On Sat, 28 Jul 2001 10:06:54 -0400 "Charles Brown"
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes:
>
>
> >>> farmelantj at juno.com 07/22/01 06:35PM >>
>
> Another point, is that assuming that Justin has represented
> Posner's position correctly, then he sounds suspiciously
> like a pomo. Many other pomos have drawn upon views
> akin to Duhemian holism to justify a relativist epistemology,
> in ways that Quine would most certainly have disapproved.
>
> (((((((((((
>
> CB: Jim, at the beginning of the 20th Century, didn't a lot of
> Machians and other idealists attempt to use Einstein's relativity
> theory in physics and quantum mechanics theory ( such as
> Heisenberg's interpretation) to justify relatavist epistemology in a
> way that Einstein , Planck and others came to disagree with ?
Well, Mach himself was rather hostile to Einstein's theory of relativity. And he never accepted atoms either despite the fact that Einstein's 1905 paper on Brownian motion, made a very persuasive case for their existence. (Mach thought that the only proper scientific concepts were those that could be defined directly in observational terms. He didn't think it possible to define atoms in such terms).
But having said this, many people did seem to think that relativity theory and quantum theory could be used for justifying relativist epistemologies. And much of this was rooted in Machian philosophies of science. BTW Pierre Duhem championed a philosophy of science that was rather akin to Mach's
Jim F.
>
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