[lbo-talk] The Ontology of Two Chairs (was Reich on sex & religion)

lweiger at umich.edu lweiger at umich.edu
Tue Jan 4 10:18:09 PST 2005


Quoting Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu>:


> Do you see that this contradicts your argument? We use Newton's laws
> not because they are the immutable, absolutely correct laws of motion
> but simply because--they work. (Score one for the pragmatists!)

I'd think that they'd have to be close approximations to work.


> I agree that change in science is not random and arbitrary, and I don't
> know anyone who makes that argument (straw man?). --I don't see the
> philosophical challenge here: it's progress because scientists discard
> old ideas on the basis of new research, measurement techniques, and
> theories.

If the new ideas aren't closer to reality, then we're not making progress.


> --If you want to say this progress allows us to more and
> more closely approximate "the way things really are", you're engaging
> in wild speculation: all we have is human understanding, so we cannot
> compare our human understanding to how things really are to
> verify that we're more and more closely matching reality with
> our scientific models.

Sure we can. Why do you think scientists make predictions?

-- Luke



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