The doing of science is of a different category than that to which science is done. Just as physics is the scientific evaluation of the the known predicates of real objects from which a posteriori knowledge is given, so too can metaphysics be the scientific evaluation of all the possible predicates of pure reason from which a priori knowledge is given. In each case, the object of each science is different, but the doing of the science can be similarly rigid and potentially explanatory. — Mww
I'm sorry if my vocabulary proves confusing, but just remember that when I write metaphysics, I'm referring to that branch of philosophy that considers truth, beauty, the nature of Objective Reality, and so on. Some of these things impinge upon science peripherally, but none of them are central to science. Those (the things central to science) are covered by (what I call) the philosophy of science. — Pattern-chaser
We treat the world scientifically in an attempt to understand it; we treat metaphysics scientifically in an attempt to understand ourselves. — Mww
Like psychology, an important and significant area of learning, deformed by the attempts of its own practitioners to define it as a science. Maybe to obtain grants for their research? I don't know. But a subject that studies human personality, and the like, cannot function if its only tools are logical, rigid and scientific. — Pattern-chaser
Science is fundamentally knowledge of what's what, of objective reality if you will. — T Clark
For me, separating epistemology from metaphysics is artificial and misleading. — T Clark
I disagree. Science studies the apparent reality that our senses and perception delivers pictures of. Philosophically, we have no way to know if those pictures (using vision as a synecdoche for all the senses) are of Objective Reality, or if they relate at all to Objective Reality, in any meaningful way. The nature of Objective Reality is not something science can even approach, without getting burnt! :wink: — Pattern-chaser
I see what you're saying, and I sympathise. But human languages are what they are, and these things arise from time to time. We don't actually disagree, I don't think, except on the actual labels we use to describe these things. — Pattern-chaser
To force something that is not science into the mould of science is to damage and deform it. — Pattern-chaser
If we use only science (...) then our understanding (of ourselves) is going to be less than it could be. — Pattern-chaser
Since philosophical includes metaphysics I would obviously agree with those sentences, but I see no reason, for example, to say that cosmology is obviously dealing with metaphysics. Every epistemology is making claims about what is, and somewhere in it, at least as axioms, there will be metaphysical claims. I mean, what is physicalism but a metaphysical position. Or the idea that there are natural laws. That is also a position in metaphysics.I see what you're getting at, but if I had written what you just did, I would have written "philosophical" every time you wrote "metaphysical" — Pattern-chaser
Tell that to the cosmologists. Tell it to Einstein. That space and time are relative, that's metaphysics and a couple of decades after Einstein's math and theory, it was confirmed empirically. Newton's univerise and Einstein's have metaphysical differences.Maybe it 'belongs' with science. And then there's metaphysics, which is the cache of tools we use to investigate vague stuff, stuff where there's no evidence, and no chance of finding any, and so on. The stuff I'm describing here, as I do my (poor) best to define/describe metaphysics, is inaccessible to science, and cannot be dealt with by science — Pattern-chaser
I'm referring to that branch of philosophy that considers truth, beauty, the nature of Objective Reality, and so on — Pattern-chaser
I really cannot see how the nature of objective reality does not impinge on, and is not central to, the project of science, especially physics. Truth also. I didn't realize anyone was including beauty in metaphysics - I'd put that in Aesthetics - but I do realize that metaphysics' definition varies. It always seems to include ontology and science has a lot to say about ontology.Some of these things impinge upon science peripherally, but none of them are central to science. — Pattern-chaser
Every epistemology is making claims about what is, and somewhere in it, at least as axioms, there will be metaphysical claims. — Coben
That space and time are relative, that's metaphysics and a couple of decades after Einstein's math and theory, it was confirmed empirically. — Coben
I really cannot see how the nature of objective reality does not impinge on, and is not central to, the project of science, especially physics. — Coben
When they write about black holes, they are writing about what there is even if we did not exist. — Coben
I think scientists consider themselves to be investigating objective reality and science for them is dealing with objective reality, for them. — Coben
Different scientists might, to varying degrees, agree with parts of this, but they all think they are modeling actual reality, out there. — Coben
I believe metaphysics needs to be somehow detached from language analysis to be considered useful. — Alan
No, they're dealing with AR, which could be objective reality, but we have no way of knowing. Frustrating, isn't it? :wink:
Different scientists might, to varying degrees, agree with parts of this, but they all think they are modeling actual reality, out there.
— Coben
Yes, that's what they "think", but it's just wishful thinking. An assumption, maybe even glorified by ascension to axiomhood (if that's a word), but not fact. Or, to be properly accurate: we cannot know it (to objective standards) to be factual. — Pattern-chaser
Axioms are just assumptions by another name. Some of them might be metaphysical, others not. — Pattern-chaser
If it was able to be confirmed empirically, it wasn't a metaphysical point, was it? :chin: — Pattern-chaser
You somehow have access to objective notions about all the components of perception - perceivers, perception, objects or objective reality and then how these interact. How did you get knowledge of all those pieces and not just appearances?Our senses and perceptions somehow deliver to our conscious minds pictures of an apparent reality. The pictures, we have direct (objective) knowledge of; we can 'see' them in our minds. The veracity of what the pictures show? That's another matter, and we have no objective knowledge of this, nor can we have such knowledge. Nevertheless, this apparent reality (I'll just call it AR from now on) is the only 'reality' to which we have access. So science necessarily examines and investigates AR. What else can it do? — Pattern-chaser
To me you are confusing absolute knowledge with objective knowledge. It doesn't have to be infalllible to be objective.We could be brains in vats, fed with interactive electro-bio-chemical data by the vat-maintainers. That data (in this thought experiment) is identical to that which we are actually experiencing now, as we read this, and as we continue to live out our lives. In this case, AR is not reality, but only a creation of the vat-maintainers. Another possibility is that AR is Objective Reality (subject to the limitations of our senses and perceptions). These two possibilities are indistinguishable. There is no evidence that can or could be gathered to tell the difference. So science simply cannot address it. — Pattern-chaser
No, they're dealing with AR, which could be objective reality, but we have no way of knowing. Frustrating, isn't it? :wink: — Pattern-chaser
Yes, that's what they "think", but it's just wishful thinking. — Pattern-chaser
Once you make a claim as to what others cannot know, you are assuming you are objectively (and here seemingly absolutely) correct about others using information gained via AR. How can you be correct and sure of it, for example, about me, and what i cannot know for sure but a scientist cannot know that what xylum does in a tree?Or, to be properly accurate: we cannot know it (to objective standards) to be factual. — Pattern-chaser
There is nothing in metaphysics that says it can never be tested or demonstrated. — Coben
[Highlighting added; it's not part of the original quoted text.]Our senses and perceptions somehow deliver to our conscious minds pictures of an apparent reality. The pictures, we have direct (objective) knowledge of; we can 'see' them in our minds. The veracity of what the pictures show? That's another matter, and we have no objective knowledge of this, nor can we have such knowledge. Nevertheless, this apparent reality (I'll just call it AR from now on) is the only 'reality' to which we have access. So science necessarily examines and investigates AR. What else can it do? — Pattern-chaser
You somehow have access to objective notions about all the components of perception - perceivers, perception, objects or objective reality and then how these interact. How did you get knowledge of all those pieces and not just appearances? — Coben
To me you are confusing absolute knowledge with objective knowledge. It doesn't have to be infallible to be objective. — Coben
Once you make a claim as to what others cannot know, you are assuming you are objectively (and here seemingly absolutely) correct about others using information gained via AR. How can you be correct and sure of it, for example, about me, and what i cannot know for sure but a scientist cannot know that what xylum does in a tree? — Coben
Axioms are just assumptions by another name. — Pattern-chaser
One person's axiom is another person's assumption.Axioms are usually considered to be self-evident; whereas assumptions may or may not be. — Janus
I actually hit this at a very abstract level. Anything self-evident, it seems to me, will only be that to some people. But OK, here's a few....Could you give an example? — Janus
That will seem obvious to some, to others it will seem obvious that certain rules apply only to certain people. For example many ethical systems include either in practice or openly the idea that greatness exempts one from the necessity of this axiom. They would see it as an assumption that it applies to all.P (Prescriptivity) — "Practice what you preach"
The Axiom of Causality is the proposition that everything in the universe has a cause and is thus an effect of that cause. This means that if a given event occurs, then this is the result of a previous, related event. If an object is in a certain state, then it is in that state as a result of another object interacting with it previously.
According to William Whewell the concept of causality depends on three axioms:[1]
Nothing takes place without a cause
The magnitude of an effect is proportional to the magnitude of its cause
To every action there is an equal and opposed reaction.
A similar idea is found in western philosophy for ages (sometimes called Principle of Universal Causation (PUC) or Law of Universal Causation), for example:
In addition, everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause. — Plato in Timaeus
Modern version of PUC is connected with Newtonian physics, but is also criticized for instance by David Hume who presents skeptical reductionist view on causality.[2] Since then his view on the concept of causality is often predominating (see Causality, After the Middle Ages). Kant answered to Hume in many aspects, defending the a priority of universal causation.[3]
Example for the axiom: if a baseball is moving through the air, it must be moving this way because of a previous interaction with another object, such as being hit by a baseball bat.
An epistemological axiom is a self-evident truth. Thus the "Axiom of Causality" implicitly claims to be a universal rule that is so obvious that it does not need to be proved to be accepted. Even among epistemologists, the existence of such a rule is controversial. See the full article on Epistemology. — Wikipedia - Axiom of Causality
There, you just did it again. You told me a fact about me. I am not you. I am outside you. You didn't say it appears to me that you do not have knowledge of OR. You said how it must be.I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. I tried to explain how we don't have access to objective knowledge about anything at all (other than that Objective Reality exists). I do not have knowledge of the things you list, and neither do you. [And neither does any other human, of course.] — Pattern-chaser
There, you just did it again. You told me a fact about me. I am not you. I am outside you. You didn't say it appears to me that you do not have knowledge of OR. You said how it must be. — Coben
Can you expand a bit? — Coben
That's fine. But he is telling me what I am like. He is not telling me how I appear. He is saying above that scientists only know things about AR, apparent reality. But he told me what I cannot know - and I think that this is based on what he thinks perception is, not how my perception appears. My perception does not appear to him, for example. What perception is, includes what objects or objective reality is and what the self is. He (makes claims that he) knows about these things, the OR, enough to say what I cannot know. I don't think he gets to say that if at the same time he is saying he can only know about AR. Maybe I am missing something.Perception doesn’t involve direct apprehension of objective reality. Do you directly apprehend radio waves, microwaves, and atoms through perception? The short of it is “no”. One has to theorize about objective reality from what appears to our perception (apparent reality). — Noah Te Stroete
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