”Discern" presupposes that meaning already exists. — creativesoul
But we’re talking about something unmeasurable in principle. — Wayfarer
In some ways, the history of philosophy has been the quest to deny the existence of the real world independent of our minds — Tom Storm
Body, technology, location: these are some of the components of our situation. By contrast, objectivity aims at stripping away all the elements of the human situation in order to retain a universal residue. You subtract standpoint, you subtract geographical position, you subtract the present time, you subtract the fact that you need to use instruments in order to see the very small and the very large. You want all these things to become mere transparent windows giving access to an unspoiled world. You wish to wipe out your own situation and treat it as if it were made of an invisible sheet of glass through which the things “out there” become known and visible. 1
I’m wondering , how would you articulate the difference between the religious and the atheistic account of pre-reflective self -awareness , the ‘feeling of what it is like’? — Joshs
Panpsychism (as he argues in his major work, The Vindication Of Absolute Idealism, 1983), has an ethical upshot - enabling, and requiring, us to empathise with other humans and animals. It "bids us recognise that what looks forth from another's eyes, what feels itself in the writhing of a worm . . . is really that very thing which, when speaking through my lips, calls itself 'I'." — The Guardian, Obituary of Timothy Sprigge, Idealist Philosopher
What this doesn’t see, is what the mind brings in order to make such judgements, even the judgement of what the world must be in the absence of observers. I say it is meaningless to contemplate a world as if seen from no point-of-view, as the very fabric of time and space itself has a subjective pole. — Wayfarer
I guess what I’m saying is even simple creatures are subjects of experience - they’re beings. And so they can’t be fully understood by the same laws that govern inanimate matter. — Wayfarer
I don't disagree with most of what you say but I don't think it makes an impact on the efficacy of methodological realism as the only useful tool we have for determining the nature of our experience. — Tom Storm
As far as the social sciences are concerned it is a different story, especially in psychology. Here we do have post-realist alternatives in hermeneutic, enactivist , constructivist, social constructionist, and phenomenological approaches. These accounts recognize that one can maintain naturalism while jettisoning realism. — Joshs
‘Methodological naturalism’ excludes what can't be accounted for or conceived of in scientific (objective, quantifiable) terms. It is a perfectly sound methodological step. Philosophical naturalism goes further by saying that only those factors which can be considered scientifically are real. This is where scientific method tends towards 'scientism'. — Wayfarer
I don't disagree with most of what you say but I don't think it makes an impact on the efficacy of methodological realism as the only useful tool we have for determining the nature of our experience. — Tom Storm
It depends on what aspect of our experience you have in mind... — Joshs
...As far as the social sciences are concerned it is a different story, especially in psychology. Here we do have post-realist alternatives in hermeneutic, enactivist , constructivist, social constructionist, and phenomenological approaches. These accounts recognize that one can maintain naturalism while jettisoning realism. — Joshs
You will have to provide a simple example. If you're simply talking theory then this is largely inconsequential. — Tom Storm
However for me what matters is actually how people relate to their fellow creatures. The real test of a belief system is not how much 'metaphysics' or anti-realism it holds, but what it looks like in action in the world. — Tom Storm
I don't disagree with most of what you say but I don't think it makes an impact on the efficacy of methodological realism as the only useful tool we have for determining the nature of our experience. — Tom Storm
I think that recognising the importance of the mind to the self, as it functions and not worrying about how it came to be, is perhaps of more relevance to the development of the self - perhaps even in an evolutionary or revolutionary way ? — Amity
So, back to 'naturalism'. I will have to give this, or 'methodological realism' more thought and time, given that it seems to be at the core of it all ? — Amity
I have never heard the expression 'methodological realism' until now. Methodological naturalism is the usual expression. — Wayfarer
Methodological realism accepts the axiological view that truth is one of the essential aims of science. Following Popper and Levi, truthlikeness as the aim of science, combines the goals of truth and information. This chapter discusses the relations between truthlikeness and other epistemic utilities like explanatory power (Hempel), problem‐solving capacity (Laudan), and simplicity (Reichenbach). While rationality in science can be defined relative to the goals accepted within scientific communities at different times, a critical realist defines scientific progress in terms of increasing truthlikeness. It is argued that progress in this sense can be assessed, relative to empirical evidence, by the notion of expected verisimilitude. An abductive argument is formulated to defend realism as the best (and even the only) explanation of the empirical and practical success of science. — Ilkka Niiniluoto
Methodological naturalism is the usual expression. And to recap, where I think that overshoots is when it is extended to grand claims about the nature of existence. I think it's very important to understand intellectual history and the forces that came into play through the Enlightenment, which is a big subject, but indispensable in my view. — Wayfarer
In respect of evolutionary biology, this has come to be seen as the kind of scientific rebuttal of religious creation myths. That's obviously true in some ways, but there are many open questions about the meaning of evolution, which actually converge with questions about the meaning of life. That is what I take the last paragraph of the OP to be getting at. — Wayfarer
1.So the mystery of the origin of life is very real.
2. Even if you could find an alternate mechanism for accurate chemical reproduction - what could give it its sense of direction before life had an in interest in preserving itself.
3. Whatever factor could apply to chemicals alone, to start giving an evolutionary direction in favour of life? — Gary Enfield
Science is not unquestionable and empiricism does not axiomatically exhaust all that we can call our experience. But at least we are compelled to science by more impeding necessities. I realize that you can claim that the need for purpose and origin are similar to some extent, but science renders their existence suspicious not just by its exploration of the inanimate universe, but also because it conveys to us about our mental fragility and our addiction to self-affirmation. Those higher-order needs might turn out to be vanities. That is why, one needs to be skeptical.A point I would make is that the kind of self-knowledge that philosophy wants to impart doesn't necessarily require any special scientific apparatus. I would say that the aim of philosophy, generally, is to attain a state of equilibrium and disinterestedness, to enable you to always act as the situation calls for and to realize your true purpose, whatever that is. — Wayfarer
So, the suggestion that living organisms can't be wholly understood through the objective sciences implies 'the supernatural'! — Wayfarer
You will have to provide a simple example. If you're simply talking theory then this is largely inconsequential. — Tom Storm
Unfortunately, that was what was is being done when Evolutionary Theory is taught as fact in schools. Just filling in a huge hole, the size of the Grand Canyon. — MondoR
I think 'scientific realism' is a useful stance in asking scientific questions. But 'the nature of our experience' is another matter altogether. — Wayfarer
A point I would make is that the kind of self-knowledge that philosophy wants to impart doesn't necessarily require any special scientific apparatus. — Wayfarer
'The mystery of the origin of life is very real' - no argument with that from me. — Amity
I second your view on how there's a enormous gulf between the inanimate and the animate and that our attempt to explain the latter in terms of our knowledge of the former is at best confusion and at worst a delusion. — TheMadFool
It seems I'm not alone in this though as the question "what is life?" posed to biologists elicits responses that are marked by an equal degree of ignorance and that's ironic since they've constructed a whole corpus of knowledge which they claim is about life. — TheMadFool
I agree that there are important, completely non-scientific ways of understanding consciousness and experience and science that doesn't recognize that is scientism. But when people talk about "the hard problem of consciousness," they are generally talking about consciousness as a scientific issue. It is perfectly possible to study consciousness on a purely scientific basis. Something is lost, left out when you do that. — T Clark
Do you mean "mystery" as in stuff we don't know yet or as in stuff that requires some special way of knowing? Or maybe stuff that is unknowable? — T Clark
You mean psychoanalytic theory, S-R theory and cognitive behavioral theory are also inconsequential, — Joshs
What would be an example of
: 'the efficacy of methodological realism as the only useful tool we have for determining the nature of our experience' in everyday life ? — Amity
Sure, science is indispensable, but without self-knowledge and practical wisdom it can be put to diabolical ends. Good people can be good scientists, but being a good scientist doesn't necessarily make you a good person. — Wayfarer
There are many critical things that can be said about the hard problem (see Thompson&Varela, forthcoming), but what I wish to point out here is that it depends for its very formulation on the premise that the embodied mind as a natural entity exists ‘out there' independently of how we configure or constitute it as an object of knowledge through our reciprocal empathic understanding of one other as experiencing subjects. — Joshs
One problem with this whole way of setting up the issue, however, is that it presupposes we can make sense of the very notion of a single, canonical, physicalist description of the world, which is highly doubtful, and that in arriving (or at any rate approaching) such a description, we are attaining a viewpoint that does not in any way presuppose our own cognition and lived experience. — Joshs
All I am saying is that the scientific method remains the single most reliable pathway to truth. — Tom Storm
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