--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "PaliGap" <compost1uk@> > wrote: > > Always good to consider an edit for simplification especially with a > potentially pretentious word like "epistemological". In most conversations I > would not use it. But here on FFL life some posters like Doug use a system > for assessing validity that is outside the methods accepted by the field. So > in this case I am making clear where I am coming from. Doug likes to use > some of the terminology of the epistemology of the scientific method while > ignoring its actual rules in favor of a subjective valuation. > > I would say that, for me, figuring out where a person is coming from in their > relationship to epistemological standards is key for understanding the > perspective of the poster. That includes myself since I am often guilty of > failing to apply them rigorously. > > I don't consider your point picky at all. I welcome any challenge to justify > me using the "E" word!
That's generous of you - I sometimes wonder whether my interest in such things is a bit, well, 'maladjusted' or some such! ;-) I would come back to a point though which I feel something for. You say, for example, 'Doug likes to use some of the terminology of the epistemology of the scientific method while ignoring its actual rules...' I see where you're coming from there (and sympathise). On the other hand, where I see things differently to you, is that I don't believe, as you say, that there are any *actual rules* that can be assigned to this thing we refer to as "the scientific method". Given the huge role played by this idea of the "scientific method" in our culture, in our time, in our psyches, I take this consequence to be hugely significant. It's as if, for many people, the previous ages' certainties of Religion have been replaced by a belief in Science. It is the opium of the atheists. And this faith in Science is, at rock bottom, a faith in method - in other words an epistemological view (back to our word!). How I see it though is that all attempts to *grasp* this method (especially as a set of rules) fail. You might say it's a story started by David Hume, then a rearguard action from Kant followed by the 19th & 20th century positivists, then severely disrupted by Peirce, Duhem, Popper, Kuhn, Feyarabend et. al. Where that leaves us (IMO) is that, whether or not Science works, (it obviously does to an extent!), HOW it works is something of a deep mystery. It's NOT reducible to a set of rules. And I find that intriguing!
