I don't deny that for a minute. I just think that we should acknowledge that his version wasn't based on race. In other words, the 18th century version not only attempted to justify slavery, but did so on racial grounds. — Ludwig V

Yes. That's not in itself wrong - we do the same thing when we classify certain people as incompetent. What matters is what happens next. — Ludwig V

Yes I'm being anachronistic -- there are some differences that are worth noting: Aristotle didn't use 18th century racial categories, and the practices of slavery were different between the eras.

And I have some work to do on what counts as a proper theory of race in order to make this point -- I'm reading in-between the lines with a generic notion of race which seems to have a conceptual match.

The concepts that are similar enough (and since they're embedded in a larger philosophy they're more interesting that some plantation owner who makes the case):The way he talks about slaves in the passage I quoted. Going back to proletarinizing the Irish (so, not even a case of slavery, in the practices, but it's still the same kind of cruelty and reasoning I'm thinking through): The character of the Irish is that they are lazy and so must have their land taken from them so that English capitalists of better character force them to be productive for their own good.

I don't think that we make the same judgment of another person when we say they are incompetent because we're not judging whether their character is such that they are naturally incompetent: it leaves open the possibility of learning, as well as not making inferences about people who are of the same kind having such-and-such a character.

This Aristotle guy was smart, wasn't he? Except when he disagrees with my enlightened 21st century politics, of course. — Lionino

He was!

Why target low hanging fruit when the articulation for slavery that Aristotle uses is much the same as later articulations, and has an entire philosophical oeuvre within which to interpret the argument?

Really it might not even be Aristotle Aristotle that's the target here, but rather English interpretations of Aristotle (it's not like I'm going back to the Greek here, nor could I): He's the foil through which I'm thinking about hierarchy rather than addressing him in his own time and place due to the argument being largely the same, and clearer than most slavers are willing to articulate.

There are multiple examples in history where that was not the case. — Lionino

I'm skeptical of such claims because of how often they are made, and how often "better off" is measured by the civilizers' values.

What examples do you have in mind?

I'm not denying that. On the contrary, in the 18th century, a lot of the gentry would have read Aristotle. But Aristotle does not specify that speaking a foreign language or not being a Greek is evidence of being suitable for slavery. — Ludwig V

Not specified, sure -- I'm reading into him. I don't think it unreasonable to think that Aristotle prefers Greeks of the upper echelon, though, when we read the politics in conjunction with the ethics and note that goodness is the exercise of virtues within the larger biopolitical world.

It's his mixture of biology with politics that is really close conceptually to the race-based reasonings for slavery: he doesn't explicitly put slavish souls into a biological category, but their essence differs from other members of the species giving a sub-species "kind" with essence; I take it that no one can actually perceive a slavish or masterful soul, that there must be markers for that, and things like being non-greek would work for that.

explain it in terms that are relevant as any kind of counter to what I might have said. — apokrisis

That's why I asked for criteria of some kind.

I suspect that your notion of hierarchy, when descriptive, is not the same as what I'm targeting. The idea that a program or system has hierarchies, for example, isn't the same as social hierarchy.

Do you ask to hold someone’s hand every time you need to cross the road? Clearly I’m wasting my time now. — apokrisis

I'm scratching my head a bit because I think I've given concrete examples before, like the IWW.

Among other sentiments about what I like.

What I'm asking is: What do you like?

Or, What's good?

Eventually we get to the political meat - like why the combo of a constitution and a president (or even law-bound monarch) seemed like a clever idea. — apokrisis

I think this is a "meat" question for scientists who wonder how it happens or want to know the facts about the human brain -- but it would be the same question in China as the United States and Europe.

It's an interesting question -- why did Europe like this clever idea? -- but it's not a political position.

So you say. So you find comforting to believe.

But I asked for concrete examples that might support your vaguely expressed sentiments. As usual, I’m just getting more unsourced claims. — apokrisis

Can you give me criteria for what a concrete example would need to fulfill?

So not good vs bad hierarchies, just hierarchy in general. Boo, hiss! Hierarchy, dude! It's baaad! — apokrisis

Yeah!

I have reasons and all, but that's it -- though it seems, given your previous caveat, that we're thinking similarly while saying different words: You have a particular thought on hierarchy, but I'm not sure that I have a negative opinion on your notion of positive hierarchy because when I read your description of society -- as a flow -- it seems descriptive and descriptive only and I cannot tell what might even be the "good" hierarchy.

I'm generally opposed to hierarchy, but: What is the good hierarchy in your view?

If you could give a concrete example, it would help show if you might have a case. — apokrisis

Gonna quote the original post I was mulling over in saying that:

If we step back to understand hierarchical order as a pure form, we can see that it is a distribution system. It is a way to distribute power, information, entropy, whatever, in an evenly balanced fashion across a closed and cohesive network of relations.

So it is fundamentally about equality. But the complex kind of equality where the total flow of the system is divided up in a fractal or scalefree fashion that maximises its throughput.

A landscape is drained of water by forming a fractal network of trickles, streams, rivers and deltas. World aviation is organised into remote grass airstrips, small rural airports, large city airports, major international hubs. The mathematics of this is precise. A fractal distribution system has a log/log or powerlaw scale of size. That is how a geography can be efficiently covered so every drop of water or wannabe flyer gets an equal chance of participating in a well-organised network of flow.

There is no limit on free action even when all the actions are in competition. The network adapts so that statistically it services the available flows in an evenhanded fashion. If demand increases for the rural airstrip or drops for the global hub, then that node in the network can grow or shrink accordingly.

So in the pure form, the hierarchy is about a democracy of scale. A network composed of networks with any possible scale. Whatever works best to optimise flow for the entire system in question.

In a society, we would want everyone to have enough to eat, a bed to sleep, a voice in any decision making. These are goods to be distributed evenly. But then a real world civilisation is not going to end up giving everyone the same meal, the same bed, the same degree of being listened to.

A rural airstrip is not going to have a VIP lounge, or customs officers, or nonstop flights to international destinations. A global hub becomes its own vast hierarchy of terminal facilities and job functions. If you want a weather report at the grass strip, you look up at the clouds. At Dubai or Chicago, there are teams of meteorologists with hi tech radars, monitoring stations and computer models.

Is this difference in airport facilities intrinsically unfair? Even artificial rather than natural? If you want to fly, the whole world has become efficiently organised to allow anyone to hop on a plane from anywhere. But to do that basic thing, it also means that the nodes in the network have to themselves become hierarchically complex to the degree they fairly do their part in servicing this globalised flow of individuals. — apokrisis

All the above is what I'd call general description: according to names, data, and narrative one can make sense of it.

However, I think we're going for something other than description. "ought" is the philosophy word, but I'm not sure it's the right word other than to convey a distinction on a philosophy forum.

If you are talking politics and decision making, the same applies. One can get all upset that democracy organises itself into interest groups and institutions. One can start bleating about the ruling mafia, the oppressive state. One can dream of a world where in effect everyone flies off their own grass airstrip and there are no giant planes taking off from their giant airports.

But there are perfectly natural reasons why societies, as human flow structures, will seem unequal as they seek to deliver equality. And if you don’t understand that, you can’t actually focus on where a hierarchy might be performing poorly in striking that optimal flow balance..

I'm not arguing against the perfectly natural -- given that hierarchies are a part of nature (what else would what I'm criticizing be a part of?) they are perfectly natural.

You just want to pull the whole system down, or live outside its bounds. You have no proper theory of how it works and thus no real idea of how to fix it

I've been tempted a time or two to pull it all down, but no -- I care about more things than my anger or stupid moral commitments.

And I want to push against the notion of a real idea of how to fix it: No one has a proper theory of how to fix it, or a real idea about how it works. Getting everyone on board with that much -- the metaphor I like to invoke is the rocket we're all strapped to without any knowledge about where it's going, how to control it, or when it will end -- is a step in the right direction. If we all think we have the key to the door while failing at opening the door then maybe it ought be time to make another key.

An "ought" for an "is" ;)

So then your target isn’t really hierarchical order but some notion of social injustice. — apokrisis

My target is hierarchy. I know that much.

If we step back to understand hierarchical order as a pure form, we can see that it is a distribution system. It is a way to distribute power, information, entropy, whatever, in an evenly balanced fashion across a closed and cohesive network of relations. — apokrisis

I think this is too general; at some point social systems are not abstract and do things according to what's up rather than because of patterns we've seen.

And, given enough leeway, we can always "see" any social system as "good" -- which is what "evenly balanced fashion across a closed and cohesive network of relations" is doing, at least as I read you: This is what hierarchies ought aim for?

That's not ancient slavery.
Certainly, the ancient greeks regarded foreigners as lesser beings because they couldn't speak properly. But ancient greek colonies don't seem to have behaved like European colonies later on. They didn't, so far as I can see, take over ownership of the hinterland, never mind its inhabitants. On the contrary, they were there primarily to trade.
The account of slavery that you are outlining is the barbarous version of it cooked up by Europeans to justify maltreating people they chose to see as savages. Ancient slavery included anyone who could not pay their debts, prisoners of war, common criminals. Whether they were members of the society that enslaved them was irrelevant. — Ludwig V

It's Aristotle's justification or reasoning about slavery that I think is similar to the later justifications.; though even in slavery there are better and worse masters, the belief that there are those who are inferior by their very nature -- and so needing a guiding hand -- seems pretty similar here:

But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is advantageous and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all slavery is contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that it is difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to understand it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and others be governed, is not only necessary but useful, and from the hour of their birth some are marked out for those purposes, and others for the other, and there are many species of both sorts.

And the better those are who are governed the better also is the government, as for instance of man, rather than the brute creation: for the more excellent the materials are with which the work is finished, the more excellent certainly is the work; and wherever there is a governor and a governed, there certainly is some work produced; for whatsoever is composed of many parts, which jointly become one, whether conjunct or separate, evidently show the marks of governing and governed; and this is true of every living thing in all nature; nay, even in some things which partake not of life, as in music; but this probably would be a disquisition too foreign to our present purpose.

Every living thing in the first place is composed of soul and body, of these the one is by nature the governor, the other the governed; now if we would know what is natural, we ought to search for it in those subjects in which nature appears most perfect, and not in those which are corrupted; we should therefore examine into a man who is most perfectly formed both in soul and body, in whom this is evident, for in the depraved and vicious the body seems [1254b] to rule rather than the soul, on account of their being corrupt and contrary to nature.

We may then, as we affirm, perceive in an animal the first principles of herile and political government; for the soul governs the body as the master governs his slave; the mind governs the appetite with a political or a kingly power, which shows that it is both natural and advantageous that the body should be governed by the soul, and the pathetic part by the mind, and that part which is possessed of reason; but to have no ruling power, or an improper one, is hurtful to all; and this holds true not only of man, but of other animals also, for tame animals are naturally better than wild ones, and it is advantageous that both should be under subjection to man; for this is productive of their common safety: so is it naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind.

Those men therefore who are as much inferior to others as the body is to the soul, are to be thus disposed of, as the proper use of them is their bodies, in which their excellence consists; and if what I have said be true, they are slaves by nature, and it is advantageous to them to be always under government.

He then is by nature formed a slave who is qualified to become the chattel of another person, and on that account is so, and who has just reason enough to know that there is such a faculty, without being indued with the use of it; for other animals have no perception of reason, but are entirely guided by appetite, and indeed they vary very little in their use from each other; for the advantage which we receive, both from slaves and tame animals, arises from their bodily strength administering to our necessities; for it is the intention of nature to make the bodies of slaves and freemen different from each other, that the one should be robust for their necessary purposes, the others erect, useless indeed for what slaves are employed in, but fit for civil life, which is divided into the duties of war and peace; though these rules do not always take place, for slaves have sometimes the bodies of freemen, sometimes the souls; if then it is evident that if some bodies are as much more excellent than others as the statues of the gods excel the human form, every one will allow that the inferior ought to be slaves to the superior; and if this is true with respect to the body, it is still juster to determine in the same manner, when we consider the soul; though it is not so easy to perceive the beauty of [1255a] the soul as it is of the body. Since then some men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave.


But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is advantageous and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all slavery is contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that it is difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to understand it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and others be governed, is not only necessary but useful, and from the hour of their birth some are marked out for those purposes, and others for the other, and there are many species of both sorts.

And the better those are who are governed the better also is the government, as for instance of man, rather than the brute creation: for the more excellent the materials are with which the work is finished, the more excellent certainly is the work; and wherever there is a governor and a governed, there certainly is some work produced; for whatsoever is composed of many parts, which jointly become one, whether conjunct or separate, evidently show the marks of governing and governed; and this is true of every living thing in all nature; nay, even in some things which partake not of life, as in music; but this probably would be a disquisition too foreign to our present purpose.

Every living thing in the first place is composed of soul and body, of these the one is by nature the governor, the other the governed; now if we would know what is natural, we ought to search for it in those subjects in which nature appears most perfect, and not in those which are corrupted; we should therefore examine into a man who is most perfectly formed both in soul and body, in whom this is evident, for in the depraved and vicious the body seems [1254b] to rule rather than the soul, on account of their being corrupt and contrary to nature.

We may then, as we affirm, perceive in an animal the first principles of herile and political government; for the soul governs the body as the master governs his slave; the mind governs the appetite with a political or a kingly power, which shows that it is both natural and advantageous that the body should be governed by the soul, and the pathetic part by the mind, and that part which is possessed of reason; but to have no ruling power, or an improper one, is hurtful to all; and this holds true not only of man, but of other animals also, for tame animals are naturally better than wild ones, and it is advantageous that both should be under subjection to man; for this is productive of their common safety: so is it naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind.

Those men therefore who are as much inferior to others as the body is to the soul, are to be thus disposed of, as the proper use of them is their bodies, in which their excellence consists; and if what I have said be true, they are slaves by nature, and it is advantageous to them to be always under government. He then is by nature formed a slave who is qualified to become the chattel of another person, and on that account is so, and who has just reason enough to know that there is such a faculty, without being indued with the use of it; for other animals have no perception of reason, but are entirely guided by appetite, and indeed they vary very little in their use from each other; for the advantage which we receive, both from slaves and tame animals, arises from their bodily strength administering to our necessities; for it is the intention of nature to make the bodies of slaves and freemen different from each other, that the one should be robust for their necessary purposes, the others erect, useless indeed for what slaves are employed in, but fit for civil life, which is divided into the duties of war and peace; though these rules do not always take place, for slaves have sometimes the bodies of freemen, sometimes the souls; if then it is evident that if some bodies are as much more excellent than others as the statues of the gods excel the human form, every one will allow that the inferior ought to be slaves to the superior; and if this is true with respect to the body, it is still juster to determine in the same manner, when we consider the soul; though it is not so easy to perceive the beauty of [1255a] the soul as it is of the body. Since then some men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave. — Politics, Chapter V

I didn't mean to eradicate those important differences. Some hierarchies are more vicious than others. Whether any are not vicious at all, I wouldn't like to say. — Ludwig V

Cool. More a point for @Tarskian then, who's taken a more absolutist line in saying because you cannot eliminate it you might as well accept any version of it that works for you as an individual.

I wouldn't disagree with you. It's probably slower than allowing representatives to make the decision, but the benefit in greater consensus is probably worth it. It certainly gives more power to the people. The desire of the establishment at the time of the Reform Act in 1832 not to undermine the representation system as it stood, rather than introducing mandating them, was undoubtedly reinforced by the fact mandating representatives gives more control to the voters. — Ludwig V

Slower in some ways, faster in others -- and it's still a legal system of rules, so it's still "game-able", just with more inroads for participation; and like any implementation of democracy the specifics can make big differences even if the conceptual understanding of why we do these things around the specifics are roughly similar.

Much as I respect the union practice, I'm not convinced that in our giant states mandating representatives would work at all well for the entire state. It's just too big and too complicated.

I'm not convinced that our present systems of government are really working too well with the bigness and complexity; part of my interest in this isn't just the unintended consequences of the industrial revolution, but also in the vein of modifying existing structures to better handle the problems we're presently failing at dealing with (such as global warming -- all the hierarchy in the world, and nary a solution beyond "Burn it all up" -- at least to hear the people who can set and push policy talk)

I see the point (but would be inclined to wonder whether chimpanzees are really as bad as human beings, for all their dominant ways). But I also think that in some situations, where decisions need to be made quickly or close co-ordination is required, there are practical reasons for choosing hierarchy. — Ludwig V

I think the practical reasons for choosing hierarchy are habituated more than practical -- they're practical because very few people in an industrial society are taught how to work collectively. The people in charge have no reason to develop those skills because it would mean that the "decision makers" wouldn't be valuable anymore. (same sort of thing with Aristotle: I'll free my slaves when I'm done with them, but until then I have no reason to "develop" them such that they can live an autonomous life after I free them)

But then when you get a job it's all about "teamwork" and "collective" because that's what our actual strength as a species is -- it's just that there's been a messy business of figuring out how to make that strength an individual perk for some owners and thinkers.

The syndicalist view you describe is an extreme version of mandating representatives. It seems to me to be a recipe for chaos, since each representative will have slightly different views and may differ radically from the previous one. On the whole, the left wing seems to prefer mandating representatives and/or making them bring their decisions back for a popular vote before it is finalized. (That's how the trade unions work, on the whole - at least in the UK.) — Ludwig V

Unionism is where I'm most familiar with syndicalism from (not that all unions run that way). I think that systems which reject representation are, on the whole, less chaotic because in order for measures to pass you have to build consent. That you have different perspectives with each brings about stability because it becomes less about what some individual person Represents to us, and more about what the collective wants. If you alienate less of the people in a collective, then it's more liable to be maintained by the people participating in it rather than torn down.

Certainly, there are such social groups. There are also half-way houses in which volunteers sign up for a common purpose which, for one reason or another depends on cohesion. That requires an acceptance of discipline and usually, in practice, some kind of hierarchy whether formal or informal. (I'll mention these again below.)
I'm not at all sure what you mean by "the family hierarchy". Did you mean that we don't get to choose our at least our first parents and we are subject to control until we grow up? Certainly, relationships with our birth/childhood family (-ies) are rather different from our family relationships when we start our own families and both are different from our friendship relationships; all those are different from our work and business relationships. Perhaps social and voluntary co-operation dominate, but they are not the whole story. (I don't say that you are wrong)

Now, could a state or nation (or nation-state) be structured in that way, largely free of hierarchy. The issue here is that we need to consider social relationships that extend beyond "kith and kin" - people you know and people you are related to by birth or "marriage" (in its widest sense)?
It seems to me, that since you don't know these people, they cannot work in the same way as your kith and kin relationships. There needs to be a formal structure to enable the kind of cohesion that is suggested by "society" and I don't see how that would work if there were not some kind of hierarchy, no matter how benevolent and co-operative. In practice, I think you will find, there always has been some kind of hierarchy and that is suggestive. — Ludwig V

Some kind, yes, though I tried to pick as an extreme a contrast as possible to demonstrate that "some kind" has meaningful differences between the various instantiations (and even their structures of hierarchy will differ, or not-count as hierarchical between one another) -- a living Goddess compared to a Billionaire Wonder Boy, both surely exhilarating tips of a hierarchy and yet I prefer to suffer the opinions of the latter to being forced to worship the former.




So I want to say that

Now, there's a tricky question. Let's stipulate that "master" and "slave" are social roles that are backed by law - i.e. backed by coercion. It would not be wrong to say, then, that if those roles are not backed by law, they cannot exist in that society.
But could master/slave-like relationships exist without the backing of the law? Of course they can. There are two kinds.
One is created when a group is formed to function in certain kinds of environment, like a ship's crew or an dangerous environment, like an dangerous journey or a war situation. (Civilian police and some other roles are also like this.) In those cases, one (normally) volunteers and, in so doing, accepts the discipline required. We could say that because it is (normally) temporary and one can leave, it is a temporary master/slave relationship, but I think that would be misleading.
The other is a certain kind of relationship that has come to prominence in recent years, known as "coercive control". It is not backed by law - indeed, it is banned by law in some countries. In many cases, it is virtually indistinguishable, apart from the lack of backing by law, from slavery.

You'll notice that I've avoided the question whether such relationships - particularly the second one - are natural or not. The reason is simple. If I say that they are natural, then the moral implication is that they are not immoral - that's why Aristotle said that master/slave relationships are natural. He was misled, of course, but he couldn't really be expected to know any better, since slavery, in his times, was more or less universally recognized and taken for granted by everyone whose opinion we know about. Nowadays, in most parts of the world, we think that slavery is immoral and consequently we would be very reluctant to say that it is natural.

However, many animal societies are structured by a dominance hierarchy (pecking order). These are not exactly slave societies, but they are dictated by coercion, or the threat of it. But it would be meaningless to try to apply our moral standards to them. However, I do think that we should not think that we can eliminate informal dominance relationships between individuals and within social groups. The trick will be to prevent them becoming slave-like relationships. — Ludwig V

This is pretty much my target in thinking through hierarchies: Aristotle's justification for slavery follows a common refrain of thought throughout societies of dominance: The barbarians are uncivilized, as can be heard from when they speak "Bar bar bar", saying basically nothing, and so need an enlightened human of knowledge to direct them towards the best that the inferior can hope to achieve (since they won't reach for it on their own) ((The same reasonings were applied to the Irish when they wanted to convert the Irish peasants into proletarian workers, or the Africans when they wanted to convert them into their chattel slaves))

But, due to human nature, whenever a civilizer comes along somehow the civilized end up worse off and helping the civilizer live an easier life :D

That's the bit of human nature I'm targeting I think we have lots of reasonings to excuse social dominance, but for the most part it's our chimpanzee side which gives rise to such reasonings rather than the purportedly enlightened side.

Human nature has this capacity to form hierarchies, but it also has the capacity to dither them -- so it's more a question of "ought" than the "is" of nature (since I'd agree that ought implies can -- but since we can....)

Oh I didn't realize -- what can I say, while I criticize democracy I basically believe it's the right way to go.

Can you lay out a case?

I'm laughing but I suppose I'd go to Rawl's Veil of Ignorance: the likelihood that I'd be a King is very low, so it's simply not attractive.

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)