I'm not in a position to psychoanalyze him, — Saphsin
Chomsky conspicuously doesn't mention any of this, and spends many pages talking about how Newton completely dismantled mechanistic philosophy and that what proceeded its course is what tells us about the nature of science. Well, there's no reason to take mechanical philosophy or its corollary seriously now that we have completely new notions, we know what Newton and his contemporaries did not know — Saphsin
I don't see any reason to adopt the vocabulary of what those in the 17th century thought was the criterion of scientific knowledge, that physical explanations equated to "common sense" and what counts as common sense were people's experience with engineered machines. Of course the world isn't a machine, the world is the world. The modern version of this nonsense is asking whether "if the universe is a simulation" now that we're familiar with video games. There's no reason the world has to comport with our everyday experience, but that doesn't mean increased knowledge of counterintuitive things isn't actual knowledge of how the world works. — Saphsin
and also demonstrates• understanding
• explanation, explaining — 180 Proof
If the article is saying something new, or at least conceptually coherent, about this old bugbear of his, then I'm interested to read what the great man has (re)written.how he / we can know (i.e. scientifically explain)^ what we cannot know^ or, more fundamentally, what cannot (in principle) be known^.
So by "mysterian" (not a term he likes for himself), or "common sense", he simply means that there are aspects about the world we don't understand, given the creatures we are — Manuel
Well it's such a mystery I have no idea what it's connected to. Is charge about cooking or sport? — Tom Storm
the world is the world. The modern version of this nonsense is asking whether "if the universe is a simulation" — Saphsin
It's connected to the idea that the world can be fully known - completely, "in itself". It's not mentioned in this article, but one can point to Leibniz and others, who thought we could exhaust the truths about the world by paying careful attention to the phenomena we see. — Manuel
I don't think it has much to do with faith, anymore, God doesn't figure in modern science. We try to put forth the best model we can, and when we create a model, we obviously have to set aside many phenomena that don't fit into this model. — Manuel
I didn't mean faith in God. Having discovered that our ideas can be insufficient (as with gravity), we have to live with the possibility that out present common sense ideas are limiting our ability to know the truth. I don't know what to call that state of mind. You're right, faith isn't the word. — frank
finished reading the article thoroughly) I don't see any reason to adopt the vocabulary of what those in the 17th century thought was the criterion of scientific knowledge, that physical explanations equated to "common sense" and what counts as common sense were people's experience with engineered machines. Of course the world isn't a machine, the world is the world. The modern version of this nonsense is asking whether "if the universe is a simulation" now that we're familiar with video games. There's no reason the world has to comport with our everyday experience, but that doesn't mean increased knowledge of counterintuitive things isn't actual knowledge of how the world works. — Saphsin
Science of course did not end with the collapse of the notion of body (material, physical, and so on). Rather, it was reconstituted in a radically new way, with questions of conceivability and intelligibility dismissed as demonstrating nothing except about human cognitive capacities, though that conclusion has taken a long time to become firmly established. Later stages of science introduced more “absurdi- ties.” The legitimacy of the steps is determined by criteria of depth of explanation and empirical support, not conceivability and intelligibil- ity of the world that is depicted.
but I start from an understanding of scientific explanation in terms of conceptualizing what we know from the sciences today, so it doesn't matter to me if Newton's discoveries betrayed some old promise. — Saphsin
Well, there's no reason to take mechanical philosophy or its corollary seriously now that we have completely new notions, we know what Newton and his contemporaries did not know. The piece is one-sided, a long list of historical roadblocks of when we figured out how much we don't know as science progressed without mentioning any progressive changes of our picture in reality that science has given us. — Saphsin
It's not surprising that Newton the alchemist had "agreed" with his contemporaries that there are "occult causes" rather than, also like them, overlooking that those indicated the limits of the scientific practices and prevalent philosophical biases of his day. Anyway, so Chomsky's sense of "understanding" – by extension explicability and therefore inexplicability (i.e. "mysterious, mystery") – is anachronistic and related to / derived from an out-dated, surpassed, methodological paradigm? – okay, got it.Newton largely agreed with his scientific contemporaries.
[ ... ]
As McMullin observes, “By ‘understand’ Newton still meant what his critics meant: ‘understand in mechanical terms of contact action’.” — Manuel
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.