Yes, I slipped up. And really any poking or prodding is welcome by me because I'm still thinking through these various questions that are attached. I asked ahead of time because I didn't want @Tarskian to feel picked on, but I thought they expressed a clear sentiment that I've seen across the 'nets and elsewise worth thinking about.


The apes that get to office should be like the apes at home, insofar that's possible (and insofar that we're able to protect the wolves voting what to do with the sheep in some legal jujitsu)


My thought is that as soon as you're "the representative" then, in the material sense of being-able, you're no longer the same as whom you represent. (one of the mechanisms of syndicalism is that representatives cannot re-present, so a new person has to go up to say what the people they represent think every time, whatever that "time" happens to be designated as)

But your subtext is correct, of course. It is very hard to find democratic politicians who will vote for an unpopular policy. — Ludwig V

I appreciate your grace, but I don't know what my subtext is (other than the usual drivel I say ;) ).

I'm thinking through these questions still, and posting in the hopes of hearing others' thoughts. In the old-skool forum way :D

In a capitalist society, wealth becomes concentrated, then redistributed by economic crisis. It's happened over and over, no matter who was in charge. The secret to the endurance of capitalism is that it's incredibly creative. In a sense, it created all of us.

The only part democracy plays is that it provides the freedom capitalism needs. — frank

I think democracy is more of a levy to capitalism than an accelerator: democracy, thus far, has happened to help capitalism, but that's because democracies are overwhelmingly not democratic even in the representative sense. The people there come from money and so vote for things that help thems, like all humans do. (this is a big problem for representative democracy: since humans vote for themselves, by human nature, you can't build representative systems since the apes that get the office are no better than the apes at home, and will vote for themselves) 

But if you build in more steps for scrutiny then this gets tampered as the individual decision becomes collective.

As a digital nomad slash nomad capitalist, I do not care if the ruling oligarchy increases taxes in a particular jurisdiction, for example, because it never affects me.

Most political decisions are irrelevant to me because I can just choose another jurisdiction where they made another political decision.

Freedom from harassment by the oligarchy is possible. It takes effort to achieve it, but in my opinion, it is definitely worth it. — Tarskian

I think this is an individualistic response: if you can make it happen for you then do it.

Sure! If you're content then go be content all by yourself.

I'm thinking about everyone here while also thinking of myself.

You don’t want to waste time trying to erase hierarchical order. — apokrisis

Oh? I like to waste my time in exactly that pursuit.

Yeah, I agree that those parts don't mean much.

Though I include them because they seem to include the latter parts a bit. There's nothing "geometric" beyond asserting that hierarchy is inevitable. That's part of why I wanted to put this up here for discussion: I've often seen these sorts of claims with respect to hierarchy without really saying much more than "There will always be winners and losers, so stop talking about making it better"

I believe @Tarskian says many things from the heart I disagree with. I asked ahead of time if they'd mind me starting a thread with the quote, and mostly just want to riff on this idea of hierarchies being inevitable, and whether democracy manages to address hierarchy at all, or is just a re-invention of the same.

Also, I can't deny, I enjoy going through drivel :D

Typing this out from The Logic of Scientific Discovery

5. EXPERIENCE AS METHOD

The task of formulating an acceptable definition of the idea of an 'empirical science' is not without its difficulties. Some of these arise from the fact that there must be many theoretical systems with a logical structure very similar to the one which at any particular time is the accepted system of empirical science. This situation is sometimes described by saying that there is a great number-- presumably an infinite number -- of 'logically possible worlds'. Yet the system called 'empirical science' is intended to represent only one world: the 'real world' or the 'world of our experience'

I'm just flipping through to try and give some footholds in Popper, and liked the title of this section because it seems to get along with what I think.

There is more, which I'd have to revisit to get more clear, about observation vs. theoretical statements, or basic statements, which I think all goes down the dumpster when you look at the the publications of scientists. (Maybe one of the reasons I don't remember it ;) :P)

There's also the fact that Marx and Engels were using the term Wissenschaft, which is broader than science as commonly understood in English today. They meant that their socialism was systematic, not merely Utopian. They certainly didn't mean to equate it with empirical sciences.

Although you're probably right, Moliere, that they were attempting to reach beyond that older sense of science to something modern. — Jamal

In the Penguin edition of Capital, v1 introduction (page 12 for the viewers at home):

I. THE PURPOSE OF CAPITAL
In Capital Marx's fundamental aim was to lay bare the laws of motion which govern the origins, the rise, the development, the decline and the disappearance of a given social form of economic
organization: the capitalist mode of production.

He was not seeking universal economic laws of organization. Indeed, one of the essential theses of Capital is that no such law exists.

For Marx, there are no economic laws valid for each and every basically different form of society (aside from trivialities like the formula which points out that no society can consume more than it produces without reducing its stock of wealth - whether the natural fertility of the land, the total population, the mass of means of production, or several of these). Each specific social form of economic organization has its own specific economic laws. Capital limits itself to examining those which govern the capitalist mode of production.

Capital is therefore not' pure' economic theory at all. For Marx, ' pure' economic theory, that is economic theory which abstracts from a specific social structure, is impossible. It would be similar
to ' pure' anatomy, abstracted from the specific species which is to be examined.

Going back to something to remind myself here -- I've seen Capital, v1 described as Newton's laws of motion for capitalism before, and the quote here gives a limitation to that expression in that Newton was aiming to be universal, but Marx's description is limited to Capitalism.

But still law-like, in that new scientific sense, like Newton. (I generally consider the currently accepted sciences as the new scientific sense: The scholastics had an organized body of knowledge, but Descartes wanted to talk about The World, which Newton's text is similar in that regard of trying to "explain it all")

I hate cars.

They cost too much money. They break a lot, which costs more money. And they waste fuel which is a resource we ought use more carefully.

I also hate that I pretty much have to have one because it feels like another form of rent: just an endless money pit that depreciates and yet you have to maintain it in order to get to work.

I'm conflicted because I could be considered a post-modern leftist but I like all the old dead white men :D (also, while I read the PoMo's, I think I do so from the old perspective of simply reading the texts critically)

Marx definitely claimed science for his socialism, but I don't think it's a "worse" thing because he was in that era when it looked like science could solve it all: He's 1 generation after August Comte, and Hegel's philosophy emphasizes itself as scientific -- it's just in what we'd call the "old" way of saying "scientific" because it's an organized body of knowledge, whereas Marx seems to straddle these two ways of thinking of science. Sometimes it's an organized body of knowledge, and sometimes it predicts the stages of history ala August Comte's Positivism.

I very much disagree with the "stages" view as mistaken historiography/sociology -- though think there's something about the industrial revolution and the rise of the shop-owners over the Lords and church that is hard to understand, where Marx gives a good explanation for it: they acquired means of producing wealth greater than the lords and formed coalitions to increase their influence, as humans do when they can, and things proceeded from there.

But I think Capital describes capitalism from the perspective of the worker in the most scientific manner thus far at least. Economics after Marx shy away from production-centric theories of value, while explicitly ignoring all the things Marx says about exchange in order to focus in on what those economists care about: Markets, firms, profits, etc.

The vision of Marx was about how to arrive at what he thought was a just society growing up in a time where capitalism caused a lot of problems locally. It fails as a economic theory because all economic theories fail but the crux of his work is how to ensure the benefits of economic activity doesn't concentrate in the hands of the few, who have no moral claim to it merely as provider of capital (which they often only accumulate through injustice, inheritance or dumb luck). — Benkei

The best system to avoid concentration of power is democracy. So we should abolish autocratic systems of governance in every area of human life, including the economy. — Benkei

Yeah -- at present I think that's so. The economy ought have more democratic means of making decisions to include all stakeholders in a negotiation.

Sure, make it ...

Can't science more or less take a role of "justified" in knowledge as justified true belief?
— Aug 13, 2024 — jorndoe

Ah OK; I think we need to say more about science to make it it's own thing different from philosophy, but I think I'd be fine with saying that science is largely concerned with justification.

falsifiable (in principle always tentative/provisional). — jorndoe

I think of falsifiability much in the frame of Popper, which requires much more than merely being always tentative/provisional.

For instance -- I don't think that the first law of thermodynamics is strictly falsifiable, unless you encounter magic (literally getting energy for free). It's more of an accounting mechanism to force the ape to figure out why the numbers don't match.

But surely it's still provisional for all that -- if we find a better way we will abandon this way of accounting for energy transfers. But if we already knew that better way we'd already be there -- it's more that we could always encounter more, or reinterpret differently in productive ways (whatever our future species might like)

The models adapt to accumulating evidence/observations if you will. Might be worth noting that the methodologies became more evidence/observation-driven/dependent, say, in the 1600s. Model-falsifiability is a must these days. — jorndoe

I'm not comfortable with this use of "model", exactly -- there are times when "model" works, like when I build a model of a molecule out of balls and sticks to show its accepted structure in 3D space for students to learn. Or if I have a plan and I build a small version of the plan. Or if I have a proof of concept that it will work. Or medically I can have a model organism -- like a mouse or yeast -- to demonstrate the efficacy of some biochemically similar organism's reaction to a cure for cancer to test some halfway house to see if it will interrupt similar pathways and lead to death before putting it in humans, rather than a guess based on the description of the chemical network.

I'm not sure that Newton's Laws are a model. I think models are supposed to reflect something else -- they are models-of. What are Newton's Laws a model of? (All mechanics or nature is the original implication, but surely at this point we can see that we have enough exceptions that it's not UNIVERSAL universal, but pretty good)

Well, science can redo conventional wisdom, make something counter-intuitive acceptable, and help put rovers and stuff on Mars. :) — jorndoe

Yeh.

With something like sociology or psychology (about ourselves), things become more complicated, and we may have to contend with less accurate/stable theories. — jorndoe

Is that the only difference, in your estimation, between the so-called "hard" and "soft" sciences?

It is hard to see how Marx loved knowledge. — Lionino

He claimed his work was scientific.

I see Capital as an attempt at a scientific description of wealth generation for the purposes of the workers to be able to organize and effect change for the better from this description: if a worker believes that wealth is generated by individual hard work and that the firm will reward them for their individual hard work then they'll engage in the firm in an individualistic manner. If a worker understands that the firm is there to exploit labor-power, no matter where you land in the firm, then the worker will engage in the firm in a collective manner.

Some individuals really are so good that they can "shoot past" the rest, though I think it's a bit selfish. But for the rest of us his description points out a knowledge he loved, but a knowledge from the standpoint of the bronze souled people.

Doesn't science more or less take the role of "justified" in knowledge as justified true belief? — jorndoe

I don't think so because justified true belief can be much wider than science. Why do I believe it rained? The ground is wet -- it's not exactly a scientific justification, at least in the sense of doing good science (though perhaps in the sense of making empirical inferences -- which I think is too broad; the example I like, which I stole from Massimo Pigliucci, is plumbing -- it's a technical empirical body of knowledge which predicts and models the world which is subject to revision, but it's not science)

Also I'd say that some science is true, so there's more to science than "justified"

That may seem overly depreciative/critical, yet science remains the single most successful epistemic endeavor in all of human history bar none, and doesn't carry any promise of omniscience — the forums depend on science. — jorndoe

Heh, I welcome being critical -- I'm not sure it's the single most successful epistemic endeavor, either. I'm not sure how one measures something like that. What are the units for epistemic success?

I'm thinking that scientific methodologies are a means for models to converge on evidence/observations.
The models are revisable/adjustable and falsifiable (in principle always tentative/provisional).
So, in a way, sufficiently stabilized/usable models become parts of scientific theories, where "sufficiently" means within some domain of applicability or category of evidence/observations. — jorndoe

Can you give an example of a scientific methodology? it'd help me parse this better.

More random thoughts on Marx-as-philosopher:

His blend of the classical economists was a very philosophical endeavor in that he was digging into their ideas and developing them at the philosophical level when economists had long moved on, at least by my understanding from a book i read, from the likes of the Ricardian Socialists, and even Adam Smith!

But those "classical" economic concepts are the ideas he's developing. He does it alongside documentation, which is why I think he calls his project "scientific" -- there's some empirical substantiation to the trends he's describing when he looks at the laws and arguments of the time.

What I think makes his project particularly acute now is neoliberalism basically resurrecting classical economics, so the development of those ideas fits since the attack on the Keynesian "fix". The class of owners had children who thought to themselves "we can extract more surplus value", and didn't care how they got there. Much as Marx describes the bourgeoisie as ruthless extractors.

One of the things here is scope: the "workers" need not be in our nation, or those we traditionally consider workers. The proletariat is defined as that group of workers who 1) voluntarily trade their labor in a system of exchange, 2) are paid just enough to survive and reproduce the next generation of workers for the capitalist system.

At least as I'd reduce it. Marx's works -- and Marxism overall, which is even richer than Marx -- I like to joke it's the Materialist's Talmudic scripts which can be argued forever.

But I don't think that's bad. I think it's a feature of a thinker constantly developing while attempting to understand a problem from classical economics: Where does wealth come from? Why does capital generate wealth? -- which is combined with a humanistic desire to liberate humanity from their shackles : "Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains."

And even more I'd say that Marx's conception of philosophy is revolutionary. This is the part that connects him to, at least as I understand him, the likes of Plato: the health of the city is the primary concern. And so he goes on to describe the city....

It is appropriate. A journalist, political thinker, (terrible) economist surely, but philosopher? Hardly. Even calling him a historian is strange, at least for what is understood today with 'historian'. An ideologue and sociologist first and foremost. — Lionino

He reinterpreted Feuerbach and Hegel into an original eschatology and ontology based around materialism, along with a few ideas of his own (and for history, there exist Marxist historians -- I'm not sure I'd say he's a historian, but a theorist of history, which gets suspiciously close to philosophy) -- the synthesis isn't always pretty, but I think it's appropriate to call Marx a philosopher first and foremost, at least in the vein of Nietzsche's notion of a philosopher as tablet-breaker: even philosophy changes meaning in Marx, in my estimation -- or, at least, the good kind, which does more than reinterpret the world. (though that could be read as a break from philosophy, I generally see it as a change in the notion of what constitutes good philosophy)

Perhaps the real question is sciences like Physics, Chemistry or even Philosophy in general. — ssu

I believe these will adapt in a similar fashion. That is, I don't see them as "complete" at all.

One of the reasons I hesitate to pair science with metaphysics is metaphysics seeks a more complete story than the sciences tell. If scientific knowledge is the only basis for metaphysical belief then the only metaphysical belief we could reasonably hold is "I suppose we'll have to wait and see"

Further, while I believe the sciences are true, and even describe real phenomena, I believe they are always in some sense anthropocentric too: these are the parts of reality we're interested in articulating (or, perhaps at the time, able).

It's not like Isaac Newton's calculus applied to physics was purely a matter of looking at nature -- it also helped build better cannons (and so on): Being able to predict the motion of bodies is interesting to us because it can help with so many other things we want to accomplish.

But great that you are optimistic! :) — ssu

Oh, I dare not say that. If we do it bad enough I think these changes will come about painfully, given that the fear of death is still a popular motivator.

And the severity could still be cruel for all that, even though new ideas will come about.

The metaphysical path I see is one which would be just as confusing as a methodological path, given that "nature" -- in description -- has changed with scientific knowledge and vice-versa; since there are different descriptions of nature. From what do we separate nature so that we know that the scientist is studying nature, and not some other metaphysical kind?

Also, there's a fear I see that I'd just get lost in the metaphysical question when the point is to demystify what we're doing and how we're doing it -- but metaphysics has a tendency to get mystical, so it might even go cross-purposes to what I'm thinking through.

One of the things that'd have to be worked out is how it is that scientists of different metaphysical beliefs can work together? My thought on this is that since there are theists, atheists, naturalists, and anti-realists -- and shades in-between (what is the status of consciousness?) -- that all can work together and agree upon the science that there is a difference between metaphysical belief and science. That is, there is no need to have a secure foundation in metaphysics to do good science when we look at people who do science.

In a lot of ways my criteria is mostly a meta-criteria for examples. What is science? Start with observations of scientists -- it turns it from a metaphysical question to a historical one. (or, in the case of Popper, from a normative question addressing the problem of induction, to a historical one)

I think there's no reason to have this in the lounge... this is an open Philosophy Forum and hence the threads in the first page aren't so different from this in the end. — ssu

I've been thinking through these aesthetics and ultimately what I've been doing with my threads is if there's just a kinda sorta thing going on that I'm thinking about but I don't really have a thesis I'll put it here as a sketch which isn't quite a post, even if there's some interesting stuff going along (else, why post it at all?)

But if I have some text or thesis or question that I want to explore to either aporia, uncertainty, or maybe an answer then I post it in a main forum.

An interesting question is if science will change, or will it be rather similar to what we have now even in the distant future, let's say 200 years from now in 2224. Now we can see very well where science was in 1824, just on this verge of a huge sprint that was taken in the late 19th Century and in the 20th Century. Yet in 1824, what typically was taught in the universities of the time and what was publicly known might be different than we think now. But how close science in 2224 to science in 2024? The more similar it is, I think it's more depressing as one would hope that astonishing new ideas would come around.

But will they? — ssu

They will. People are creative sorts, when enabled.

And as the economy changes the human practices that are a part of it will too. And the economy is never stable, so science will continue to change.

Sure, and that's not what I was saying. A scientist need not be interested in the whole of the natural world to be interested in the natural world. — Leontiskos

Are appeals to "natural world" any less ambiguous than appeals to "scientific method"?

There's a sidetrail to metaphysics I see, but then it could just be this substitutes one mystery for another: "What is the natural world?" for "What is the criterion which differentiates scientific knowledge?" being a metaphysical and an epistemic question, respectively.

I'm not really sure where to start with these sorts of claims. Do words pick out anything at all? — Leontiskos

Names pick things out -- that's what we're doing with them! (it could be argued this is analytic, even.... so whether they really pick things out, well, who knows? How do you tell?)

It would seem that we are back to Aristotle's defense of the PNC in Metaphysics IV. — Leontiskos

I don't think so. I'd rather say that's a different topic entirely. I don't see any violations of that rule going on, at least.

Also:

One of the things I've noticed is how scientists range the gamut in metaphysical beliefs. Yet I trust them to do good science. So I conclude that metaphysical beliefs will not influence whether a person does good science or no -- and that's what I'm most interested in.

(EDIT: Well... "most"? No, just a point I like to bring up: I've learned from people of many faiths, and hence, many metaphysics. One of the things that I like about science is its ability to unite people from many backgrounds into international efforts.

Scientifically speaking it seems all metaphysics are valuable, rather than just one)

Sure, but none of these pick out science in particular. For example, this describes an honest law firm as much as it describes anything else. — Leontiskos

No definition picks out anything in particular: gavagai could refer to the foot, the meat, the ear, or the weather in which one catches a rabbit. And the use of "gavagai" in a particular circumstance could refer to a philosopher's idea about translation and reference.

Definitions don't pick things out at all, nor do they presuppose total ignorance: sometimes I just want to know what is usually meant by a word, which is where dictionaries excel.

I'm thinking this notion of definition, the place of the categories, whether reference is accomplished through knowledge of predicates of the thing or activity, is a disagreement.

I want to say that a scientist is ultimately interested in understanding the natural world, and he does things that achieve that end — Leontiskos

I'm hesitant to say "the natural world", and I don't think there's a real end to science in the general sense -- across all time and space, ala Aristotle compared to Curie -- but I agree with the basic thrust of this statement, especially if I were talking to someone who knew nothing. I am thinking a little more above that in my brainstorm, for sure. I'm thinking about method and teaching method.

I don't think a scientist needs to want to understand the natural world as a whole, as Aristotle does. If someone wants to study cancer because someone they care about has cancer and that's all they focus upon while doing good science then they are a scientist. They care about the truth of cancer, but all the trappings of a "natural world" or wholeness are not there. They want to cure a disease through science and do science in order to get there.

Or no, in your estimation?

We know that it has implicit criteria for inclusion given the fact that you qualify it every time it produces a false conclusion, such as in the case of Fauci or in the case of scientists who are not properly "acting as scientists." — Leontiskos

Fauci is too political example for this thread.

But what is related: I don't agree with the notion that we should "trust" scientists -- the whole idea here being that others' can evaluate things for themselves so they don't have to take their word for it but see it themselves. This isn't to say anything about Fauci's acts, which I've barely paid attention to and don't really feel like digging into because to defend him as an upstanding scientist would go against this whole idea that I'm thinking through.

I don't care if some individual scientist fucked up, or if there's some reason why the public doesn't trust scientists (they shouldn't have trusted anything they read in a newspaper, if you ask me): I care about teaching others how to evaluate science and, if they so wish, do good science.

Basically I'm not interested in defending the "mantle" of science because I don't really believe in "experts" in the social sense anyways. There are people who are better able to do this or that, of course, but "experts" presupposes a lot more than ability -- it's a whole ass meritocracy complete with packages to judge people with.

Which, you may have picked up, is not my thing so much ;)

Aristotelian definition in the broad sense is not something you can do without. — Leontiskos

:D

But that's what I'm trying to do!

I'm being explicit about it at least.

Neat!

I always figured it was because he went around being a gadfly(i.e. asshole) and so they got rid of him.

:/ -- ye olde "pay 40 pounds for an article" lol. If there's a bit in there that you think should be said please share it: I'm still reading along, just have nothing to say.

However there's still a lot of academic and scientific studies that people, who have done them, would enjoy if their ideas would be picked up by others. — ssu

It's true -- and perhaps another way to address these issues would be a reclassification of some kind rather than the radical solution I proposed. I do think that intellectual property is a bit funny in the law now, and mostly think that such things ought to be run by the state more than private industry because, generally, they benefit everyone, like roads benefit everyone.

Still, I think that there is a problem when there simply are so many scientists and academic researchers, group behavior kicks in and an incentive emerges to create your own "niche" by niche construction: a group creates it's own vocabulary and own scientific jargon, which isn't open to someone that hasn't studied the area. Then these people refer to each others studies and create their own field. Another name for this could be simply specialization: you create your own area of expertize by specialization on a narrower field. When there are a masses of people doing research, this is the easy way to get to those "new" findings. Hence even people in the natural sciences can have difficulties in understanding each other, let alone then the people who are studying the human sciences. Perhaps it's simply about numbers: 30 scientists can discuss and read each others research and have a great change of ideas, but 3 000 or 30 000 cannot. Some kind of pecking order has to be created. The end result is that you do get a science that is "Kuhnian" just by the simple fact that so many people are in science. — ssu

It's not open to others' only because they cannot study it, due to accessibility issues.

I mean, knowledge is created, not just sitting around to be catalogued, so it will take people inventing new vocabularies as we learn more. What I think we see is that there is just that much to know that no one person can know it all. Even in switching between labs I've had to learn whole new parts of science I've never encountered before (which is part of why it's interesting)

The difficulty is more one of familiarity than anything else: scientists I've known are always pretty specific about what it is they know know -- as in their area of research -- and elsewise.

You have to be because eventually it dawns on you that there's so much knowledge out there that you can't know it all. No one could live long enough to know it all.

I'm not sure that means there's a pecking order that must be established? I think science sprawls much more widely than that -- tho normal social hierarchies that are alive in all parts of our life are still operational in the sciences, too.

I remember another historian who went to great lengths to write one of her historical books to be as easily readable for the layman as she could do only then to be scolded by her peers for the book not being "academic" enough. For some to be as understandable as possible isn't the objective, the objective is to limit those who don't know the proper terms out of the discussion, even if they could participate in the discussion. Naturally people will simply argue that just like with abbreviations, we make it easier for people to read it when we use the academic jargon. But there can really be other intensions also. — ssu

My preference is for a wider audience, generally, and I dislike the attitude people take towards works which are actually quite technical and well researched, only broken down to a point that they read very easily. That's actually harder to do than rely upon the jargon! :D

But the jargon is fine, too, because sometimes I'd agree with your philosophy professor who irked you -- you need to use the word in order to set the right sense, because philosophy -- in part -- creates its own language, and it is generated from a natural language, and those natural-language associations can have important philosophical implications.

(Yes, it's the length of the equation, even if mathematical beauty would say otherwise) — ssu

:D I don't mind. It is the lounge for a reason, even if there are some heady thoughts out there -- I really wanted to brainstorm science with this thread, as in, trip across different ideas about science that are nevertheless important. And that requires a tolerance for branching out to related subjects (and since I've barely set a theme, well... have at it!)

Nice. I find myself agreeing along with much of that.

I agree.

The primary reasons to keep knowledge are profit and war: there is some advantage someone wants to keep.

This conflicts with the engine of knowledge-generation which requires sharing and creativity if something new, rather than procedural, is to be created -- and given that it's new there's no guarantee that it will be valuable at all.

Which is why research is jealously guarded: It takes lots of money to keep a staff that might not produce anything, and when it does you want to keep it for yourself. (though, under Capitalism, what else would you expect?)

Though there is also this other side, i think: There's something about a forum post that demands a more collaborative approach than the usual "presentation of a theory with reasons", at least from what I've seen: by overly relying upon the 20th century philosophers-of-science, for instance, I'd be ignoring other eras of science and their attendant philosophies, and I'd be looking at a particular bit of academic work -- mostly because I think that the philosophers who have tried such an enterprise before worth looking at.

But here some people haven't bothered with those particular philosophers, and I don't feel like they are the end-all-be-all of philosophy of science, either, just a touchstone for me of where I'm thinking from. The brainstorming process itself, though, is more about arriving at a thesis to defend, if there indeed be such a thing in the firstplace, or even a sharing of different perspectives on how we understand the beast science -- whereas for me I'm thinking about it from the perspective of what to do in order to be valuable to the scientific project as it presently stands, I like to keep threads open to other approaches.

If we begin with Merriam-Webster, as you've done, then "Science is what scientists do as scientists" is filled out by our common-sense understanding of these terms.

I've said more than just the statement of a theory, though: Good bookkeeping, communication of results over time, humans being coming together to create knowledge, the marriage to economic activity, and a basic sense of honesty though an irrelevance for the motivation of a particular scientist. And I've referenced Newton while explicitly saying that the definition of "science" will always be vague (Newton was a scientist, so science is what Newton did as a scientist -- but if we compare other obvious examples, let's say Francis Crick, the differences between what they do are more obvious than their similarities): But we can still get by and say interesting, and somewhat general, things about science in spite of not starting from some explicit set of criteria for class inclusion. We generally know what we mean by the word, and generally know who is included -- but then when we get more specific, or try to do so, cases can fall out.

I've also said there are two explicit things I'd like a theory of science to accomplish: the demystification of process so that science is not perceived as magical, and a pedagogical simplification not for the purposes of identifying science, but for the purposes of learning how to do science: in some sense my definition of "science" is serviceable enough for those tasks, and we needn't begin at The Meaning of Being in order to say good an interesting things about the subject at hand.

And in the background of all of this thinking is the transition from verificationism to falsificationism to Quine's attack on empiricism and Feyerabend's deconstruction of all such programs: so the background, springboard question is the Question of the Criterion that Popper begins with, and my answer is that there isn't really a general theory that covers all cases, but that we can situate a more limited theory of science within a community of practitioners.

Because I don't really see a union between Aristotle and Marie Curie, for example. They're just doing different things, though it's fair to call Aristotle a scientist of his time.

That's just what a definition is. — Leontiskos

:D

This points out a pretty big difference between our understandings, at least.

I'd say that the Oxford English Dictionary's philosophy of language requires us to be able to pick out examples in order to derive definitions.

"X is what Xers do" is a tautological and uninformative statement. — Leontiskos

But that's not my theory of science -- my theory of science isn't so general as to say that all all things like "science" are defined by the actions of of the people involve. And even if it were so, which I doubt, a tautology is always true. "Science is what scientists do" isn't something I could say is true strictly, but rather is a criteria for class inclusion for uses of "science" or "scientist"

"Science is science" would be a tautology, but "Science is what scientists do when they are acting as scientists" isn't. (it asks the reader to add interpretation, of course -- it's a definition not looking for necessary/sufficient/universal conditions)

- I'm finding Google increasingly useless at searching for minutia of late. Any subtlety gets lost in irrelevancies. — Banno

Same.

Yes, it is. It is called equivocation, and it is also a non-definition. Someone who does not know what scientists do will simply not be able to identify scientists. — Leontiskos

If you had a definition for "scientist" do you believe that the person who does not know what a scientist does will be able to identify scientists?

Let's say "Scientists are the people who produce knowledge about the physical world", to use Merriam-Webster. So "Science is what scientists do, and what scientists do is produce knowledge about the physical world, and that production process changes over time" fits with what I've said.

That touched me :) :heart:

I think it is, and more than that, I think those who says it's not will not be able to give a coherent account of what a science is. That's what we've begun running into, here. — Leontiskos

Is it incoherent to say "Science is what scientists do, and what scientists do changes over time"?

Why not? — Leontiskos

By the above criteria. You don't see Gassendi or Lucretius referenced in the activity of sciences today (just to give some naturalist philosophers that would seem to get along with the ideas, but aren't needed for science). Why should you?

That is, rather than an organized body of knowledge based on empiricism, I'd say science is what scientists do.

Here is a good article to begin debunking the guess/check paradigm: Cartwright on theory and experiment in science. — Leontiskos

So the claim that looks like might conflict with what I'm saying is: "that science is essentially just theory plus experiment;"

But what science is is what scientists do, and what scientists do changes over time. That is I'm taking up a historical-empirical lens to the question -- the philosophical theory is "Science is what scientists do", which, of course, is defined only ostensively and so doesn't have some criteria for inclusion.

A perhaps annoying but purposeful use of vagueness: What shall we include in saying "science"? What are the examples that need to be considered? It seems we ought to include real examples of science, and so an emphasis on the activity of scientists rather than looking at theories of knowledge or qualifications of philosophers.

That is, I'd defend the notion of a standpoint: I think that people who do the thing are in a better position to know about it. That doesn't mean they're in a better position to philosophize about it, of course, which is why a lot of philosophers of science are both scientists and philosophers: that phenomenology of science is considered an important grounding in judging the history of science from a philosophical perspective. (so, yes, I'd also defend the notion that we come to know science from a historical perspective, which is contextual and not amenable to universal conditions)

I don't think my notion of science would deny the part where Edward says: "In addition to theory and experimentation, there are models, narratives, diagrams, illustrations, concrete applications, and so on. None of these is reducible to theory or experiment, and neither are they any less essential to the practice and content of science. And when we take account of them, both science and the world it describes are seen to be far more complicated than the common conception of science and its results implies." in the opening, either. So while, sure, I have been brief and so it's understandable to question, I'm wondering if we're in conflict at all?

This is a bit like describing tennis as, "Swing-hit-run-swing-hit-run..." That's not what tennis is. It's a physical-reductionistic cataloguing of certain events that occur within the game of tennis. — Leontiskos

What is tennis? :D

In the attempt to provide a non-magical sketch of science I am, also, attempting a pedagogical sketch at science -- it doesn't need to be an essence or universal notion, I don't think. Coherency and specificity is enough, I believe. (also, I don't think there is an essence to science, of course)

Why share? Is it necessary? — Leontiskos

I think so. It keeps you sane. When you go about questioning reality on a regular basis it's a good idea to listen to others :D -- many a scientist has had some pretty kooky beliefs outside of their work.

I think that the particular era of science will specify what makes a good guess, what would count as a check, and how one goes about sharing. In Newton's day philosophy and science were closer than most generally hold now.

One of the problems with method is that it doesn't exactly exist in some big sense. The methods of interest are already established in various ways at this time so it entirely depends upon what science you're working within, and even which lab you'd find yourself in. But these methods are in no way general in the way philosophy likes, or even as the public tends to think: this going some way to push against the magical thinking that science might tempt.

Also it asks the reader to get out of their head and look at what the scientists are doing as a method for defining science :D -- A systematic body of knowledge isn't exactly a science either. Plumbing is a systematic body of knowledge that relies upon empirical guess-work, but it's not a science. And all the many systems of knowledge which philosophers produce aren't exactly a science either.

But what is the activity? — Leontiskos

Guess-check-share-guess-check-share-guess-check-share...

Yup.

So something I'm seeing in working through these guys today is that it's math pretty much beyond my ability. Not that it's surprising that a formalization of Hegel's logic would require pretty complicated maths, but I know I can't really comment on the formalization -- but what is exciting about it is that in some sense the work has already been done, and so rather than guess-and-check there's something to build on that I didn't know about. Sweet!

'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds
Roll up its waste of waters, from the land
To watch another's labouring anguish far,
Not that we joyously delight that man
Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet
To mark what evils we ourselves be spared; — Lucretius, The Nature of Things, Book II Proem

Link


Which gets along a bit with Aristotle's notion -- that the distance between the audience and the subject is what allows a certain kind of pleasure in the unfortunate to arise.

But I also want to quote Artaud, whose theory of theatre gives a different picture to the pleasure of tragedy:

The theater will never find itself again--i.e., constitute a means
of true illusion--except by furnishing the spectator with the
truthful precipitates of dreams, in which his taste for crime, his
erotic obsessions, his savagery, his chimeras, his utopian sense of
life and matter, even his cannibalism, pour out, on a level not
counterfeit and illusory, but interior. — Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and its Double, VII. The Theater and Cruelty

Artaud is a more poetic writer and so subject to interpretation, but what I've always taken him to mean is that the function of tragedy is to fulfill our anti-social desires through the magic of theatre: the savage desire to kill your enemy can be not just seen from a distince, but felt in the interior -- so it gives an opposite reason for the pleasure of tragedy. Rather than because we are distant from it we come to experience a part of ourselves that we normally couldn't.

That's pretty much what I believe, and yet the temptation to complete a system -- or to extend it -- is still there. Kant's claim to having set The Truth on the matter once and for all demands a level of scrutiny that becomes a kind of creative engine unto itself -- it's a paradox of philosophy.

oof. Alas we can all be sweet summer children at one point...

So, it's even worse than that! A group riding an economic wave because why not, when the people involved see the why not and would like to, like, not....