From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 22 2003 - 23:40:46 GMT
Matt said: But, they do think there is rarely, if ever, a context anymore
that calls for locutions of this type: "science is the application of the
universal scientific method". -sure, I agree. I assume this rejects the
Kantian attempt to lay down
a once and for all method, is that what you mean about Kant? My point is to
ask how you would describe the role played by data in science and how this
relates to what you think about realism. I just think you can't talk about
how science develops without relating the linguistic to something
non-linguistic. However much it has to be seen as being given a linguistic
dressing to
be part of the game, the act of dressing it has a non-linguistic
significance I suggest. Do you see this point, and does it challenge your
inclination to say everything has to have a linguistic dressing to play in
the game? Yeah sure, but how the dressing occurs remains interesting,
despite the fact we can never talk about anything in the nude. We kind of
hand nature a blue and a red coat and see what one she puts on and go aha
she does like my idea.
Matt:
> Pragmatists say that the only reason you insist that "experiments do not
have a causal effect on scientists" and instead say that they have "to be
turned into information via interpretation" is because you are using the
metaphor of Nature as Conversation Partner. Pragmatists suggest dropping
that metaphor because it makes us think you'll fall down the path of
upgrading your messy, fuzzy interpretation for nice, crisp and clear
mark-to-mark translation. The distinction in this case between
interpretation and translation is that interpretation is driven by _our_
assumptions in making sense of things, but with translation the idea would
be to uncover the _object's_ assumptions and use those. This idea
pragmatists think bogus because nature doesn't _have_ assumptions, only
people do.
DM: We get closer. Well I'm pretty sure that science insists on making the
girl talk to us. At least when she says something
we take it for a 'yes' or 'no'. I agree dangerous stuff, we could claim that
knowing which clothes look good on her gives us some idea what she looks
like with none on, but that's critical realism for you, I'm just as happy to
commit myself to your correct notion that we just are never going to see her
naked.
Matt:So, like I said before, I'm not sure what the difference is between
critical realists and Davidson's triangulation, between thinking that Nature
enters into our conversation and thinking that scientific method is the
"balance between respect for the opinions of one's fellows and respect for
the stubbornness of sensation." (Rorty, "Method, Social Science, and Social
Hope") Triangulation is simply the idea that there are three things
involved in interpretation: you, your interpretive community, and nature.
DM:Closer still, I'll buy that. Can't we just all be critical realists
together, I like Language/Being/Man.
Matt:Pragmatists see no difference between the experience of the tiger and
an experiment on electrons.
DM: Well, science these days is less a matter of human senses then a
linguistic affair because you need eyes but the main
thing is to understand the symbols the computer chucks out, etc. Having a
causal effect on the scientists is just not what is happening, you lose the
Language/Being/Man unavoidable threesome with that kind of langauge. A
naughty language game, I respect pragmatisms logic and assumptions but then
the language used is all too friendly with the materialist metaphysics and
ideology that is today's common sense and dominant scientistic world-view.
Don't you realise this?
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" < >
To: < >
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 9:21 PM
Subject: Re: MD When is an interpretation not an interpretation?
> David,
>
> David said:
> I can't see any scientists thinking that your description is any use to
them or anything like what they do. I thought scientists created theories
and tested them experimentally. Do you object to this description?
>
> Matt:
> Never said scientists would find my description of use. Most scientists
couldn't give three shits about what philosophers of science say about what
they do. And I don't object to your description of science as creating
theories and testing them. However, there are many ways to describe
something and the pragmatist simply thinks some better than others,
depending on context. The one above is good for laypeople and scientists,
the pragmatist one good for philosophers wanting a non-Kantian way of
describing what scientists do. The audience most of the time for a
philosopher of science's description is not scientists, but other
philosophers. But, they do think there is rarely, if ever, a context
anymore that calls for locutions of this type: "science is the application
of the universal scientific method".
>
> David said:
> Experiments do not have a causal effect on scientists, the data print out
has to be turned into information via interpretation, the experimental
results have a linguistic significance not a causal effect. Science, of
course, has to take assumptions/theory to the data to make sense of it.
Maybe you can explain what you are saying another way, your attempt above
makes no sense to me.
>
> Matt:
> Pragmatists say that the only reason you insist that "experiments do not
have a causal effect on scientists" and instead say that they have "to be
turned into information via interpretation" is because you are using the
metaphor of Nature as Conversation Partner. Pragmatists suggest dropping
that metaphor because it makes us think you'll fall down the path of
upgrading your messy, fuzzy interpretation for nice, crisp and clear
mark-to-mark translation. The distinction in this case between
interpretation and translation is that interpretation is driven by _our_
assumptions in making sense of things, but with translation the idea would
be to uncover the _object's_ assumptions and use those. This idea
pragmatists think bogus because nature doesn't _have_ assumptions, only
people do.
>
> But granted, you say critical realists, for whatever reason, won't make
this move. So, like I said before, I'm not sure what the difference is
between critical realists and Davidson's triangulation, between thinking
that Nature enters into our conversation and thinking that scientific method
is the "balance between respect for the opinions of one's fellows and
respect for the stubbornness of sensation." (Rorty, "Method, Social Science,
and Social Hope") Triangulation is simply the idea that there are three
things involved in interpretation: you, your interpretive community, and
nature.
>
> The way pragmatists hash it is, because we don't think Nature talks to us,
Nature instead has a causal effect on us. Regular ole' pushin' us around,
making us see tigers and stuff. Pragmatists see no difference between the
experience of the tiger and an experiment on electrons. An experiment is
simply a reproducable experience. Scientists do it over and over to
establish regularity in the experience, from which they can extrapolate
theories about these regularities, thus allowing us to predict when certain
regularities will occur given a certain set of circumstances. Coupled with
Sellars' "all awareness is linguistic", pragmatists can say that nature
causes us to have an experience, which is to say nature causes us to have a
belief. The belief is already in _our_ language, so the first round of
"interpretation" has already occured: the belief we were caused to have
depends on the web of beliefs already in tow.
>
> David said:
> Where do you stand on realism, are you anti-realist or trying to get past
this distinction?
>
> Matt:
> Pragmatists like to say that they are trying to get beyond realism and
anti-realism, or as Richard Bernstein puts it, beyond relativism and
objectivism. They take antirealists to be a stutter step beyond idealism,
still making too much of the distinction.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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