And when I distinguish an object to someone, and they ask how I am distinguishing that object (in what way am I distinguishing it, by what features or attributes), no one ever explains a process of the brain. — Antony Nickles
I've been on the other side of this argument as Isaac could attest. I've tried defending the specialness of philosophy. I think there's still some room for stuff that science isn't quite suited to or that it doesn't bother with, but I'm through chasing science off my lawn. I think it's a betrayal of the spirit of philosophy and resentment of the success of science. — Srap Tasmaner
Such a search will reveal philosophically reformulated notions of brain, body , language and culture that are much more compatible with Wittgenstein — Joshs
I'm right now reading a book of psychology that I would argue is in some clear ways compatible with the later Wittgenstein.
On the other hand, who cares? Wittgenstein is interesting, but aligning your theory with Wittgenstein or with any philosopher really should not be a goal of any scientific research program.
Inspiration taken from Wittgenstein? Absolutely. But inspiration can come from absolutely anywhere and ought not guide you toward a particular result — Srap Tasmaner
Inspiration can in theory come from anywhere. In practice, it often comes from a handful of prophetic thinkers who had to wait decades before the larger culture was ready to embrace their ideas. — Joshs
One example is the eventual embrace of the ideas of American Pragmatists and Phenomenology within psychology. — Joshs
Lots of people have interesting ideas, it's the research that matters. It's the research supporting and extending Darwin's insights that makes his ideas matter. Picking ideas you like -- well, we all do that, but that's not science. — Srap Tasmaner
But wasn’t the pragmatism a reflection of early psychological research - the work of Helmholtz, Wundt, Donders, Fechner and the rest? — apokrisis
“Helmholtz took Johannes Müller's theory and the evidence he presented as a scientific confirmation of Kant's basic claim in Kritik der reinen Vernunft concerning the extent to which “we can have cognition of no object as a thing in itself, but only […] as an appearance” (Kant 1998: B xxvi), and he argued that contemporary science on the basis of physiological evidence were reaching the same kind of insights as Kant had reached by a priori considerations. Our knowledge concerns reality as it is represented within ourselves, and not mind-independent reality as it is in itself, which remains unknowable.”
In my reading of the history, you have Cartesian representationalism and British empiricism creating the familiar disembodied notion of mind as a clutter of sense impressions and ideas. The justification of phenomenology as the method of inquiry. — apokrisis
“Husserl, thus, ceaselessly attempts to reconcile the structuralist demand (which leads to the
comprehensive description of a totality, of a form or a function organized according to an internal legality in which elements have meaning only in the solidarity of their correlation or their opposition), with the genetic demand (that is the search for the origin and foundation of the structure). One could show, perhaps, that the phenomenological project itself is born of an initial failure of this attempt.”
It sounds like science to you is tied to a notion of correspondence between scientific observer and observed reality — Joshs
You then have pragmatism arising out of the new scientific spirit of inquiry where the mind is all about modelling, habits and judgements - constrained by the fact of being in the world rather than being remarkable for standing apart from that world. — apokrisis
As Derrida writes: — Joshs
It sounds like science to you is tied to a notion of correspondence between scientific observer and observed reality
— Joshs
Nope. You got all of that just out of me using the word "research"? Geez. — Srap Tasmaner
↪Joshs
As Derrida writes:
— Joshs
I don’t speak gibberish. Perhaps you could translate into plain language? — apokrisis
You mean you arent familiar with the philosophical history of structuralism — Joshs
Oh, there’s correspondence there all right. — Joshs
It may be in the form of indirect modeling, but there is something in your notion of scientific observation and measurement that keeps science apart from the humanities and other areas of cultural creativity, and I think it has to do with how science gets a grip on the real. — Joshs
It will frequently turn out to be the case that our everyday conceptions are inadequate for understanding what we find, even misleading, but we can also come to understand why we have come to conceive of things as we ordinarily do. — Srap Tasmaner
What notions? Where did I talk about observation and measurement? You're just projecting, which -- it's just weird. Do you need me for this conversation? — Antony Nickles
Here's the thing. I could explain what my actual conception of science is (communal, pragmatic, predictive, sensitive to feedback, self updating, blah blah blah), thus defending myself against your charge of philosophical sin. But I don't have to. — Antony Nickles
What does your "correspondence" charge amount to? Suppose it's true and "correspondence" is inscribed in the Great Book of How to Do Science and What It Really Means. Then you could object that correspondence to the real is -- what? Is refuted? Is bad? Is a discredited metaphysics? Is problematic? — Antony Nickles
Should science care? If it works, it works. You can stand outside all day shouting, "This whole enterprise is a farce! They believe in correspondence to the real, those scientists!" No scientist will care. No one else will either. You will maintain your philosophical purity, as you understand it, but so what? Science will go on doing what it does. — Antony Nickles
Which is of course the point. Science is successful. Art is also successful. Literature is successful. History is successful. All of them in different ways, and it's no knock on art or literature or history that they are not science. Science is also only what it is. Is philosophy successful? I think most people feel it's a little harder to say whether it is -- but it's easy if you count spawning the natural sciences as part of the history of philosophy, because philosophy ought to be proud of that.
I still don't see any good reason for philosophy to be ashamed to be seen in the company of science. — Antony Nickles
What my charge would amount to is an invitation to see how the intrinsic CONTENT of scientific theory changes, including how the RESEARCH is conducted and interpreted, as a direct result of a shift in metaphysics or philosophy of science. — Joshs
All accepted science works, but changes in the metaphysics of science leads to changes in our understanding of HOW it works, and as a consequence de leads to fresh concepts. — Joshs
It shouldn’t be ashamed since they are intertwined aspects of the same company. My point is the ways philosophy and science are different is much less significant than you think they are, such that it is silly to even try to distinguish the domain of philosophy proper from science proper, other than as a matter of the conventionality and generality of the vocabulary. — Joshs
And this is the story philosophy has told itself, that ordinary criteria for judgment are “inadequate” and/or “misleading” — Antony Nickles
And now science has taken the bait to really tell us how things are — Antony Nickles
For instance, phenomenologically informed enactivist and autopoietic approaches in cognitive psychology are based on such a conceptual shift, and new materialism ( which is different than pomo) interprets the results of quantum field theory through a different metaphysics than older materialisms. — Joshs
Interesting. Do you have a handy link to this? — apokrisis
We have an everyday theory about how we perceive and think, and that theory is, you know, wrong. — Srap Tasmaner
modern science has stepped up to continue doing what philosophy used to do — Srap Tasmaner
But you think almost all Western philosophy is a train-wreck anyway, and you're among the special few who understand how most philosophy and almost all science is based on a colossal mistake. — Srap Tasmaner
I do claim science is confused — Antony Nickles
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.