Why science needs metaphysics (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, October 19, 2015, 14:03 (3322 days ago)

An essay by Roger Trigg:-http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-science-needs-metaphysics-His discussion covers reasons why 'Science can't tell us whether science explains everything'.-"Their theories provide a framework in which they can operate, but if they are removed not only from actual observation but from what in principle can be accessible to us, our descendants, or even any possible observer in our universe, it is hard to see that they are anything other than the product of pure reason. Just because scientists use such reasoning does not make it science.-"What then has to be the case for genuine science as such to be possible? This is a question from outside science and is, by definition, a philosophical—even a metaphysical—question. Those who say that science can answer all questions are themselves standing outside science to make that claim. That is why naturalism—the modern version of materialism, seeing reality as defined by what is within reach of the sciences—becomes a metaphysical theory when it strays beyond methodology to talk of what can exist. Denying metaphysics and upholding materialism must itself be a move within metaphysics. It involves standing outside the practice of science and talking of its scope. The assertion that science can explain everything can never come from within science. It is always a statement about science.-***-"Mathematics, though, could be claimed to be merely a tool created by the human mind. Why, then, should we assume that it can express in compressible form the workings of physical reality? Those, like Max Tegmark, who assume that the nature of reality is mathematical are making a jump between symbols that seem to be the creation of mind and a reality that not only exists independently of our knowledge of it but also far outstrips any possible knowledge. Tegmark explains the utility of mathematics for describing the physical world as “a natural consequence of the fact that the latter is a mathematical structure, and we're simply uncovering this bit by bit.”1 However, this is itself a metaphysical statement about the nature of reality, logically preceding the conduct of physics.-***-"The logical independence of physical reality from mind and understanding gives science its point. The problem, as philosophers over the centuries have pointed out, is that this can open wide the gate to skepticism. If we are embedded in a reality that can be beyond our reach, how can we hope to achieve any knowledge at all? Perhaps Kant was right, and what we think we know may simply reflect the categories of the human mind. We can perhaps only deal with things as they appear to us. How things are in themselves may forever be beyond our grasp. Alternatively, the reality that we seek to understand may not even be subject to rational understanding. It may be sufficiently chaotic and disordered to be unintelligible. If we are told that this is impossible because science works, we are back with a pragmatic justification rather than a metaphysical one. It may appear convincing, but it is no defense to the worry that we could live in an accidental bay of order on the periphery of a great ocean of disorder. (my bold)-***-"There is such a thing as scientific progress, and it happens through systematic trial and error or, in Karl Popper's terminology, conjecture and refutation. A “scientific realist” has to be wary, though, about how such realism is defined. A realism that makes reality what contemporary science says it is links reality logically to the human minds of the present day. Science is then just a human product, rooted in time and place.-***-" Once the logical independence of reality from science is accepted, the question is why reality has a character that enables it to be understood scientifically. The intelligibility and intrinsic rationality of reality cannot be taken for granted. Even the greatest scientists, such as Einstein, have seen that the intelligibility of the world is a mystery. He famously remarked that “the eternally incomprehensible thing about the world is its comprehensibility.”4 Like the way in which mathematics seems to map the intrinsic rational structure of the physical world, this is presupposed within science and cannot be given a scientific explanation. It appears to be a metaphysical fact, and the explanation for which, if there can be one, must come from beyond science."-Comment: I'm not skeptical, but a pragmatist. We have to accept and use what we can of our senses.