What is the ultimate goal of Science?
08-01-2017
, 12:13 PM
08-14-2017
, 07:06 AM
Quote:
Philosophy has lost its moorings during the last 500 years (not totally ) and the reason being is the advocation of Kant throughout the Western world buttressed by the skeptical rivers of David Hume.
Philosophy has always been about knowledge, or knowing (to scire) which is the language equivalent of science (to know).
It can't be downplayed that when Kant attempted to deny the Humean treatise he failed and make two statements:
1) We cannot "know" and therefore mankind is best following "duty".
2) The true basis of knowledge, in this scenario, is the realm of mathematics for in this realm there is structure which is undeniable.
There were , of course, deniers of Kant but by and large his approach swept over the western world, even to the man on the street. The man on the street, bowing to his ecclesiastical betters of the modern university, became a walking critic, if not a cynic.
As an important aside, anything which comes to the world must come through a man, whether in revelation, or logically or otherwise but I would more often say that Kant , in his insight,apprehended the forces working within the world , through all men, and he brought this "philosophy" to fruition. In a sense he read the signs of the times and laid it bare.
The consequences in this "disbelief" in knowledge can be seen clearly by the Pragmatic philosophies of James and Dewey.
The pragmatism ethos states "we cannot know and therefore we will theorize an answer holding that answer until another pragmatic consideration comes to the fore". Other stuff like "the ends justify the means" comes about throughout this glistened Pragmatism.
Actually this Pragmatism, which is important for the nations of the Americas and their sister Great Britain is an important factor in the economic basis of the these nations and correspondingly the West.
In the economic sense, or business sphere, the idea of projecting sales or expenditures or whatever planning one does in these realms is not exact for the vicissitudes of life can and often enough does lay bare the abjected plans of men. And of course the mathematical statistical strengths buttress this planning as best it can. Statistics;"I don't know but I'll take the 11 to 10 shot".
But there 's more , due to the Kantian foray, in that the science of our day is very much a Pragmatic approach to the the study of nature, man, and all within . It is here that the relevant question is ; in economics of business we understand this pragmatism but how can you justify your pragmatic approach to the rhythmic cosmos ? Is this approach correct, even in your eyes, or are we all treading water waiting for the next Kant to arise, only without the denial of knowledge ?
Business and economics has really entered into a realm to which it is not viable, not by dollars and cents but by force of a philosophy which creeps where it doesn't belong.
In at the time of the early pragmatists, there was a quip and this philosophy was "philosophy of as if " or:
We don't know the answer but "lets make up something and treat this as if it were true" , harsh but revealing.
Philosophy has always been about knowledge, or knowing (to scire) which is the language equivalent of science (to know).
It can't be downplayed that when Kant attempted to deny the Humean treatise he failed and make two statements:
1) We cannot "know" and therefore mankind is best following "duty".
2) The true basis of knowledge, in this scenario, is the realm of mathematics for in this realm there is structure which is undeniable.
There were , of course, deniers of Kant but by and large his approach swept over the western world, even to the man on the street. The man on the street, bowing to his ecclesiastical betters of the modern university, became a walking critic, if not a cynic.
As an important aside, anything which comes to the world must come through a man, whether in revelation, or logically or otherwise but I would more often say that Kant , in his insight,apprehended the forces working within the world , through all men, and he brought this "philosophy" to fruition. In a sense he read the signs of the times and laid it bare.
The consequences in this "disbelief" in knowledge can be seen clearly by the Pragmatic philosophies of James and Dewey.
The pragmatism ethos states "we cannot know and therefore we will theorize an answer holding that answer until another pragmatic consideration comes to the fore". Other stuff like "the ends justify the means" comes about throughout this glistened Pragmatism.
Actually this Pragmatism, which is important for the nations of the Americas and their sister Great Britain is an important factor in the economic basis of the these nations and correspondingly the West.
In the economic sense, or business sphere, the idea of projecting sales or expenditures or whatever planning one does in these realms is not exact for the vicissitudes of life can and often enough does lay bare the abjected plans of men. And of course the mathematical statistical strengths buttress this planning as best it can. Statistics;"I don't know but I'll take the 11 to 10 shot".
But there 's more , due to the Kantian foray, in that the science of our day is very much a Pragmatic approach to the the study of nature, man, and all within . It is here that the relevant question is ; in economics of business we understand this pragmatism but how can you justify your pragmatic approach to the rhythmic cosmos ? Is this approach correct, even in your eyes, or are we all treading water waiting for the next Kant to arise, only without the denial of knowledge ?
Business and economics has really entered into a realm to which it is not viable, not by dollars and cents but by force of a philosophy which creeps where it doesn't belong.
In at the time of the early pragmatists, there was a quip and this philosophy was "philosophy of as if " or:
We don't know the answer but "lets make up something and treat this as if it were true" , harsh but revealing.
But metaphysics did make a comeback. With Einstein this progression evolved into the mathematical modeling of reality, which, insofar as it's trying to discover a unified theory of everything, is hard not to view as metaphysical (it's just doing it in the opposite direction as the Scholastics, for instance, who assumed God to be the theory of everything and worked from there). You can see this as well with everyone's passion for simulation theories these days.
With that said, I submit that mathematical models and linguistic models of an ultimate natural law are each forms of figurative device, in that they are simply not reality itself, but abstract constructions of the mind which are meant to correspond with it to varying degrees of literality. This is why I always find myself reverting to Parmenides when it comes to questions of epistemology... "What-is-not cannot be."