Justin: "This is a fallacy based on a misunderstanding. Goedel showed that arithmeric (indeed any formal system) is _incomplete_, that it contained at least one true proposition not provable within the system."
Goedel must be a bit or alright for what he says is true enough, with one important exception.
Originally I kepts saying a science is part defined by its subject matter and then rattled on about ontological systems being the science.
You objected on two grounds and now as I can see the basis of the objection the problem seems very solvable.
First I meant subject matter as premise (as in the case of philosophy), the premise of Mathematics is its subject matter and this sits on some form of true proposition, which ,almost by definition, is not provable by the science that stands on it.
A complete ontological system, by which I mean one that like Mathematics stands on a "subject matter" "proposition" whatever, which although the base of the whoile thing somehow sneaks out of it, is the norm and has to be until all the sciences are united in something much grander than the Grand Unified Theory. There would be then science in the singular as an actual thing rather then just an abstract short hand for the sciences.
We are probably a good few hundered years from this happy moment as all the sciences have a good long way to go - though the possiblity has to be accepted as real.
So my complete ontological systems are not so universally complete but only complete up to a point (that is the point on which they sit) then this "point" has to be proved elsewhere. I don't find his a problem, in fact given the level of the development of the sciences such a thing has to be expected (reality does not fall neatly into categories, but science has to comprehend it via neat categories - so there has to be an escape route).
Not only is this compatable to an ontological outlook it goes in some way to show the truth of the onlological nature of the sciences. My expression "subject matter" has obviously been misleading so fundemntal proposition will do as well. I can easily recast my earliuer statement that a science is a growing ontological understanding of the world based and drawn from its fundemental proposition. So far so good.
Now for the exception. Hegel's Science of Logic is its own premise, in fact, as the subject matter is thought itself it is a rare (if not unique) example of a fundemental premise whose proof lies within its own exposition - at least this is what Hegel claims in his preface and from what I can make out he has a good case.
I am not thereby saying that Hegel's Science of Logic is the grandest of grandly unifying theories, but it does serve as the inside unifyier in that its Science is that of thought and thought is the means by which every science operates. The science of thought does not create the sciences, nor can itself unify the sciences, but it there all the same - it is the reasoning of reason, and is used by billions of people every day in practice without a thought about their own thinking.
Now this is all worse then useless, unless idle philosophy is worthwhile. But wait a minute, was not the original question about what consitutes science? What I was attempting to argue is there is a definition which can be philosophically justified (how else would you justify the premise of all the sciences) which unavoidable points to the shared nature of reason and its necessarily ontological character.
Justin, you cannot define science by its practice, for in effect it is no definition at all, it is just short hand for saying science is science - our original debate was whether Historical Materialism was a science. On the basis of your definition, no, but then a lot of other sciences, perhaps starting with the soft sciences go by the wayside (I would do this to many of them but not on this basis). But when does it stop and what part of the hard sciences also get nibbled at - I suggest the theoretical sciences much of physics and all of Mathmatics would go bye-bye.
But where would it stop, at chemists in white coats who can conduct enclosed experiments, while the evolutionists, etc are shown the door. The sociological definition is no scientific definition - it has a certain politico-historical logic but it fails dissmally in separating sheep from goats.
And what of Historical Materialism which by this insufficient definition you exclude - we now just run in a circle of prejudice on this basis - one side saying it is a science for wahetever reasons, and another saying the opposite.
My proposition was that it was a science, but this was made on a specific and I would say defendable philosophical notion of what science actually is (at least in broad brush strokes). Well we can leave this as a mute question for the moment as we both seem to have come to the same general conclusion as far as ontological scientific systems, though I fear at the moment you are using this to deny their onlological existence.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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--- Message Received --- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 21:22:00 +0000 Subject: Re: Marxism and Logic and Science and Comic Books