European Unions

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Apr 6 15:08:48 PDT 2001


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Dennis wrote:
>
> > My only
> >question is, Does this jargon relate to the everyday lives of average
> >people?

DP clearly wishes to keep truth hidden from "ordinary people" (i.e. non-specialists), whose only access to truth is through its formulation in their language by those who have first discussed it among themselves in a more complex language. Stephen Hawking, contemplating the achivement in physics and cosmology of TOE, speculates on what that would make possible:

". . .in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists. Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosoher of this century, said, 'The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.' What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!

"However, ifwe do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of . . . ." (_Brief History of Time_, pp. 174-75)

One may doubt the likelihood of TOE and still take in Hawking's point: understanding of complexity (and the social world is rather more complex than the universe) must be arrived at through various forms of specialized study and specialized discussion among the specialists before its results can conceivably be made available to wider circles. A world in which the same journal was expected to fulfill the roles of _Nature_ and _Science News_ would be a world of utter confusion -- but then someone who thinks the actions of a vew students can raise an issue of free speech revels in confusion.

Carrol



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