Dear Stan, lists - Frederick -- replying again to:
Hmmm, I rather think the pie in the sky is the idea that culture might make truth criteria evolve so as to have no connection with how they are conceived of today. S: Possibly, but that might not disturb anyone in that future time because their interests will have changed. How do you know that categorically? Sounds a bit of a soothsayer to me. Some of their interests probably will, other of them probably won't - I think that vastly exaggerates the power of culture to determine science - which forms a special case of a general overestimation of the strength, the closedness and the homogeneity of culture. Cultures are simply not such agent-like powers. S: But they insidiously perfuse everything occurring within them. They are the source of education funding, etc. Individuals might 'step outside' and get the ignorabimus treatment (possibly to be welcomed in the future as forgotten forerunners!) -- the 'system' is generally, if successful, not so tight as to exclude studies of little cost that have little general interest. I myself, as a biology professor, have made little studies of salamanders that were useful to teaching students to make careful, systematic observations. They were even published in arcane journals that continued from the past when such things were more germane to social interests. I think you vastly hypostazise cultures. They are far more plural, self-contradictory, hybrid and vague that your hard claims seem to support. The idea of one cultural 'system' I see nowhere validated. There are different funding agencies, different scientific fashions, different departments, different policies in different countries. All of the time this pretty chaotic structure will leave changing amounts of ideas more in the shade, others more in the light - which may get those p.t. in the shade to foster theories about an overarching "system" which is "socially constructing" things. To me, however, this is short of a conspiracy theory … In another context, I have tried to demystify this dangerous idealization of "culture". Culturalism is as dangerous to science as is psychologism - both make truth relative, one to so-called cultures, the other to individuals. S: The interest in various discoveries may shift with cultural evolution -- just look at the resurgence of Peirce! Surely you may have had thoughts wondering just why he has reappeared so strongly. No discovery, however is reckoned to be so strong as a 'truth' in social constructivism. Facts may accumulate even as the culture interested in them evolves away from desiring them. Frankly, I do not see at all why the resurgence of Peirce has anything at all to do with cultural evolution. Are there any currents in society or in the behaviour of funding agencies causing this? I see it rather as a result that Peirce has some unexploited intellectual resources which a growing network of pretty different people are discovering. Which aspects of this "cultural evolution" do you think are responsible for this? If your claim is that all observable changes in society are due to "cultural evolution" the concept is tantamount to mere "change" - but "change" is no explanation of change. Best F
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
