequate account of scientific method.
        lisper 3y ago
        > Karl Popper's position on this issue is a cop-out. where "this issue" is: > The new riddle of induction, perhaps? The reference I gave you was not directly to Popper, but rather to chapter 7 of David Deutsch's book, "The Fabric of Reality", which you quite obviously did not read because it directly answers the problem described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction