----- Original Message ----- From: "Ted Winslow" <egwinslow at rogers.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 10:49 AM Subject: Re: Science, Science & Marxism
> Justin wrote:
>
> > Because it would have to be be a miracle if the scientific
theories we use
> > that work, and cohere so nicely, weren't even approximately true.
Note that
> > this isn't a justification of a method like induction, except
insofar as
> > science uses the "will work in the future" assumption. I'm talking
ahout the
> > truth of the theories, not the jsutification of a method. The
approximate
> > truth of the theories is the best explanation of why they work.
What's your
> > alternative?
>
> But you're then just using "true" to mean "work" so that, though you
can
> have good reasons (this would require that 'solipsism of the present
moment'
> not be entailed in the premises you're arguing from) for believing a
theory
> is "true," these are not reasons enabling you to reasonably believe
it will
> be "true" in the future.
>
> I pointed to an alternative. Treat the obviousness ("it would have
to be a
> miracle" etc.) of the truth content of modern science as making the
> skeptical conclusion entailed in its scientific materialist
ontological
> premises a reductio ad absurdum and then find a way of changing the
premises
> which sublates the obvious truth while eliminating the obvious
absurdity.
>
> Ted
================
Wasn't this precisely what Einstein did in using STR to refute solipsism of the present moment? Then again, he shifted the problem over to the issue of determinism and that's yet to be resolved.
Ian