> That's arguable in principle, but historically, actual scientific work
> has always had metaphysical foundations, which are particularly clear
> in
> the work of the more famous scientists. Darwin's belief (following
> Lyell), for example, in the "principle of uniformitarianism." Or
> Newton's belief in a clockwork universe and action at a distance.
I would call these "assumptions" or "guiding principles," rather than "foundations." Perhaps this is basically a terminological question, but to me a "foundation" is something that provides a firm foundation to build a structure on. Or, less metaphorically, it would be the idea that, in order for us to know that scientific statements are true, they need to be derived from some prior principle which is more certain or reliable than they are.
Uniformitarianism, the "clockwork universe," action at a distance, etc., are not prior, more certain principles than the particular laws of nature which Darwin or Newton discovered; they are simply general assumptions which are accepted as long as they are not controverted by evidence. For example, if it turned out that certain geologic phenomena could not be explained by uniformitarian laws, but only by assuming that "catastrophes" had occurred in Earth's history, or if an explanation of gravity without action at a distance (for instance, by gravitational particles or "gravitons") were discovered, then these assumptions would be dropped. So actually they are less, rather than more, "fundamental" than the particular laws discovered in the course of scientific inquiry.
The "clockwork universe" (or the assumption that all events in nature occur according to regular causal laws) has a rather interesting logical status, because, as a principle guiding research, it is usually given a non-falsifiable status: if a phenomenon P turned up which did not seem to have a cause Q, most scientists would not say that the "clockwork universe" principle had been disproven, but simply that Q had not yet been found. In fact, at any given stage of scientific inquiry, there are many phenomena which are not yet explained, but scientists assume that eventually they will be. So it could be called "metaphysical," in the sense that under no circumstances would it be given up. But "metaphysical" seems too grand a term for it -- most philosophers of science today would call it a "principle which guides research," I think.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax