The limitations of science (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 22:31 (5391 days ago) @ George Jelliss

GEORGE: My main problem with dhw's approach is that I don't recognize his distinctions between materialism and immaterialism and between science and philosophy. All phenomena are part of nature and therefore open to study by natural philosophers applying reason. It is all one wholistic project.-By science I understand the natural sciences such as chemistry, physics, biology, which study the physical world. In reply to my statement that science and philosophy "may overlap in certain areas", you "would place science entirely within the broader realm of philosophy". The word "broader" is, I suppose, infinitely expandable, and so one might indeed argue that philosophy is concerned with every aspect of existence, which must therefore include the natural sciences. At this level, it becomes impossible to draw any distinctions. I didn't think, for instance, you would argue "that the natural sciences are concerned with, say, ethics or epistemology". However, you say that on the contrary epistemology "is a fundamental part of science, since it is the basis for scientific method", and "ethics cannot be separated from scientific knowledge about the human beings with whose behaviour ethics is concerned." True, but in both cases, this is what I would call overlapping, and I'd be surprised if a chemist/physicist/biologist agreed that the "concern" of his subject was to distinguish between connaître and savoir, between a priori and a posteriori, between deduction and induction, between practical and propositional. Is chemistry "concerned" with the distinction between ethical naturalism and ethical rationalism, or with questions such as whether the means justifies the end? I don't see it as unreasonable to draw dividing lines, especially when not to do so creates confusion, which I think is the case with your statement quoted at the start.-I agree, as I said in my original response, "that it's all one project in the sense that what we're investigating is life and the world around us." My point is that there are different approaches to the project. I said that where you and I differ is in what we regard as possible evidence. You respond that the difference between us is "the degree of reliability that we place on different forms of evidence." Since I have drawn no conclusions, I don't claim that ANY evidence for or against design/chance, physical/spiritual, God/no God is reliable. This, however, is precisely where my distinction between science and philosophy, in the narrower sense, and between material and immaterial comes into play. I refuse to dismiss certain mystic, emotional, psychic experiences ... for which science as yet has no explanation ... as possible evidence, and for you my openness constitutes "a willingness to place excessive value" on evidence which you "would consider worthless". This constitutes any experience, observation or interpretation that does not conform to your concept of existence, which is that there is no form of life beyond the material world as we know it (i.e. the world studied by the natural sciences). -Let me stress that I can't dispute this subjective evaluation of evidence, because I have no objective criterion with which to counter it. But you don't have one either. Words like "excessive", "worthless", "negligible" are expressions of opinion, nothing more. I have no difficulty understanding your belief that chance assembled the components of life and that the evidence supports you (just as David believes the same evidence supports the opposite view). What I don't understand is your apparent reluctance to acknowledge the subjectivity of the process and priorities that have led to your beliefs. -*** I've just read your very interesting reflections on "Categories or Degrees of Existence". I'll have to get back to this next time.